Letters to a Lady

by Joan Smith

  It was kind of Harrup to have given Ronald such an important job—and the hope of some sinecures to increase his salary, too. Before too long, Ronald might be able to set up a small house, which would require a hostess. ... She would be seeing Harrup more frequently than in the past if that happened.

  And he would be married to Selena—much good seeing him would do her! Was that what caused her dismal thoughts? The notion that once the marriage took place, he would be forever off limits to her? She was no lightskirt, to enjoy an affair with him. She was nothing—just a country neighbor who had intruded herself into his exciting life for a few days. She wished she and Peabody had never delivered his billets-doux from Whitby. She wished she had never come to know him intimately. He was a libertine and a scoundrel—and she loved him so much her heart ached to think of his marrying Selena.

  Chapter Eleven

  Diana arrived home none the worse in appearance, despite her tribulations. Peabody was so busy harassing the servants that she didn’t even inquire where her charge had been. Diana planned to leave early the next morning for home. The rout would be her last meeting with Harrup. For one more night she must gird her loins and behave as normally as possible. It was unthinkable that he should guess her feelings. How had she come to love him? He was eminently unsuitable. Much too high in society and much too low in morals. His temper was unstable. A woman wouldn’t have a moment’s peace with such a man—nor a moment’s boredom.

  His wife would be active in the nation’s affairs, not stuck in a provincial backwater, doing the same tedious nothings forever. She could speak her mind quite freely with him, for whatever his faults, Harrup didn’t mind plain speaking. She smiled mentally to think what the vicar back home would say if he heard of her doings that day. Harrup might be angry about his horses, but for the rest, he wouldn’t care a groat that she’d been arrested. He was fortunate he wasn’t under lock and key himself after knocking the Prince Regent’s brother senseless. She rather looked forward to telling him her adventures.

  As the afternoon wore on, the preparations for the party were finished, and Diana went upstairs to begin her toilette. She was dismayed to see the bruise on her shoulder was turning to purple, making her only evening gown impossible to wear. The gown was cut low, revealing the discoloration. Was she not to have this last evening with Harrup after all? A tear scalded her eye. She would attend the party if she had to wear the lutestring that sat in a mess in her suitcase. Peabody had thought a couple of good cushion covers might be made from the skirt.

  She went through her belongings and settled on a paisley scarf to wear over her shoulders. Its somber hue added nothing to her ensemble, but at least it hid the bruise. She dressed her hair, brushing it till it shone in the lamplight. Her pixie eyes didn’t give their usual impression of high spirits as she gazed at them. They were shadowed with sorrow that was emphasized by the downward turn of her lips. She forced a smile that looked grotesque. She was very pale, too.

  While she was rubbing her cheeks to simulate the work of Mrs. Whitby’s paint, a discreet knock came at the door.

  “Come in, Peabody,” she called.

  A servant ducked her head in and said, “His lordship’s home and would like to see you downstairs if you’re decent, Miss Beecham.”

  A jolt of excitement did more to color Diana’s cheeks than the rubbing. Her eyes lit up like magic, and she said breathlessly, “Thank you, Marie. I shall be down directly.”

  She checked to see that the shawl was doing its work, then ran to the staircase. She had an intuition that Harrup would be there at the bottom, waiting for her. She had envisaged a glowing eye, an outstretched hand, and was disappointed to see only the spread of uninterrupted marble floor. When she reached the hall, his office door was open, the lamps lit, and she went toward that room.

  Harrup was leaning over his desk, rifling through the clutter of papers. He turned at the sound of her entrance and looked up. She saw no secret love glowing there, no warm smile of welcome, but only a raised brow and a questioning look.

  Then he smiled softly, and all those imaginary items fell into place, exactly as she had imagined. There was a spontaneous warmth, a disarmingly real pleasure on his face as he looked at her. “I see you made it home intact. Tell me all about it,” he invited, drawing up a chair.

  “Have you spoken to Ronald?” she asked, suddenly nervous now that the waited-for moment had arrived.

  Harrup poured two glasses of wine and handed her one. “Not since I sent him off with my bits of blood this morning. Did he find you? And, more important, did you have any luck with the letters?”

  “Yes, I recovered them,” she said.

  He stared in disbelief. “You didn’t!” he exclaimed. “I made sure it was a lost cause.”

  Encouraged that she had succeeded beyond his expectations, her other fears subsided. “Indeed I did. If you will ring for Stoker, I’ll send him for them. They’re in my reticule this moment.”

  Harrup drew a chair beside hers and said, “Later. Tell me all about it. Right from the moment I left you. I haven’t been able to concentrate all day, wondering what you were up to. They must be thinking they’ve made a demmed poor choice in the cabinet. I was babbling like an idiot at the meeting.”

  Diana took a sip of wine while she arranged her story. “Well,” she said hesitantly, “before I say anything else, Harrup, I want to assure you your team is safe and sound— nearly.”

  His eyes flew to her face. “How nearly?” he asked.

  “Practically perfect. Just perhaps a little cut at the mouths, for they are more difficult to control than I had thought. The traffic is very heavy on Bond Street, is it not?”

  “Very heavy. A little cut will soon heal,” he said generously. “So what happened? How did you get the letters?”

  “They were in a safe-deposit box, as she said. The New Bank of England, actually. It was Ronald who spotted her going in.”

  “Did she not see you following her? I’m surprised she’d get them out when she was being watched.”

  “She didn’t recognize me. I bought a new bonnet and pelisse.”

  “You must show them to me later.”

  “That won’t be possible, I fear. I gave them to a young woman who—who needed them,” she said vaguely.

  Harrup frowned but didn’t lose track of the main thread.

  “How did you get Whitby to give up the letters?” he demanded.

  “She didn’t exactly give them up, Harrup. I stole them from her when she was unconscious.”

  “Diana, you didn’t hit her on the head in the middle of Bond Street?”

  “Oh, no, I didn’t hit her at all. And it happened on Glasshouse Street, when she was nearly home. I couldn’t let her go into the house with the letters, Harrup. We might never have found them,” she told him with such a pleading look in her eyes that Harrup turned quite pale.

  “What happened on Glasshouse Street?” he asked in a voice that he was trying very hard to keep calm.

  “Your team . . . got away from me a little.”

  “They didn’t get into Mrs. Whitby’s carriage and take the letters from her bosom. What did you do?”

  “Don’t look so horrid, Harrup!” she exclaimed. “They didn’t lay any charges against me at Bow Street, and besides, I didn’t use my own name.”

  “Oh, God!” Harrup raised one hand to his forehead and covered his eyes. “You were arrested.”

  “I didn’t mention your name at all! How can you think me such a flat? After they searched me and didn’t find the papers, they let me off with a warning.”

  “Searched you?” he asked, eyes flashing. “Searched you? Diana, why, in the name of God, didn’t you call me? They actually stripped you—I never meant for you to go to such lengths to get the damned letters. She only wanted money for them. I would gladly have paid. By God, I’ll have Whitby whipped at the cart’s tail for this piece of impertinence.”

  “It’s all over and done with. They didn’
t find anything except your money. I still had most of it then. I convinced the woman who examined me that I had got it from a customer.”

  His glowering eyes turned a shade darker with wrath, yet with some bright glitter of curiosity that made them so luminous they looked ready to explode. “That was before I had to pay the damages to Mrs. Whitby’s rig,” she explained. “They said if we paid, we wouldn’t be charged, since it was an accident, you know. I didn’t run the curricle into her carriage on purpose.”

  “But you did run my new curricle into her carriage?” he asked in a voice of silken menace.

  “One wheel—”

  His frown softened. “A wheel can be replaced,” he said leniently.

  “One wheel won’t have to be replaced,” she admitted. “The rest of it, I fear, is totally destroyed. I got the letters though,” she reminded him brightly.

  “You still haven’t told me how!”

  “It was the greatest luck, Harrup. I regained the use of my wits before Mrs. Whitby,” Diana told him, peering uncertainly from the corner of her eye.

  His face went blank. For full thirty seconds he was completely speechless. “You’re telling me you were knocked senseless, along with all the rest! Yes, I know,” he added, holding up a peremptory hand to silence her. “You got the letters. The devil take the letters! I didn’t want you to start a riot to recover them and maim yourself into the bargain.”

  “Rubbish,” she said, dismissing Bow Street, accidents, and other varieties of mayhem with the word. “No one was maimed, I promise you. Mrs. Whitby wasn’t even limping, though she was very pale beneath her rouge. Did you know she painted, Harrup?” she asked with an arch smile.

  Harrup shook his head and grinned. “Cat! I’m surprised you found time to notice that. Are you truly all right, Diana?”

  She looked down at herself. “As you see, right as rain. And now will you please send Stoker for the letters. I am dying to read them.”

  Harrup’s jerked to attention. “Read them? That wasn’t part of our bargain!” He rang for Stoker and sent him after Diana’s reticule.

  Harrup regarded his companion and shook his head. “I told myself a dozen times this day that I was imagining problems where none existed. I thought the most you would do was embarrass yourself and possibly job my horses. It’s well I was left in ignorance of the facts. What possessed you to go so far out of your way for me?”

  The question took her by surprise. Why had she? It was really none of her affair if Harrup was embarrassed. He could well afford to buy Whitby’s silence for that matter, so why had she pitched herself into such an imbroglio?

  The truth ambushed her, making her ill at ease. A flush started at her collarbone and rose up her throat, staining her cheeks. She had done it because it was her instinct to defend and protect the man she loved, and the guilty truth glowed in her eyes. Harrup gazed at her with a matching look. It was easy to imagine he shared her feelings and her frustration at having to remain silent. Certainly some emotion raged in him, and a trace of it escaped into his eyes. A long silence grew between them, a conscious, uncomfortable silence.

  Harrup cleared his throat nervously and tried to talk the feeling away. “Well, in any case. I thank you most humbly, Diana,” he said heartily. Too heartily. The lack of ease in this usually polished gentleman was quite noticeable. “Such an outstanding act of heroism deserves a reward. Name it, and it’s yours.”

  She searched desperately for something to lighten the mood and said inanely, “I couldn’t let Ronald’s patron fall into disgrace. If you lose your position, Ronald loses his as well.”

  Harrup’s look, the half smile at the corner of his lips, told her without words how much credence he placed in this explanation. The feeling was back in the air between them, a suffocating blanket of swirling emotion that eddied to and fro with each quick flicker of the eyes, each jerky movement of the hand, each thud of the heart, and each rapid breath. It would take more than a piece of idle chatter to dissipate it. Diana felt that if Harrup didn’t say something, she would throw herself into his arms and tell him she loved him. She read the uncertainty in his gaze, the hopeful question, but she read the dread that was there, too. It was best to leave it unspoken.

  Diana was relieved when Stoker came with her reticule. It made a diversion to her discomfort. Harrup went to the door and handed her the bag. She opened it and drew out the two infamous letters. Harrup reached eagerly for them. He pulled out the sheets and glanced at them, then quickly stuffed them back into their envelopes.

  “They’re the originals,” he said, and took a quick step toward the grate, where a fire burned desultorily.

  Diana jumped up from her seat and ran after him. “You can’t burn them! I haven’t read them yet!” she said.

  “That is precisely why I am in a hurry to consign them to the flames.”

  “You said I have earned a reward. I have only to name my price. I want to read the letters,” she insisted. “Just a quick glance. I have been dying to know what nonsense is in them.”

  Harrup held them to the flames, one in either hand. “You would only be further disillusioned with me,” he said. “You already have me pegged for a libertine and a wastrel. Must you know to what depths of folly a man in his cups can sink? Leave me a shred of self-respect,” he said, and watched with satisfaction as the papers caught fire. When only an inch of white paper remained, he dropped them into the grate and turned back to her. “I am already black enough in your judgmental eyes.”

  “You’ll soon be rid of my judgmental eyes. Peabody and I will be leaving tomorrow morning,” she said, and looked hopefully for some sign of objection.

  Harrup frowned, but made no demur. “Yes, I thought you would. I shall miss you, Diana. It was pleasant having you—a woman—someone here to come home to,” he ended uncertainly. “A strong-willed shrew to beat and lecture and joke me into rectitude. I know what you’re going to say,” he continued swiftly. “Soon Lady Selena will be here, but my sentiments in that respect are no secret to you. I half feel I’m adopting a daughter and losing my wife. Timing is so important, Laura said this morning. She was right about that. Our timing was very bad, was it not, my dear?” he asked gently.

  It was as much as he could say, and though even that might more properly have remained unsaid, she was glad he had bent the rules of propriety. It was important to know that you were loved, and it was love that glowed in his eyes, love that strained the muscles of his face till he looked rigid, like the stone martyrs on the tombs in church. She felt tears spring to her eyes and blinked them away. “Thank you, Harrup. That will be my reward,” she answered in an unsteady voice, just before she turned to flee the room.

  “This is not a reward. It’s a sentence,” he said gruffly.

  Diana went to her room and flung herself on the bed to cry. Harrup soon went upstairs to change. As he shaved, his brow was furrowed with schemes. When he stood at the mirror arranging his cravat, an expression of unholy conniving settled on his saturnine features.

  Dare he ask a favor of Laura Whitby after such harsh treatment as she’d received at his hands? It was outrageous—but it would surely turn Groden against him. Markwell was in a very insecure position at Whitehall with himself now the attorney general. If he wished to make any strides in his career at all, he’d be eager to ingratiate his superior. And Markwell must have some influence with Mrs. Whitby. The irony of what he contemplated after Di’s efforts on his behalf was by no means lost on him. She’d scratch his eyes out—just before her pixie smile beamed and he kissed her.

  He hurried to his desk and wrote up two letters of purple prose, addressed them to Mrs. Whitby, and locked them in his desk. Next he wrote a brief note to Markwell. Markwell had been on the fidgets about not receiving an invitation to this evening’s do. He’d jump at the offer to come around after dinner.

  This done, Harrup stuck a diamond stud in his shirt front and went downstairs to welcome his guests, every one of whom he was eager to see
leave.

  Chapter Twelve

  A smaller number of guests were invited to Harrup’s dinner than to the rout afterward. The Grodens were there, the Eldons, and Lord Liverpool, along with the foreign minister and Harrup’s house guest, Diana. Ronald was induced to attend, but Peabody announced firmly she had no business hobnobbing with smarts and swells and would take her mutton with Mrs. Dunaway and Stoker early, to be on the alert during the guests’ dinner. “For you may rest assured everything will go wrong,” she forecast glumly.

  Nothing went very far wrong. It is true Ronald knocked over his wineglass, but it was nearly empty—nothing a well-placed serviette couldn’t hide. Lady Selena sulked all through the fish and only smiled when she caught Ronald’s eye, which occurred more often than was seemly. She called Lord Castlereagh Lord Eldon more than once and appeared to think Eldon was the prime minister. But then, no one paid much attention to her, for by and large, she was silent as a jug.

  Diana was also quiet. She did, at least, take a keen interest in the conversation around the table, however, and had no trouble conversing with her immediate partners. The handsome Lord Castlereagh was very adept at flirting with pretty ladies who admired him. He kept up a lively patter of anecdotes about the Congress of Vienna that nearly made her forget for a few moments this was her last evening with Harrup.

  The host, Diana observed, was distracted. He made a token of talking to his partners, moved his food around on his plate, and sipped his wine, but his fork seldom rose to his lips. Once she noticed him staring at her, not her face, but her shoulder. She glanced down and saw her shawl had slipped, revealing the bruise. She lifted the shawl to cover it and peeked again at Harrup. His brows rose in a silent question. She hunched her shoulders and smiled. Harrup shook his head and lifted his eyes ceilingward.