by Mary Brendan
Slowly, deliberately, Ross took his fencing gauntlet and swiped it, with insulting lightness, about one of Cadmore’s sallow, quivering cheeks. ‘Just to formalise matters,’ he said softly. ‘Tomorrow, Wimbledon Common, five o’clock. Grey and Beecher have offered as seconds.’ Ross indicated his own men with a backwards flick of his dark head. ‘Ramsden and Markham stand as mine. Your choice of weapons. Now you can go.’ He jerked free the blade.
Luke frowned, watching the last of the subdued gentlemen troop away. Before going, some had sidled over and mumbled their disgust at Cadmore’s astonishing vitriol and base cowardice. Others had simply swayed their heads, solemnly acknowledging the gravity of what had taken place here today, while exiting at speed. Doubtless, they were keen to begin circulating this juicy gossip in clubs and salons peopled by the beau monde.
‘He’s going to choose pistols and shoot early,’ Luke warned.
‘I know…’ Ross replied.
‘You could try for rapiers,’ Guy chipped in. ‘You’re undoubtedly the injured party in this and could exercise the option to choose.’
‘He’ll never go for that,’ David said drily. ‘Cadmore knows close combat would be a massacre.’
‘And over in thirty seconds,’ Dickie added. ‘Whatever the outcome tomorrow, even if Cadmore fails to show or fires early, Ross has finished him here today. Everybody knows that, including him.’ He looked at Ross shrewdly, and with not a little admiration in his silver eyes. ‘You crafty bastard! You planned it that way. You got us here this afternoon—arranged these bouts—just to draw him in, didn’t you?’
‘Would I do that?’ Ross drawled, as, whistling, and apparently unperturbed at the thought of stopping a cheat’s bullet, he strolled off to change.
‘I don’t know whether I ought to tell you this, Elizabeth…’
Elizabeth glanced at Rebecca with a small enquiring smile.
‘I feel embarrassed at ever having thought such a thing.’
‘Well, the thing sounds intriguing. I think you now must explain.’
Since being formally introduced a few days ago, the two women had spent time together shopping or taking tea or a carriage ride in the park, and had settled into an easy camaraderie. Elizabeth had met the Ramsdens’ two delightful little sons at their beautiful townhouse in Burlington Parade. Today they were strolling along Bond Street, chatting and window shopping, oblivious to their differing blonde looks drawing admiring male glances and envious female scrutiny.
‘As we are soon to be sisters-in-law, and I already like you very much, I shall tell you.’ Rebecca giggled. ‘Besides, if I do not, Emma or Vicky might let it slip at some time—for I told them both,’ she said with a backwards peer at their companions strolling some paces behind. ‘Then I would really be in a fine pickle for not owning to once having imagined that you…’
Elizabeth felt a slight chill creep over her. Was Rebecca hinting she had heard tell of a scandalous Lady Elizabeth Rowe from years back? Was she about to embarrassingly say she couldn’t conceive her to be the same person?
‘When I saw you fabric shopping last week,’ she broke into Elizabeth’s anxieties, ‘and I noticed Ross paying you such particular attention, I imagined you and he…that is, I believed you might be his…chère amie…’ Rebecca pulled an apologetic little face, but her smile was wicked.
Elizabeth choked a laugh in her relief at that news. ‘Well, Lady Ramsden, as you have been honest, I must be, too. I imagined you already filled that role when I spied you with him. I almost dropped through the floor in shock and embarrassment when you were introduced as a relative.’
Rebecca squealed with laughter. ‘You believed me to be his mistress? How famous! He is rather gorgeous…’ She grimaced. ‘Oh, sorry! I meant nothing by it, of course. It’s just—with Luke’s blessing, naturally—I have grown accustomed to flirting innocently with Ross over the years. He has been the best ever brother-in-law; so interesting and amusing. And his nephews haunt him when he visits; Troy, that is, for Jason is but one and a half and not yet able to play soldiers and pirates or ride a pony. But he laughs happily when he spies his uncle Ross. Ross is a natural with horses, and knows exactly which ingredients to mix as poultices for swollen fetlocks and so on. All the grooms are most impressed by his herbalism…Miles, too. Oh, he’s our butler and a sweet old cove…’ At Elizabeth’s continuing quiet, Rebecca ceased her chatter and groaned regret. ‘I imagine you must be heartily sick of females fawning over your future husband. How tactless of me to go on so. I shall caution Vicky and Emma, for they both adore him, too.’
‘Say nothing to them.’ The clipped words were followed by an insouciant smile. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m barely aware—or caring—of his popularity. Besides, knowing he is kind to children and dumb animals is most welcome.’
Rebecca smiled at the wryness in Elizabeth’s tone. She had just last night discussed with her darling Luke the tension that seemed to exist between this couple. ‘Nothing worth having comes easily, sweetheart,’ Luke had reminded her huskily with a meaningful look that made her blush and reminisce about their own very bitter-sweet courtship.
‘Oh, Ross does have his gentle side,’ Rebecca communicated archly. ‘I am never more aware of that than when he looks at you, Elizabeth.’
Elizabeth retrieved her neutral smile, while pointing at an interesting window display. She urged Rebecca towards it.
The three ladies strolling a few yards behind joined them in inspecting glorious fabrics draped into enticing approximations of the newly arrived Paris fashion plates depicted. Victoria, Emma and Sophie were also enjoying a stroll along this busy street this fine September afternoon.
‘Do you think our husbands will have exhausted themselves fencing and soon be home?’ Victoria asked. ‘Lucy will expect her papa to be energetic enough to take her on his back and gallop around the floors,’ she said, referring to her three-year-old daughter’s predilection for using her doting father as a pony.
‘Heavens! I hope they won’t be too tired out,’ Emma said, aghast, causing Rebecca and Victoria to exchange a look, then chuckle.
Emma, not long married, blushed prettily then tutted her mock disgust. ‘Oh, I give up with you two vulgar hussies,’ she fondly chided. ‘I simply want my husband in a fit state to visit my parents. When we pluck up courage to go to Cheapside, I assure you Richard needs all his wits about him to fend off their importuning. Papa for money and Mama for invitations to Silverdale.’
Elizabeth felt at ease with the casual banter between these sweet, unassuming ladies. The thought of Lord Courtenay down on all fours with a child atop his broad, elegant back was enough to have her chuckling, too. Her amusement soon faded. There was a woman’s reflected image visible in the shop window to one side of her. She seemed familiar. Yet this was the West End of London. The last time she had spied that gaunt profile, framed by dark curly hair, she had been dockside with Hugh Clemence! With careful casualness Elizabeth half-turned to slant a look.
Jane Selby was hovering close to the road, a child’s hand gripped in hers. On this occasion, she was dressed quite neatly and soberly. She certainly didn’t look out of place amongst the Quality promenading along Bond Street. But the furtive peeks that were sliding from beneath her bonnet brim at the shoppers were definitely suspicious. The boy by her side looked to be about five or six and he, too, was tidily turned out. But his expression was anguished: he was gazing up at his mother with such huge sorrowful eyes that Elizabeth felt her heart ache. What she saw next was still more disturbing and caused an icy shiver to hurtle through her.
Although no one stood with them, they were not there alone. And, by now, Elizabeth’s clandestine observation led her to believe that they might be up to no good! Jane was nodding at a young girl, perhaps fifteen years old, who was stationed some yards away. In response, the girl tapped at her pocket, then flicked a sly finger towards a lone matron promenading.
At the signal from her accomplice, Jane pulled her hand free of he
r son’s and whispered in his ear before pushing him away. The child swayed his head and looked at his mother with supplicant’s eyes. She rejected him with a terse brush of a hand. With tears on his face, he sidled to the target, skimmed inconspicuously against the woman’s ample hip and came away with a scrap of lace in his hand. It was quickly scrunched into his small fist as he took a circular path back to his mother on spindly legs that were visibly shaking. He immediately offered up to her his booty.
Aware, suddenly, that Rebecca was talking to her, asking her if she would step inside the shop with them, Elizabeth swayed her blonde head. It was the most she could manage. She felt mute with shock at what she’d witnessed. ‘I’ve a slight headache; it’s uncommonly warm,’ Elizabeth blurted. ‘Please, browse to your heart’s content. I shall stay here, in the air, with Sophie.’
Sophie scoured her friend’s face, having read an unspoken plea in her violet eyes and the breathless tenor of her voice.
‘We’ll be but a short while,’ Victoria said as, arm in arm, the three ladies proceeded inside the shop.
Before they were properly out of sight, Elizabeth had urged Sophie into a recess between buildings and discreetly indicated Jane Selby and her son. Frantically, she whispered who they were and what she had just seen. She concluded with, ‘They are teaching the little lad larceny and he looks barely six…and so distraught! How can she be so cruel and stupid! I shall tell her I know what she is about. It’s a wonder no one else saw him pickpocket and raised the alarm! They might all be before a magistrate tomorrow!’
Sophie had her wide, brown eyes riveted on the mother and child. ‘Good grief! Quick, approach her now, Lizzie, for I do believe she is about to send him thieving again!’ she squeaked.
Elizabeth did move then, faster than Sophie could keep up with her. Weaving, almost at a run, through the strollers, and ignoring their curious looks, she was soon at Jane’s side.
The woman’s black eyes were wide and apprehensive as she recognised the beautiful woman who seemed to have materialised from thin air. Elizabeth grabbed the child by the shoulders as he began his stalking, and gently directed him back to his mother. ‘Your son, I imagine, Jane?’ she enquired by way of greeting. ‘Little Jack, I believe you said was his name?’ She looked down at the small boy’s solemn, tear-streaked face. ‘He seems distressed…’
Jane’s astonishment at being thus accosted vanished; wariness instead pinched her wan features. Her eyes darted vigilantly about, then hovered on one spot and naked fear dilated her pupils.
Elizabeth turned her head to investigate and immediately saw why the wretched woman looked so terrified. The girl who had been loitering as look-out had disappeared. In her place was a man Elizabeth instantly recognised. Nathaniel Leach, dressed in dapper dark garments, had his slitted gaze on them. He touched his hat in insolent salute then, crossing his arms over his brawny chest, adopted a menacing stance and continued staring fixedly.
Elizabeth drew a deep breath; he might frighten Jane, but she wasn’t so easily intimidated! she exhorted herself, and with a haughty toss of her head, ignored him. ‘I saw you sending your son to pickpocket. What on earth are you about?’ she demanded angrily. ‘Even if that vile Leach has you in his power, how can you use your own son so? He is so young! So vulnerable!’
‘Go away and leave us be!’ Jane bit out, jerking her son back by the shoulders and into the shelter of her skirts. ‘You’re making things so much worse for us both.’
Elizabeth laid a comforting hand on her thin arm. It was immediately shaken off. ‘Don’t you realise the jeopardy he is in?’
‘Don’t you realise the jeopardy he is in?’ Jane bitterly countered. ‘You know nothing! You with your kindly, rich old granny and your doting pious vicar and your fine clothes and your fed belly! What do you know of any of it?’ she choked out in despair.
‘Jane, please listen…’
‘No! You listen,’ Jane croaked across her words. ‘If he’s to survive, he’s to toil. And this is how we must earn. For if Leach sells him to a sweep, as he’s threatened to do, he’ll not last this winter out. This way, he’s close to me,’ she breathed fiercely. ‘This way he won’t burn or starve…not before I do.’ Her fingers reflexively bit into her son’s fleshless arms, making him whimper and look up. ‘Now away with you. And your friend,’ she spat, jerking her dark head at Sophie who was hovering close by, tears glossing her eyes at what she’d heard.
Elizabeth felt impotent rage thickening her throat, as it had once before when she’d learned harrowing details of this woman’s predicament. ‘It can’t be! He wants to sell your son to a chimney sweep? No!’
‘Oh, yes! Why should he keep the snivelling little runt? he says. He’s old enough to make a bob, he says.’ Jane swiped moisture from her eyes.
‘How much do you owe him, Jane? How much can it be that keeps you tied to such a monster?’
Jane shook back her head and sniffed before grunting a mirthless laugh. ‘How do I know? He’s bribed the bailiffs on my account. Paid my fines and my debts after the bigamist left me. Sometimes he’s kind like that…fights my battles,’ she explained with a poignant seriousness. ‘I lost count at four hundred. Must be more now what with the laudanum and the interest. He knows I’ll pay any price for Jack’s laudanum. If you want a reckoning, ask Leachie…he’s the tally-man,’ she concluded with an impatient snap.
As they stared at one another Jane murmured wistfully, ‘I really thought you’d come back to Wapping, even though I told you not to. I thought you meant what you said, about helping, being as you’d had bad luck, too.’
Elizabeth winced; felt the pain filter from her throat to her toes. Her fecklessness whipped at her like a thousand scourges. She wanted to impress on Jane that she had not forgotten, that since their first meeting in that hovel, never an hour passed in any day when she did not recall the horror of her plight and fret over how she could help.
Such empty sincerity! The truth was that she was as much a man’s puppet as Jane was. Lord Stratton’s threats might be smoother, more sophisticated, but it was manipulation just the same. He had forbidden her to visit this wretched woman in the stews…so had her grandmother…but it was him she was chary of defying. He was the reason she was shopping with genteel friends; he was the reason she had simply locked all charitable thoughts to the back of her mind while she made idle excursions to furnish a trousseau.
She felt utter shame swamp her as she looked deep into Jane Selby’s despairing black eyes. There but for the grace of God and a fond grandmother went she. How soon she had forgotten that maxim. Immediately she turned and walked away.
Chapter Thirteen
As Elizabeth strode purposefully closer, Nathaniel Leach peered furtively about, slack-jawed in disbelief. In truth, she couldn’t credit either her audacity in approaching him so openly. An ocean was roaring in her ears, her ribs quivered with the pounding beneath them. But her mind’s eye was focused on Jane and her son, and this man’s part in their dismal lives, and she forced her wobbly legs on.
‘Do you know who I am, Mr Leach?’ was bitten out with cold fury as soon as he was within earshot.
Brackets deepened either side of his mean mouth and sunbursts radiated from slitted sky blue eyes as far as his hair-line. ‘I do h’indeed, Lady Elizabeth,’ he enunciated with mocking humility. ‘Marquee’s daughter, ’n’t yer? Jane told me a foo int’resting fings about yer. Now ’oo’d’ve fawt such a top-lofty gel bin in such bad trouble? ’Course…we all makes mizdakes…I understands that…an’ never judges folk.’
Elizabeth glared frigidly, unabashed by his smirking innuendoes. ‘Yes, I am a Marquess’s daughter,’ was all she icily confirmed. ‘And I shall make life very difficult for you if you don’t do exactly as I say.’
‘An’ what exackly do yer say, my lady?’
Her stomach squirmed at his sinister purr; she knew he would very much like to cow and bully her as he did Jane. Nevertheless she bit out coldly, ‘I say, Mr Leach, that y
ou immediately give Jane and her son into my care or you will be very sorry.’
Stout fingers scraped at his chubby, stubbly jaw. ‘Well, now…’s’up to Jane what she do. She’s as free as you’n me. Soon as she pays ’er reck’nin’ she can be on ’er way an’ good riddance. An’ the nipper…’
‘How much is her reckoning?’
He smiled…really grinned in amusement. ‘A lot. A lot even by your fine standards, m’lady. ’N all noted ’n signed fer. She’s a greedy little gel, is yon Jane. ’S the trouble wiv shabby genteel…they want luckshriz. They gotta pay fer ’em…everyone gotta pay. Now, shall I tell yer what I say, my lady?’ he sneeringly parodied her words. His black beaver hat brushed her face as he inclined close to slyly leer at her small, curvacious body. ‘I says that I was right about yer firs’ time. I could tell from them knowin’ eyes o’ your’n you’d ’ad a little ruff ’n tumble in yer time. You should’ve come back to see Leachie…we’d deal right well togevver. I could intradoos yer to a foo of me Quality gents…set yer up right good. Betimes this turns proper grey…’ He tweaked one of her smoky-blonde ringlets where it draped close to her bosom. ‘Yer’ll have a tidy nest egg…me ’n all.’
Elizabeth shot him such a poisonous look that his grin drooped and his impertinent fingers withdrew to twiddle on air. Sunlight was making a beacon of the dazzling diamond being spun agitatedly on her finger. His eyes swooped and greed tautened his face. A crafty peek slanted up at her from beneath his shaggy eyebrows. ‘Might jus’ do it…’ was all he croaked, snapping down his chin. ‘More’n a fousand pounds is doo…’
Her finger curled protectively. ‘No. But I have something of equal value…a necklace…’ Instinctively she had opted to lose her heirloom rather than her betrothal ring and that astonished her to such a degree she hardly noticed his uncontainable excitement. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he fitfully swallowed, he shifted from foot to foot, he assessed her with his craggy face cocked this way then that, keen for her to elaborate.
