Dancing on the Wind (The Regency Intrigue Series Book 8)

by M C Beaton

  “Bedad, my friend, I am come most opportunely. You have run mad. She is extraordinarily beautiful, but you can have your pick of the charmers without snatching them from Tyburn Tree. Is she your mistress?”

  “No, nor shall be.”

  “Then what is your interest in her?”

  The marquess found that too hard to explain, since he did not really know himself. So he shrugged and kept to the lie he had already given about. “I did it for a wager.”

  “And so what do you plan to do with your wager now?”

  “I have made up my mind to send her to the country, where my housekeeper may be able to train her as some sort of upper servant.”

  There was a long silence. Polly glanced about the hall, frightened of being caught listening but desperate to hear more.

  Then the colonel’s voice sounded again. “She was, if I remember, charged with theft. Was she then innocent?”

  “No. I know her to be a thief.”

  Polly’s face flamed.

  “Then turn her out immediately,” said the colonel harshly. “It is unlike you to be gulled by a pretty face. She will go to that palace of yours in Shropshire and immediately resort to her old ways. Throw the slut out!”

  There was the sound of the door opening from the servants’ quarters at the back of the hall. Polly gathered up her skirts and ran up the stairs.

  All Polly knew that she was hurt beyond measure. And yet the marquess had only spoken the truth. She thought of his kindness to her but then hardened her heart. It was easy for such as he to sit surrounded by wealth and servants and never know what it was to be poor and hungry. All his seeming bravery and gallantry in saving her life had been caused by a mere bet and net by any higher feelings. She would need to leave. Her pride would not let her be a burden on him further. She realized she had come to hope that he might care for her a little, not as a lover, but as a friend.

  She went to a tall wardrobe, took out the gown in which she had arrived and changed into it. She crossed to the window and looked out. She would wait until he had left and then make her escape. She was sure the servants had no instructions to stop her. As she looked down into the square, she saw a couple of familiar figures slowly walking up and down. Barney and Jake! She shrank back, wondering if they knew she was still alive, wondering whether they were waiting to take her back to Mrs. Blanchard. And then she remembered their kindness to her in prison, how they said they had left the brothel, and how they had tried to save her from prolonged death agonies. They were her kind, her class. They could not look down on her, for in their way they were lower than she was herself.

  And then she heard the street door open. The marquess and the colonel emerged. They strolled off across the square arm in arm, chatting like the old friends they obviously were. The tall colonel looked grand in his regimentals and yet was outshone by the marquess’s greater height and elegance.

  She half-lifted her hand in farewell, although she knew they could not see her. Then, as soon as they had vanished from sight, she ran from the room and down the stairs, deaf to the startled shout of Durrell, the butler, and straight out of the door and into the square.

  “Quickly,” she cried, as she came up to Barney and Jake, “or they might come after me.” The three hurried off, keeping to the back streets until they were sure there was no sound of pursuit behind them.

  They said not a word until Barney discovered a sleazy tavern and led them inside and found a table in the corner.

  “We knew’d you was alive, Polly,” he said triumphantly. “We’ve bin waiting and watching for days.”

  “Why?” asked Polly in a flat voice.

  Barney shrugged and Jake looked at the sawdust on the floor as if it were the most interesting thing he had ever seen.

  “Thought you might be in need of help,” said Barney at last in a gruff voice. “Besides, a grand gentleman was trying to help us as well. He was going to call at the house today to see if you was there.”

  Polly looked alarmed. “Who could that be? Everyone else thinks I am dead. What was his name?”

  “A Mr. Pargeter.”

  “And what is his interest in me?”

  “Didn’t say. We was glad of his offer, us not being able to call at the house ourselves.”

  “Well, we’ll talk about him later,” said Polly. “I am glad of your offer of help. I have only got these clothes I stand up in.”

  “Thought you might have lifted a few gee-gaws from his lordship,” said Jake. “Seems like common sense to me.”

  “I couldn’t do that,” said Polly fiercely. “I would never steal from him!”

  “Like him, do you?” said Barney with a leer.

  “There was nothing like that between us. Nothing,” said Polly haughtily.

  “Very well, m’ lady,” said Barney. “Now Jake and me, we’s calling ourselves Mr. and Mr. Smith, the brothers Smith, and we’ve got a cozy lodging down in Westminster near the Abbey. We’ve managed to thieve a few bits and bobs to keep us going. You can stay along o’ us.”

  “It is a terrible risk,” murmured Polly. “Picking pockets, I mean.”

  “Ho! What would you do, pretty miss?” sneered Jake, his one eye gleaming with contempt. “Walk into a grand house, say excuse me, fill up a sack and walk out?”

  There was a long silence, and then Polly threw back her head and laughed. “It’s possible,” she said. She rested her dimpled elbows on the table and leaned forward.

  “Look here: when I was at Canonby’s, he gave parties of an evening. Now the latest fashion is for ridottos. Everyone goes masked and in fancy dress. I used to watch from the top of the stairs. And do you know what I thought? I thought to myself that if I were masked and finely gowned, no one would know I was not a guest. I could have a gown with deep pockets in the petticoat. Then I could creep away from the main room and drop a few objects into these pockets and slip out. No one would notice there was anything missing for days.”

  Barney and Jake stared at her in amazement. “Seems wrong,” said Barney at last. “If you’re caught picking pockets for wipes and timepieces, you might just get burned on the hand. You take so much as a patch from a nobleman’s house, and it’s back to Tyburn Tree again.”

  Polly shuddered. She took a drink of ale and then said, “The way I see it, if I took a purse or something from someone on the street, I would never know whether or not it was their last farthing or some brooch or watch that meant a great deal to them. But if I took from a grand house, that would not be wrong. I need the money, and they would not miss it.”

  “You talk very fine, Poll,” said Jake, “and you looks and sounds like a lady now. But it’d never work. You’d need an escort, and fancy dress or no fancy dress, the servants would catch one glimpse of me and Barney and howl for the watch.”

  “But I saw some great ladies arriving alone,” said Polly eagerly. “I watched from the top of the stairs.”

  “You’ve got to carry a card, saying as how you’s invited,” pointed out Barney.

  “Yes, but on some occasions, the lady would search about for her card and find she had forgotten it, give her name to the butler and he would usher her in nonetheless. One only has to look the part!”

  “Drink up,” said Barney, “and we’ll take you to our place and talk further. And you’d better dirty yourself up a bit and cover your hair when you’re living with us or people’ll wonder what a lady’s doing living in a slum.”

  “I thought you said it was a cozy little place,” said Polly sharply.

  “Beggars can’t be choosers,” said Barney sourly.

  “Oh, yes they can!” said Polly Jones.

  “So,” said the marquess of Canonby as he returned with the colonel to St. James’s Square, “there you have it. Although all evidence points to the contrary, I am convinced that Polly Jones is basically a sweet and innocent girl who has been a victim of circumstances.”

  “And though you call her Miss Peterson, your servants must be well aware of her
true identity,” said the colonel.

  “Yes, I told them myself and swore them to secrecy.”

  “Too big a secret by half,” said the colonel. “It will come out sooner or later.”

  “By which time Miss Polly Jones will be leading a blameless life in the country,” said the marquess patiently. “But you shall talk to her and judge her character for yourself.”

  They were met by Durrell, the butler, who burst out with, “She’s gone, my lord!”

  “Miss Peterson?” demanded the marquess sharply.

  “Yes, my lord. She ran past me and out of the house. You gave me no instructions to stop her. I did not know what to do, my lord.”

  “Did she take anything with her? Her clothes?”

  “No, nothing, my lord. Miss Peterson was wearing the gown she wore when she first arrived here.”

  “Better check the silver,” laughed the colonel.

  “Who has gone? Someone missing from your household?” came a silky voice from behind them.

  The marquess swung round. “Pargeter! What are you doing here?”

  Lady Lydia’s Exquisite stood framed in the open doorway.

  “I came to call on you, Canonby,” said Bertram plaintively. “A social call. Now it appears you have lost someone.”

  “I am very busy, Pargeter,” said the marquess acidly, “and must bid you good day. Who or what I have lost is my affair.”

  Bertram gave a light laugh. “Such ungrateful behavior, considering you saved her from the scaffold.”

  The marquess looked at him stonily, but Bertram’s eyes had flicked quickly to the colonel’s face and surprised a look of consternation.

  “Get out, Pargeter,” said the marquess, “and shut the door behind you.”

  With many sweet smiles, apologies and bows and flourishes, Bertram backed out just as the marquess slammed the door in his face.

  He stood for a moment on the step, drawing on his gloves. Polly had been there, he was sure of that. Just as certain was the fact she had run away. He was supposed to meet those two ruffians, Jake and Barney, in the servants’ tavern in a few moments to report his progress. He made his way there, picking his way through the dirt of the rainy streets on his high heels.

  He waited and waited in the tavern, a conspicuous figure among the liveried servants, but Jake and Barney did not appear.

  I must find this Polly Jones, thought Bertram. She must be somewhere in London. Lydia took the hanging coolly, but it was almost as if she were glad a chapter was closed, that some worry had been removed from her life. But I cannot scour London by myself.

  He minced out of the tavern, the silken skirts of his coat swishing against the tables as he went. He made his way to White’s Club and searched the rooms but the couple he was hunting for were absent. He went out and called for a chair and went from coffee house to coffee house until he ran them to earth close by at the Cocoa Tree—Mr. Barks and Mr. Caldicott.

  Mr. Barks had a large quizzing glass raised to one eye and was scowling fiercely at a letter. “Oh, it’s you, Pargeter,” he said, lowering the letter as that gentleman sat down next to him.

  “Bad news?” asked Bertram sweetly. “From home?” Everyone knew of Mrs. Barks’s ambitions to be presented at court.

  Mr. Barks crumpled the letter. “Very bad,” he said. “Let’s talk of something else.”

  “By all means.” Bertram took out an enamelled snuffbox, helped himself to a delicate pinch, and sighed, “Such a pity your beautiful present to Canonby ended up on the scaffold.”

  “Serves her right,” said Mr. Caldicott, tossing his head and then letting out a yelp of anguish, for the sharp movement had hurt, his hair being a solid mass of flour and pomatum, not to mention a small cushion over which it was backcombed, piled up and topped with a tiny three-cornered hat.

  “And yet,” said Bertram, “it was most strange that Canonby should snatch the body.”

  “Did it for a bet,” said Mr. Barks. “Told everyone.”

  Bertram leaned forward. “What would you say, gentlemen, if I told you I had reason to believe that Polly Jones was still alive when she was cut down, still alive when she was taken to Canonby’s house, and still alive when she escaped today?”

  “You’ve been seeing too many plays,” said Mr. Caldicott.

  “Not I. I swear she is alive.”

  “Then we’ll find her and hang her ourselves,” growled Mr. Barks.

  “A waste of a pretty neck. Only think how grateful Canonby would be to get the jade back. I’ faith, Barks, that wife of yours could make her curtsy in the royal drawing room any time she chose to do so!”

  “So if you know she is alive, where is she?”

  “That is where I need your help. I cannot comb London looking for her myself.”

  “And what is your interest in her, Pargeter?” asked Mr. Caldicott.

  ‘I would find her for a whim,” said Bertram carelessly.

  Mr. Caldicott laughed. “That whim being that the jade bears a striking resemblance to Lady Lydia.”

  “You noticed? Do you not find such a resemblance strange?” Bertram looked eagerly from one to the other.

  “Hardly strange,” said Mr. Caldicott, “when you consider she has three brothers who must have fathered a deal of bastards about the length and breadth of England. Lady Lydia’s from the Berkeley family and they’re all wild to a fault.”

  Bertram’s face fell. If that were indeed the case, he would have no hold over Lady Lydia. And yet the girl, Polly, had frightened her, that he knew. “Are you interested in finding her or not?” he asked sharply.

  “Oh, very interested,” said Mr. Barks. “We’d best enlist Mother Blanchard. For wherever Polly Jones is now, it’s bound to be in some low-life ken.”

  Polly looked around the room near Tothill Fields in Westminster which was home to Barney and Jake. It boasted two truckle beds, one table covered in dirty dishes, four chairs, and dirt everywhere. “I cannot live here!” she cried.

  Jake shrugged. “Picked up some grand ideas at Canonby’s, ain’t you? So where else you going to go?”

  Polly bit her lip. She thought longingly of the Brewers, and yet felt she could never go back there. Silas would no doubt try to find her work, but she had no right, notorious as she had become, to inflict herself on such a decent family.

  “Oh, go away somewhere, the pair of you,” she snapped, “and don’t come back until I have had time to scrub this place.”

  In the days that passed, a little home slowly grew up about the ill-assorted threesome. A bed was found for Polly and curtains for the windows. She cooked over a wood-burning stove in the corner of the room, producing some of the dishes she had learned to prepare at the merchant’s home. At first she had been wary of Barney and Jake’s friendship, for after all they were men, and the first few nights she slept uneasily, a rolling pin under her pillow. But they seemed to have adopted her as a sort of sister, a talisman. Her very beauty kept them at bay. Barney and Jake were enjoying all this new domesticity and pleaded time after time with Polly to give up her mad idea of masquerading as a lady and stealing from a grand house.

  But Polly was adamant. If they were going to be thieves, then they would be thieves on a grand scale. So Barney and Jake, falling more and more under her influence, stole more and more bits and pieces, sold them, and saved the money to buy material to make Polly a grand enough gown. Polly had been taught by old Meg how to sew and make clothes. She also studied the social columns in every newspaper, waiting for an announcement of some ridotto where she could make her debut. The tedious, hot days of summer dragged past, and then autumn came, bringing the Little Season and society back to Town.

  She felt uneasy over the things that Barney and Jake stole, but comforted herself with the doubtful piece of logic that once her own thieving days had begun, they need not steal anything from people who might not be able to bear the loss.

  Polly had created a splendid outfit for herself. She had decided to avoid fancy d
ress, preparing herself a grand ensemble and a mask. Hoops were coming into fashion, and so Polly finally learned how to construct one from a wicker frame and pads of horse hair. The new hoops were flat at the front and back, stretching out on either side, which gave the impression that the wearer was standing behind a sort of embroidered silk wall.

  Finally, the outfit was ready. It had to be strung up to the ceiling on a pulley to leave space in the room below for the occupants.

  ‘This is it!” said Polly one morning. “A ridotto at my lord Hallsworthy’s. It is time to begin.”

  “Feel it’s all wrong, Poll,” said Barney uneasily. “Feel it’s wrong for you. Wasting your life. Forgit about the whole thing. Let me and Jake save a bit more, then maybe we’ll find a place in the country and turn ourselves into respectable folks.”