by Mary Brendan
‘I accept your congratulations, Edwina,’ he commented drily. ‘And how have you been?’
‘I have been better,’ she snarled, suddenly recalling what had brought her out here. ‘I’m in high dudgeon, Ross. But it’s good to see you. It must be…’ She looked reflective, trying to recall the last time she and this man had socialised.
‘Two years or more, as I recall,’ Viscount Stratton supplied. ‘At Vauxhall two summers ago. I don’t get to London as much as I used to.’
‘And when you do it seems you skulk about in the dark. Are you grown shy all of a sudden?’ she laughed.
‘I’m always shy when a woman has commitment on her mind; especially when I figure in her delusion. That’s not the real reason I’m out here,’ he admitted, with a flash of a white smile. ‘The whole house is hellish hot, is it not? I wasn’t sure whether to drink that odd brew being doled out or throw it on the fire.’
‘I sympathise on both counts,’ Edwina said, peering distastefully at her glass, but her eyes were narrowing thoughtfully. ‘So you’re still unwed…I imagined some young minx must have cornered you by now.’
‘They do, Edwina,’ he agreed wryly. ‘But not well enough that I might submit.’
‘You’re a heartless rogue,’ Edwina chided, her mouth aslant and gimlet eyes sparkling with a crafty light. ‘Of course, I understand why these flighty young misses straight out of the schoolroom don’t appeal. Why…you must be thirty-three if you’re a day. You’re a sophisticate who would suit a more mature lady. Someone older and wiser in the ways of the world…’
‘Are you proposing, Edwina?’ Ross asked with studied gravity.
Edwina tutted, rapping her fan on his arm in mock outrage, but her pale eyes were veiled behind her lashes and her mind whirred.
‘So what’s set you so glum-faced this evening?’ Ross asked idly. ‘Apart from the lack of a good cognac to be had, of course.’
Edwina looked shrewdly at him. ‘Well, I’d like very much to tell you actually, Stratton. I need a friend to confide in. It’s all about some underhand thievery in the offing, so I’d value your expert advice on the subject,’ she teased with a wicked smile. ‘You must visit me tomorrow; we shall dine and catch up on all our news. You can impress me…and m’granddaughter…’ she mumbled on a cough, ‘with all your heroic exploits.’
Ross frowned, and ruefully moved a hand as he mentally sifted through prior engagements.
When he seemed unsuspecting, Edwina hurriedly encouraged, ‘It’s time you met m’granddaughter…’ At his slow, speculative look, she hastened on, ‘You’ll find the tale amusing…very droll. And perhaps there might even be a little side bet in it for you. You know you and I always manage to make a good wager. There was that two thousand guineas we shared when the Duchess of Marlborough didn’t survive the Duchess of Cleveland…remember? It was strange fortune indeed that day; you’d needed a doctor y’self and it happened he’d come straight from her sick-bed. How are those old wounds?’ she asked, prodding maternally at his arm through his jacket as though testing his fitness.
He allowed her ministrations for a moment before extricating his arm. ‘Those are forgotten, Edwina. I’ve added a few more scratches since that have also healed well.’
Edwina shook her head and started a lecture on the necessity of early stitching that had barely begun before it was rudely interrupted.
‘I’ve been searching for you, Lord Stratton. I thought we were to go elsewhere in search of a real drink…’
Ross looked about rather than responding to Edwina’s fussing.
‘I hadn’t realised you were with your grandmama.’ The young woman placed apologetic gloved fingers over her rouged mouth. ‘Oh, dear, is she your grandmama?’ Cecily Booth was lounging against the door frame, the candle flame behind clearly outlining her voluptuous figure beneath diaphanous voile.
Edwina squinted through the gloom at her firm, youthful face, guessing her to be barely twenty. But she was polished and confident—probably already had several years as a kept woman beneath her tiny belt. Glancing enquiringly at Ross, she saw he was laughing silently. Her scowl prompted him to give an easy shrug.
Striding regally for the door, Edwina glared at the young woman until she moved aside. ‘Yes,’ she purred, with curled top lip, ‘I might be his grandmama. But what, pray, might you be, I wonder?’ Thin, sooty eyebrows winged disdainfully. Her lips twitched in triumphant satisfaction as Cecily’s mouth knotted into a rouged rosebud. Peering down her nose, Edwina turned with a sniff and a raised shoulder. ‘I’ll expect you tomorrow at seven then, Stratton. Don’t be tardy. Reheating game makes it tough. A soufflé doesn’t like to wait and neither do I.’ With that she marched through the stuffy, crowded salon, barked at Evangeline to find her cloak, and within five minutes was hoisting herself with a footman’s help back into her carriage.
Cecily peeked sulkily up at her lover. She angled her brunette head, and pouted at him. Ignored, she trailed a fingernail lightly back and forth on the lean dark hand resting idly on the iron balustrade. When he still gazed, starstruck, into the night, a possessive hand slipped through the crook of a muscular arm. ‘Who was that fat lady, Ross?’ she finally sighed.
‘A good friend.’ He drew on the stub of his cheroot, then sent it in an arc of glowing ash into the darkness.
‘I told you yesterday evening that I was to be abroad today, Grandmama.’
‘Yes…yes. Well, I forgot. It is important you are back to dine. We rarely have guests and today we do.’
‘Do I know them?’
‘Er…no. It is just the one guest. He is a…well-travelled gentleman. A friend of mine of some long standing who I’ve not seen in an age. We used to play cards and have a little flutter during the years you lived at Thorneycroft with your papa. You would not know him. As I say, he is…an adventurous gentleman who has sailed the seas and has tales to tell. Presently he is in great favour at court.’
Lady Elizabeth Rowe pulled on her gloves and straightened her bonnet over her smoky-blonde hair. ‘Well, I dare say he has a deal more enthusiasm for your company than mine and will never miss me. It is good you are to see one of your old friends again. If we are early back from Bridewell, then I shall be happy to meet him.’ She smiled at her grandmama, pleased that their tiff yesterday seemed forgotten. ‘He sounds great fun…’ she added amiably on wandering off to the window and pulling back the curtain. ‘Oh, Hugh’s gig is just arrived. I must hurry.’
Edwina followed, hot on her granddaughter’s heels, into the hallway. ‘Seven o’clock. Tell the Reverend I expect you home by that hour to dine with Viscount Stratton…’
Elizabeth skipped lightly down the stone steps and allowed Hugh Clemence to help her alight. He politely raised a leather-gloved hand at Edwina. She scowled back a greeting.
Elizabeth settled herself on the seat, then slid forward again. She indicatively shook the carpet bag she had dropped to the floor. ‘Twenty pairs of knitted stockings, a roll of twill donated by Mrs Heathcote, four of my own woollen shawls and three quite serviceable kerseymere gowns that my grandmother is grown too large for.’ Elizabeth gave him a sparkling amethyst look. ‘She doesn’t know I have purloined them, but she will never miss them. She believes she is the same size, but the dresses are shrunk from the laundry.’
Hugh Clemence’s eyes lingered on her sculpted, ivory profile. ‘Did Mrs Sampson mention Viscount Stratton? Or was I mistaken in hearing that name?’
Elizabeth’s smooth brow puckered in a frown. ‘No. I believe that is the name she mentioned. She tells me he is an old friend of hers who is to visit and dine later. He sounds rather an intriguing character!’ At the protracted, crackling silence, Elizabeth studied her companion’s twitching jaw-line. ‘Is something wrong, Hugh?’
He forced a tiny, prim smile. ‘No. I realise your grandmother is a little…eccentric in her ways and the company she keeps is at times a little…bizarre. I have to own to surprise, though, that she and the Viscount are acqu
ainted.’
‘Why?’ Elizabeth asked with idle curiosity.
‘He…he is a bachelor of a…a certain reputation, Elizabeth. Perhaps you might know of him better as Ross Trelawney. He has recently received honours from the crown. Did you not see it gazetted?’
Elizabeth frowned and shook her head. Then her eyes widened and she gave an incredulous little laugh. ‘Not the Trelawney…the pirate? The Trelawney from Cornwall…who is always in some fight or scandal? The robber bandit?’
‘A clan of marauding smugglers rather than pirates or bandits, I believe.’ Hugh sniffed. ‘Now, of course, he is fêted as a smuggler catcher and has recovered over the years for the crown some fortune in currency and contraband. It is why he has been ennobled. Dark deeds indeed have shrouded that man over many years…’ he added ominously.
Elizabeth stared into space. ‘It cannot be,’ she muttered in a tone that harboured horror and humour. ‘Why, I’m sure I heard a ridiculous tale that Ross Trelawney cut out a foe’s liver and fried it for breakfast.’
‘I think that’s a little too…fictionalised an account of his villainy. But villain he is, without a doubt. And young ladies who cherish their virtue would be well advised to give he and his friends a very wide berth!’ He reddened at his evangelical zeal, fiddled with the reins, then sent them undulating like leather snakes over the horses’ backs. ‘Don’t make an ironic comment, Elizabeth, as to your own reputation,’ he gently charged her. ‘You know I judge a person by deeds. In my estimation, never was there a more virtuous and charitable lady than sits beside me now.’
Elizabeth smiled on a frown and turned her head. ‘Thank you, Hugh. Now, please don’t forget that Sophie is to join us later when she has finished attending the lecture on Nostradamus at the Taverners’ Hall. I have said that she can travel home with us, if you have no objection.’ But her mind was not on Sophie; or the Reverend’s compliments, as he assured her he was more than happy to escort her friend home to her door. It wasn’t even at Tothill with Bridewell and its wretched inmates. Time and again she ruminated on the intriguing possibility that, if it wasn’t all a case of mistaken identity, her grandmother was intending to dine later with an infamous rogue. And she had said that he sounded fun!
If gossip was to be believed, the new Viscount Stratton was as hardened a rake as her worst enemy, the repulsive Earl of Cadmore. But whereas the Earl was a youngish dandy about town, Ross Trelawney rarely set foot in the metropolis and was more likely to feature in tales of far-flung places. Perhaps a coast in Kent or a port in Bristol. Or even on foreign shores. She believed it was in France, during the war, that he was rumoured to have dined on liver. She stuffed a fist in her mouth to stifle an hysterical giggle, wondering whether he’d managed to uproot a Gallic onion to make it more palatable. As Hugh said, it was too outlandish to be true.
But why was her grandmother keen for her to return and dine with a disreputable old sea dog she’d known for years? She gave a delicate shudder. He probably talked with his mouth full of food and guffawed at inappropriate moments, showering the table with peas or wine. And if he was anything like the portly Mr Hollyrood…! The noises emitted by that ancient gentleman over the canard a l’orange had been accompanied by such a sulphuric smell that Elizabeth had been forced to quit the room, pleading a migraine, for fear of bursting into very unladylike laughter in front of him.
If only half she had heard gossipped about Trelawney was true, he was hardly fitting company for a spinster of gentle birth. Her grandmother would enjoy his salty tales, of course: Edwina liked a little raucous talk.
Elizabeth had been so relieved when it seemed that there were to be no long silences, no frosty-faced looks from her grandmother following their quarrel yesterday. Perhaps something had occurred to sweeten her so quickly. She’d been known to sulk for three days following an altercation. I want you settled, her grandmother had stressed yesterday and with more finality in her tone than usual. Why was she seeking to introduce her to this old friend? A moment ago Hugh had said he was a bachelor. The reprobate was now a peer of the realm. Perhaps he was keen to complete the transformation from villain to gentleman by acquiring a high-born wife. Did his unsavoury history render him unnacceptable to respectable ladies of the ton? Despite his newly acquired title and lands, perhaps he was cold-shouldered by the beau monde. Perhaps her grandmother believed he might be persuaded to settle for a consort whose reputation was as sullied as his own.
Or perhaps she was just being ridiculous, she exhorted herself as she wriggled against the upholstery. The man was possibly as old as her grandmother. If he was a decade younger, he would still be in his fifties and unlikely to be desperate to saddle himself with a wife. Besides, he was a renowned rake who probably had offspring scattered around the countryside. He must like one well enough to nominate as his heir. With that safe, inspiriting thought, she gave Hugh such a sweet smile as made him almost swoon. Scrambling for his wits, he madly shook the reins at the horses while clicking and clucking with his tongue at the startled animals.
‘Wager you can keep him, then bribe him to stay on,’ Ross remarked, then sipped from his glass. ‘That way you can recoup his bribe from your winnings if he agrees to go along with it.’
‘Yes. I considered doing that,’ Edwina said waving a fork full of pheasant at Ross. The meat soon disappeared and she chewed and looked thoughtful. ‘I’m sure that Pettifer would not be averse to an early retirement gift. Problem is, Stratton, that I’ve little cash I can quickly lay hands on. If I’m to keep m’butler, and lay down some wagers that will wipe the floor with that slut Penney, I’ve to act without delay. By the time I’ve sold a little stock, that bitch will have made of me a laughing stock. I need a fairly substantial amount… Have some more red currant jelly,’ she offered through a mouthful, sending the silver sauceboat skating along the polished table. ‘It’s m’own recipe, fortified with a little orange liqueur.’
Ross arrested the flying dish and carefully positioned it by the ornate candelabra. He glanced about the cosy, elegant dining room, wondering what odd fancy had prompted him to do this old termagant’s bidding and dine with her tonight. True, the food could be relied upon to be excellent; true, Edwina was entertaining company. But so was Cecily, who had the added advantage of being far easier on the eye, and she could be relied upon to divert him over the dining table with an altogether more sensual banquet. Instead, he was spending a substantial part of the evening with a woman in her sixties and suggesting ways and means for her to outwit her cronies over some old cove they all fancied.
Perhaps he’d spent too long at court in George’s company. The King was renowned for favouring ampled-bodied mature women, yet even he chose them a little less long in the tooth and broad of beam. His own preference was for lively young women who enjoyed a roistering good time as much as he did and never grew possessive or tearful when he disappeared to carouse elsewhere; which made his choice of current paramour rather an enigma. He smiled privately at his loaded plate. Cecily liked slavish attention and lavish payment. In return she was liberal with her body and her devotion. Although happy enough with the former, the latter was becoming tedious. He didn’t want her to unexpectedly materialise at his side every evening. He enjoyed being unattached while with male friends and spare women and was growing irritated at being constantly stalked.
He glanced at Edwina, to see her ladling more vegetables onto her plate. He smiled. He’d come here this evening, he realised, because he thrived on diversity. And there was something exceedingly diverse about a woman lacking in vanity and at ease with her appetite, and him. There were no devious games, no arch looks while hinting at putting commitment into what he regarded as a casual liaison. No allusions to trinkets favoured. No requests for cash so nonexistent family paupers could be saved from starving. Edwina wanted only his company, his advice and a little reminiscing. And they had aired some extremely amusing anecdotes over dinner. He picked up his knife and fork again, feeling content and amiable. ‘Th
is is a fine house, Edwina. You don’t look to be short on blunt.’
Edwina shot him a hasty look. ‘Oh, I’m not. Never better. But I like my money accruing. Investments should be where they can’t easily be got. I’m charier than you, Stratton. I know you’ve always a little on hand for those necessities of life which thrifty mortals like me class as luxuries. That’s why I’m a little…er…embarrassed for liquid funds, right now…’
Ross smiled at the fire roaring away at one side of him. Then he laughed ruefully in comprehension. He’d been uncharacteristically naïve in congratulating himself on having found a female companion who wanted nothing from him. ‘Edwina…why don’t you just ask?’ he drawled wryly.
‘Twelve thousand…and you’ll have it back within two weeks, plus a nice rate of interest,’ she immediately responded, wiping her mouth with a snowy napkin and eyeing him shrewdly over it.
‘Twelve thousand?!’ he repeated slowly, in disbelief. ‘I thought you wanted to keep your butler, not set him up in a residence with a staff and carriages of his own. Are you sweet on him, Edwina?’
Edwina flapped a dismissing hand, but couldn’t prevent a girlish giggle. ‘It’s not all for him, you fool! Harry Pettifer would be as pleased as punch with a tenth of that amount. The balance is to be used wagering against Alice Penney…once I’ve contrived to convince her she’s every chance of snatching Pettifer. Bertram Penney left her ten thousand a year and a sizeable estate in Surrey to go with that mansion in Mayfair and the townhouse in Brighton. She can afford to lose a little face…and a little cash…and deserves to.’
