Scandal's Heiress

by Amelia Smith

  Hyacinth frowned. She wouldn't be able to feed them all, in any case, and if she only bought one or two to give away, it wouldn't help the others. She wouldn't know how to choose. But with the school, yes, with the school she would be able to help at least a few.

  She glanced back at Maria and Harold. They were pulling apart, but their hands were still clasped. She envied their openness. Behind them, a man with a slouching cap and a rather unusual cotton coat entered the inn yard. He looked around, then leaned against the wall, watching.

  George plucked at her sleeve. “What are you looking at?”

  “Nothing,” Hyacinth said. “It's only that there are so many people here. It's just so vast, and I'm only really used to Gibraltar. That was a town, and a port, too, but here...”

  “Chin up!” George said, teasing. “You'll show that stuffy aunt of ours what's what!”

  Maria rejoined them, and they ate their pies at the edge of the inn yard until the Portsmouth coach boarded.

  “Take care of yourself, George,” Hyacinth said, “and write to me at Lindley Hall. I'll write you the very day we arrive, to let you know all about it.”

  She hugged him, but he stiffened and pushed her away, squaring his coat on his shoulders as he boarded the coach. Another bell rang.

  “That is our coach,” Maria said.

  They ran across the inn yard, presented their tickets and their baggage, and were stuffed into the vehicle moments before the driver cracked his whip, sending the horses into a trot, rattling them over the streets of London.

  There had not even been time to look around the conveyance before they started. Hyacinth was seated next to an elderly man with white stubble on his chin and a bulbous nose. He grunted as she tried to slide a little further down the seat, so that Maria could fit on.

  “There's no room,” he grumbled. “They sell too many tickets, they do.”

  “Well, we've paid for seats as well as the rest of you have. I'm sure we can all fit,” Hyacinth said. She might have been more polite, but she was tired. The night of dancing, the long walk to the coaching inn, and the worry of setting out on her own had whittled away at her poise.

  “Let the lady have 'er seat,” said a red-cheeked woman on the opposite bench, the one facing forwards.

  “Ye can sit in my lap, if you like,” joked a rough-looking man. Fortunately, he was at the far corner of the carriage.

  All of the women in the carriage shifted away from him, at which he chuckled and spread himself out over a wider stretch of the seat. “Shy, are you?” he said.

  Maria grasped Hyacinth's hand. “Don't worry,” she whispered.

  Hyacinth sunk her head onto Maria's shoulder. She could see glimpses of London as they rolled through the streets, but she was too tired to pay much attention. Eventually, she fell into a fitful dose, rattling along with the coach's motion, glad, in her half-slumber, that she didn't have to converse with her fellow travelers.

  At midday, the coach halted for food and a change of horses. Hyacinth and Maria followed the other passengers into the inn, where they found seats in a low, dark dining room. A barmaid counted them as they arrived and ladled soup into bowls for each. It smelled of turnips and mutton. There was also bread and butter. Hyacinth waved away the offered ale and asked for tea for herself and Maria.

  They were just finishing their meal when a lone traveler arrived at the door. He squinted into the darkness, as if deciding whether or not to enter.

  “We've cabbage and roast coming in a short while,” the barmaid told him.

  “No, thank you,” he said. “I find I must be on my way.”

  “We'd best be on our way, too,” said the red-cheeked woman from their coach. “Come on, girls. I'd like to be at the next inn by nightfall.”

  “So would I,” Hyacinth agreed.

  “And I, too,” said the man who'd so rudely asked her to sit on his lap. “There's highwaymen about, and those lot don't honor the Sabbath.”

  “Nor do any of us, traveling like this,” the oldest of the male passengers said. “It's ungodly, I say.”

  Maria felt the beads of her rosary, and pulled Hyacinth aside. They made their way to the inn's shabby outhouses together, looking out over a byre.

  “I don't like this talk of highwaymen,” Maria said.

  “Nor do I,” Hyacinth agreed. In the privy, alone, she looked through her reticule and tucked a few notes into her boots, and moved the coins to her skirt pockets. She left the necklace where it was, though – even at the Spencer's ball it had attracted too much attention. To wear it here, it would be an invitation to be robbed blind, or kidnapped, or worse. She affected nonchalance as she and Maria climbed back into the coach.

  #

  Thomas arrived late to breakfast. Georgiana was scraping her plate while his mother sipped coffee quietly at the far side of the table. Thomas filled his plate and sat. The silence pressed down on him.

  “Good morning, Mother,” he said. “Did you enjoy the ball?”

  She sniffed. “I would have enjoyed it more if you'd danced with more suitable prospects.”

  Thomas wished he hadn't asked.

  Georgiana pushed her plate away. “I thought he did rather well. He only sat out one dance, and apart from Miss Grey, you approved of his choices, didn't you?”

  “I suppose,” Thomas's mother conceded.

  Mr. Jones entered, holding a letter. “For you, my lady,” he said to Georgiana.

  “But it's Sunday,” Thomas's mother protested. “There's no post on Sundays.”

  “A boy delivered it last night, late,” the butler said.

  “Perhaps you have another admirer?”

  “I don't think so.” Georgiana took it and cracked the seal. She glanced through the contents and looked up at Thomas. “It seems your bird has flown,” she said.

  Thomas set down his fork. “What bird?” he asked.

  Georgiana just looked at him.

  He stood up and crossed over to her chair.

  “Shall I read it?” Georgiana said, keeping it just out of his sight.

  “Yes, do,” Thomas said.

  “And do sit down,” his mother said. “You seem to have lost some polish, after all.”

  Thomas went back to his place. Georgiana cleared her throat.

  “'My friend,' she writes, 'by the time you read this, I will be on my way to my new home, Lindley Hall.'”

  “Lindley Hall?” Thomas's mother interrupted. “That's only ten miles from Lawton. What on earth is she doing there?”

  “I believe she's inherited it,” Georgiana said. “From her grandmother.”

  “Oh dear.” Thomas's mother wiped her mouth with her napkin. “I was told that a widow had it. She kept to herself mostly. As you would if...”

  “If you were a notorious courtesan,” Thomas remarked, affecting boredom.

  Just then, Lady Caroline entered, her belly swelling under her skirts.

  “Dear, go and rest!” Thomas's mother ordered, practically shooing her away.

  “I'm sorry if I've interrupted,” Lady Caroline apologized, “but I find I'm hungry again.”

  “You may continue reading later,” Thomas's mother told Georgiana.

  “I may continue reading now,” Georgiana said, casting a conspiratorial glance at Caroline. She went on: “'I am quite anxious to get to know the place my grandmother left for me, and would value your advice on matters of the estate, as well as how to go about finding staff for the school, should the place prove suitable. I look forward to corresponding further, even though I must regrettably leave London sooner than I originally planned.'” Georgiana took a deep breath. “And she signed it; with no word to you, Cousin.”

  Lady Caroline stood beside her chair while the footman hovered at her shoulder.

  Thomas's mother frowned. “Well, I should think the lady wouldn't be so brazen as to mention her ambitions,” she said, eying her son disapprovingly, “or that you would be so foolish as to be taken in by her coy scheming.”
<
br />   Thomas pushed his chair away. “She is not scheming. I believe all this business of the duchy quite turns her stomach. As it does mine. Good day.”

  He stormed out, only noticing that Lady Caroline looked at him with what could only be called benevolence. Jones opened the door to speed his departure.

  #

  As they rolled on through the afternoon, the sun broke through the clouds. Hyacinth, having dozed through the morning, was no longer sleepy, though her feet still ached. The interior of the coach grew stuffy. They crossed rolling farmland, brown and barren with winter, then wound into low, wooded hills. Hyacinth gazed out the windows at the unfamiliar sights. She'd lived all her life in towns and had scarcely seen any woodlands, apart from that one summer on the Earl Talbot's carefully groomed estate. The tangle of trees and underbrush fascinated her. A squirrel ran up a branch, and a robin peered at them from its bough.

  “Close the curtains, will you?” grumbled the old man.

  Hyacinth sighed. She found it sad that her fellow passenger had no interest in the wilderness, but she closed the curtain, not wanting to argue. The coach grew even stuffier. She tried to close her eyes, but with the sunlight peeking through the windows, she couldn't rest. Finally, noticing that the man beside her had begun to doze, she peeked out of the curtains again...

  Only to see a man on a horse staring at her from the underbrush.

  She screeched.

  Outside, a pistol cracked. The coach driver yelled, urging the horses on, but on the upward slope the single rider on his horse caught up with them easily.

  “Is it a highwayman?” Maria said.

  “'Course it is, stupid girl!” the red-cheeked woman tucked her bag further under her skirts, while the other passengers fussed with buckles and purses. The rough-looking man pulled out a wicked knife, longer than an honest man would want. The old man woke and muttered a curse. Maria pushed the rosary beads through her fingers, praying audibly.

  The coach halted.

  “Stand and deliver,” the highwayman said.

  “There's only one of you,” said the driver, “and more of us.”

  From inside, they could hear him fumbling with the catch on the box by his seat. The highwayman fired again. The sound of fumbling stopped, and for a moment, all was silent.

  “Very well,” the driver said, “have it your way.”

  The horses shifted in their traces, glad of a rest. The highwayman whistled. A thin young man, bearing a musket of his own, took aim at the driver while the highwayman himself opened the door and trained his pistol on the passengers. He stared at Hyacinth directly for a moment, then quickly looked away.

  “Hands where I can see them,” he snarled. He trained his gun on the passenger opposite Hyacinth and Maria.

  “Where's your purse, man?” he said. “Empty it in here, and no one gets a bullet.”

  The passenger fumbled at his belt and tossed a few coins into the highwayman's sack. He repeated that with the next passenger, and so on down the bench, checking to see that each one's purse or pocket was truly empty. When he came to the last passenger on the bench, the rough man with the long knife, he realized that he could not reach him by simply leaning in through the door, as he was doing. He skipped across the aisle instead. Perhaps he thought the rough-looking man was too poor to trouble with?

  There was something odd about the highwayman, Hyacinth thought, as she followed along, placing her hands on her head. He was looking at her in particular from behind his mask. His ungloved hands were smooth, with fresh blisters on his trigger finger. They shook a little.

  He didn't even look at the larger bags. In fact, Hyacinth noticed, he didn't pay much attention to what was falling out of the various purses and reticules until he came to her. Then, as the elaborate silk package slid away into the musty darkness of his sack, Hyacinth thought his eyes smiled.

  The highwayman didn't demand Maria's purse, either, as if he knew that she was a maid. He ducked back out of the coach and latched the door behind him, locking the passengers in. He whistled to his young helper and swung up onto his horse. Hyacinth squinted out through the crack in the window. It seemed as if they were riding away in the general direction of the last town they'd passed through – along the road to London. The city would swallow them whole, no doubt, and they'd escape with their loot. Chief of which was her grandmother's necklace.

  Maria squeezed her hand. “I'm so sorry.”

  Hyacinth realized that she was crying.

  “There, there, dearie,” said the red-cheeked woman. “You'll be all right. It's only a bit of blunt.”

  Hyacinth shook her head. “It was my grandmother's necklace,” she said.

  “Sentimental,” scoffed the old man beside her. “Your grandmother'd be right glad you got past a highwayman with your virtue.”

  Hyacinth nodded. There was something remarkable about that necklace, beyond the obvious value of its gems. She didn't know what it was, but there was something in the way people had looked at it in that ballroom which made her wonder even more. At least she was alive, and well, and on her way to her new home, so that was something to be grateful for. She spared herself a sniffle and dried her eyes. Above them, outside, the coach driver regained his pistol and reloaded. He fired after the robbers, but they were too far by then, and the shot was lost among the trees.

  He climbed down from his seat and released the passengers.

  “Is everyone all right in there?”

  Hyacinth felt like crying.

  “He only took a few bits and coins off me,” said one passenger.

  “Didn't come near me,” boasted the rough-looking man, “but he did take a necklace off that young miss,” he pointed to Hyacinth. “She's sniveling.”

  “Shush, you!” said the red-cheeked woman.

  “Very well then,” the driver said. “Off we go!”

  #

  At the next town, they reported the incident to the local magistrate.

  “And what was taken, Miss?” the magistrate asked her.

  “A necklace,” Hyacinth said, “and a few coins.”

  “Just that? No notes?”

  “No,” Hyacinth said. “We'd been warned that there might be highwaymen about, so I'd tucked those into my boots.”

  “Well done,” said the magistrate. “And the value of the necklace?”

  Hyacinth hesitated. “I don't know. Priceless, maybe. It had a very large sapphire, on a gold chain.”

  “Probably paste,” the magistrate mumbled. “Shall we say ten pound, then?”

  “More, I should think,” Hyacinth said.

  “Twenty it is, then, and a few pence in coin,” he totaled the sum of his estimate in a column next to her name and called the next passenger forward.

  Hyacinth walked back to the coach, and though they came to their night's resting place well after sundown, the rest of the day passed without incident. They rode with that coach for one more day, then turned off to another road the following morning, creaking towards Lindley Hall on the local mail coach.

  #

  Thomas filled his days with activities his family approved of, for the most part. He rode Polaris in the park, visited Nathan's club – now his own club, too – and allowed his mother and cousin to introduce him to a number of eligible young ladies. He also continued to unpack his trunks from India, visited his bank, and in general considered his options for continuing in trade, at least in some small way. Lawton, while not immense, would require his presence several months of the year, and even if his father lived another twenty years, it would behoove him to see that it was well looked-after in the meantime, since his mother had warned him that all was not well.

  On Wednesday morning, his mother greeted him cheerily.

  “We're to visit that Miss Bennett again,” she said, “and a few more acquaintances of mine, some of whom have rather beautiful daughters. Won't you join us?”

  Thomas's stomach sank. “You know, I think I really ought to go visit Father,” he s
aid. “See how bad things are at Lawton.”

  His mother frowned, her powdered face crinkling a little around the lips. “I don't know that he'll be back at Lawton yet.”

  “I can go on to Windcastle, if needed,” Thomas said.

  “You're not going today, are you?” Lady Caroline burst in. Now that she'd recovered from her long journey to London, she was beginning to look nearly vigorous. In only a few days, her pale face had rounded out and acquired a healthy blush, and her belly swelled visibly.

  Thomas considered. “No, I'll need to see to a few things here and there. Tomorrow or the next day, I should think, but I won't have the time to go visiting with you, Mother.”

  She nodded. “You certainly should go see the estate,” she said. “The coach is in fine condition, and you'll want our best conveyance on that dreadful road.”

  The thought of being confined to a coach for five or six days turned Thomas's stomach. It would be worse than the Whistler. Besides, it would leave Polaris in the ignoble position of being trailed behind the pulling team. He had no intention of leaving his new horse in London.

  “Don't bother,” Thomas said. “I'll ride Polaris.”

  “Ride?” Lady Caroline gasped. “All the way to Lawton?”

  His mother merely frowned.

  “Why not?” Thomas said. “I'll travel faster. I'm as good a shot as any, and I don't need to carry anything that would interest a highwayman. Besides, I'll see more of the country that way. I've been a long time away.”

  His mother inhaled deeply. “If you insist,” she said, “but at least bring a groom or two, and your valet, if he can ride.” His mother did not entirely share Jones's good opinion of the valet. She thought him flighty.

  “I will consider your advice,” he said evenly. “And now, I must go settle a few matters and have my valet pack my bags.”

  Thomas left them there with their meal. His mother wouldn't be able to insist on the coach, especially when she might well want it herself, and Lady Caroline would need it far more than he would. He called for his coat and walked over to the club to read the morning papers.