Maiden Lane

by Lynne Connolly

  “Except to leave me alone.” Richard didn’t need volume to convey menace. He stood completely still, the hilt of the sword poised in his hand, ready to strike but currently resting the point on the floor. I had never feared for his son so much as now.

  Faces appeared in the open doorway, people murmured. Richard ignored them. “What could you possibly have to say to me?”

  “I’m your son. What do you think you should say?”

  Richard sighed. “I have no proof that you are my son. I’ve had affairs all my life, after I reached manhood, until I met and married Rose. I never heard of any offspring, and I fail to understand why anyone would not come forward to tell me of any. You have a resemblance to me physically, which you’ve chosen to enhance. You’ve shown me a badly forged document that could have been written yesterday. I have no interest in you, boy, because of your habits, your friends and your behaviour. Now get out of my servant’s way and allow him to hand my wife her robe.”

  One of the burly men who stood behind Richard made to step forward, but John put up his chin and held his ground. He had never looked his age to me before, but now he resembled nothing so much as a stricken youth, in the gangling stage of adolescence, with nothing to fall back on but his pride. And although I hadn’t known him then, I knew Richard had never looked like that. John had suffered adversity, but it had taught him nothing about justice, kindness or graciousness. Only how to get everything he could for himself and destroy anyone who got in his way.

  Richard held up a hand. “You will move when I want you to.” He glanced around the room and turned to Julia. He perused her from head to toe and back again. His lip curled. “At last, Julia, dressed as the slut you are.”

  She smiled as if he’d given her a compliment. “It didn’t take me long to discover my talent. It gets me what I want. Fairly soon, I’ll have it, and then you’ll be the first person I’ll destroy.” Julia put her hands on her hips and opened her legs, taking the step that spread her wide.

  Richard studied her, head slightly tilted to one side as if he were examining a sculpture or a piece of furniture. No desire clouded his gaze, and I felt no tension such as I did when he looked at me. Richard gave her a gentle smile. “Now I know how right I was to jilt you. You hold nothing for me, Julia. No mystery, no hidden depths. It’s all there, on display, for anyone to take, anyone with a mind to and a reckless sense of self-preservation. But I fear with this latest escapade you have gone too far. You and the boy there.”

  “He’s more man than you’ll ever be, at least in bed.”

  Richard arched a delicate brow. “Something you’ll never know for sure. You got that far with the boy? I thought you preferred to perform in public. As, I’m fully aware, you are doing now.”

  “Then why not close the door or lower your voice?” she sneered.

  “Because I have nothing to hide.” He paused. “I like to think I have better taste than that. Than you.”

  “We have you,” John put in. “I have you here. It’ll be all around London in the morning that you visited the Cytherean Club and took your wife home, having found her in a state of undress.”

  Richard turned such a look of astonishment on to him that it took John aback. His eyes widened and he drew a quick breath.

  “Can it be,” my husband said, in gentle words that held threat behind every one, “you don’t yet realise the unevenness of your situation? I am Strang, the son and heir of Southwood. You are nothing, no one.”

  “One day I might be Strang.”

  “No, you will not. You have a dubious certificate and a certain resemblance. The law needs much more than that.”

  “I have your mother in my pocket.”

  Richard gave a short, humourless laugh. “She is using you for her own ends. When she’s done, she’ll drop you as if you never existed. You think you’re ruthless, that you work for yourself alone? That’s nothing compared to my mother. There’s nothing she won’t do to preserve the sanctity of the Southwood family. Child, if Rose bore a son and I committed a heinous crime, she’d dispose of me without a qualm. And I am indisputably her son. I have worked to build my own separate strengths, as has my brother, and we are still not free of her and her ambitions.” He paused and met his son’s eyes with deadly intent. “You don’t look a serpent in the eye and ask it not to bite you. You stand clear and hold a big stick.” He shifted the sword so that its tip scraped along the bare floorboards. “And you learn to keep one step ahead. You can do nothing, Kneller. I’ve tried to avoid this, but like Julia, you’ve gone too far. I will destroy you.”

  “No!” I clapped a hand to my mouth, but I did it too late and my involuntary protest echoed in the still room. My head throbbed with the effort to keep back what I wanted to say, to do. I would have done anything to spare him this, and I was still determined that he would not kill John.

  “You?” John turned his head and spat on the floor, only he caught my gown. I never wanted to see or touch it again. They could use it to clean the floors for all I cared. The thread of clear liquid hung sickeningly to the hem. I tore my gaze away. “You can’t do anything without bullies to support you. You owe me a duel. I challenged you last year. I’ll send my seconds.”

  “I told you before. I don’t fight with boys. That hasn’t changed.”

  I let out my breath in a silent sigh of relief.

  Richard let his gaze linger on John. “I don’t fight with someone so vastly my inferior either.” John could take that as he would, but I knew Richard didn’t mean social differences. A clever remark, because people would take it according to their own beliefs and knowledge of my husband.

  John slipped his hand into his breeches pocket and drew out a gleaming knife. I recognised it immediately. One of the knives my husband owned, made especially for him, the slim blade strong but flexible, the heft perfectly balanced for throwing or stabbing. And I knew where that knife had been. John opened the palm of his other hand, displaying the livid scar. He didn’t need to say anything.

  Richard regarded the hand. “Very clean. You were lucky not to lose the use of the hand.” He’d thrown with precision, but to pin the hand to the table, not to preserve its use.

  “I was. No thanks to you.”

  Richard shrugged and took his attention from John, back to Julia. “I will ruin you for this.”

  Her mouth twisted in a sneer. If she’d seen the way it appeared in a mirror, she’d probably stop doing it. Julia had a blonde, angelic beauty, dissipated by the signs of disease and overindulgence, signs that would increase in the future. “You can try. While I don’t have your title, I have the same money as you, and more.”

  “I doubt that, unless you mean ready cash. But I tire of you and your spineless husband. You’ve done enough, and now, Julia, you’ll stop.”

  She stepped forward, her hand raised to strike him as she had before with me. Richard let her think she would do it until the last moment, when in a blur of motion he lifted his hand and caught her wrist, the sound of flesh meeting flesh loud in the unnaturally quiet room. At the same time he moved to one side to avoid the knee she raised to catch him in the privates. He released her, pushing her away with the same movement, and dusted his hands off as if he’d touched something dirty.

  Julia turned on Steven, and Richard laughed, mockingly. “Don’t look for support there. You’ve done your best to emasculate him, so you have the creature you made.”

  Steven shrugged. “He’s right, in a way. I can’t think you’re worth damaging myself for, Julia. I don’t really care what you do, I’m leaving this club tonight for the last time.”

  Richard smiled. “It’s growing far too serious, isn’t it? And serious can be so tedious.”

  I heard the murmur behind him and I knew that particular bon mot would spread over the ballrooms of London. He’d killed Julia’s enterprise with a single sentence.

  Not that she realised it, not yet. She sauntered back to the sofa, stood over me again. I chose not to flinch away. �
�She has the makings of a very fine muff-diver.” She positioned her muff very close to my face, and I had to concentrate to combat my rising nausea. “Would you like to demonstrate for your husband? I’m sure he’d enjoy it.”

  “For God’s sake, Julia, the woman is ill. Leave her alone.” I wouldn’t have expected Steven to say that, but thinking back to his days as a curate in Devonshire, I imagined he might have found at least that amount of sympathy for his fellow man—or woman.

  Richard’s attention immediately went to me. Without taking his eyes off me he said to one of the bullies behind him, “Find a cloak to cover her ladyship. I’ve had enough of this hellhole, and I’m taking her home.”

  The man left.

  John saw this as his chance. The blur of shining metal drew my notice as it caught the light of the lamp but not as quickly as it caught Richard’s. With a flash of steel, he threw the knife in his hand. He hardly seemed to move, but the knife embedded in John’s arm proved that he had.

  Sound and movement erupted, as if everyone had let out a pent-up breath at the same time. Shocked exclamations blended with a smattering of ill-considered applause as word spread. Richard shrugged as if easing stiffness and walked away from the door as Julia screamed and headed towards the bed.

  Richard knelt by the sofa. “We’ll leave as soon as I can get that cloak around you.”

  I forced a smile but lost it when I saw his face turn murderous. I lay on my side facing him, concealing the bruise on my temple until I leaned back to look up at him. “No,” I said. “It was the ruffian who abducted me. Nobody here intended that.”

  “She’s right.” Steven had joined us rather than attend to his wife and her lover. “I will seek him out and ensure he’s punished.”

  “If I don’t mistake Julia, she’ll want to do that herself.” Richard spared Steven a glance. “You think to ingratiate yourself with me now? It won’t do any good, Drury. Leave.”

  The final word damned him, and Steven accepted the order and went to the door, returning with a fine garment of black wool lined in red satin. A touch dramatic for my taste, but clean, warm and untainted by this room. Richard tucked it carefully around me. “Are you quite well enough for me to lift you?”

  I didn’t nod, it would have hurt, but Richard placed a cool hand on my forehead. “You’re too warm. I’ll give you into Carier’s care when we return.”

  He turned around, the skirts of his coat shielding me from view. I closed my eyes and opened them hurriedly when the world swam and I feared nausea again. Staring at the brilliants and seed pearls incorporated in the design of twining ivy on his coat helped my head settle.

  “You’ve spoken to me,” he said to John. I listened, relieved to hear his voice more steady than before. “Never try to speak to me again. If I want to communicate with you, I will send for you. What you do from now on does not concern me. Touch my wife again, or have her touched, and I’ll kill you. Believe me, I don’t have to be alive to do that, so don’t consider killing me, either. My orders will be obeyed, whether I’m here to see them or not.” He’d progressed from not caring if he lived or died, to caring, because of me. I’d achieved something, then.

  “If I want to speak to you, I’ll approach you. If I want to hurt you, I will. Your vaunted position can’t stop that.” I’d expected nothing less of John. Defiance seemed to be his basic nature. He’d die shrieking “No!” to heaven.

  Richard didn’t bother to reply. He addressed Julia instead, blanking John as efficiently as if he’d already left the room, making his reply seem as petulant as a child stamping his foot.

  “Julia, this must stop, you know that. This club will close, and while I’d rather you stopped wasting your father’s money in this way, I know you’ll want to continue. So I intend to have something done about the matter. You’ll be hearing from me.”

  “I’m honoured.” Julia’s voice dripped acid.

  Richard turned and faced me. I caught a glimpse of his face, frighteningly icy, rigid with tension until a spark of warmth entered his eyes and he became less the man I met in Hareton Abbey and more the man I knew now.

  He bent and lifted me, and I tried very hard not to retch. Cradled next to his chest, I was tempted to close my eyes again, but I knew it would make my head spin, so I kept them open. The room was as still as a tableau, all eyes fixed on us. Several men I recognised from ballrooms and social events peered at me, but I stared back. They wanted a spectacle, they could have one.

  I leaned back just enough to allow my hair to fall away from the bruise, and more than one pair of eyes flicked to look at it, then at Richard’s set face, then back again, with horror. Most knew what this meant. A declaration of war couldn’t be more blatant.

  Chapter Twelve

  THE JOURNEY BACK TO the house became torture. Even held on Richard’s lap, with his body cradling me from the jolts and ruts in the road that seemed magnified by our usually comfortable carriage, I moaned and retched my way back. Richard didn’t put me down once, and when he glanced away to look out of the window, I thought I caught the glimmer of a tear in his eye. Not for John, though. He had no one to weep for him, unless his sister chose to, and from his recent treatment of her, I doubted that.

  Richard waited until the footman let the steps down. My husband carried me out of the carriage and into the house, straight up to my room. Nichols had already lowered the covers and Richard laid me on the clean sheets. I felt bereft when he let go of me, but I held back my whimper of protest. He stripped off his beautiful coat, flung it on to the nearest chair and stepped back to allow Carier to examine me.

  I appreciated the gentle way those work-worn hands touched me. Carier had long since lost the rough skin of the military man—he handled too many fine fabrics to allow that—but he had scars and a strength a valet didn’t usually possess. He demonstrated it now. Strong and sure, he probed my wound but didn’t linger over the process. Then he pronounced what I already knew. “Concussion, ma’am. You must rest for a few days, and I think it best for someone to stay with you tonight and wake you at regular intervals.”

  “Me,” Richard said. Who else?

  “Bed for a few days. May I touch your belly or would you prefer me to call a physician?”

  “Please, no physician, not unless I need one.”

  I was more than happy to allow Carier to open his hand over my shift-covered belly until the baby decided to move. It didn’t take long and the movement was small, but reassuring. “Any discharge, my lady?”

  I’d already checked, by the simple expedient of putting my hand there. “Nothing unusual.”

  Carier gently drew the sheet over me. “Then I think you’ll do, ma’am. I’m sure you’ll be well in the next day or two.”

  I caught a trace of concern in the deep-set eyes, but only what I’d expect when discovering concussion. They’d have to watch me carefully for a while, but I didn’t feel anything but that pounding headache, and that had abated a little.

  They left the room while Nichols washed me and helped me into a soft silk night rail. I didn’t always wear them, even in this condition. Richard kept me warm at night. In winter we indulged in a fire in our room rather than resort to heavy, constraining bedclothes. Our joy in each other had never diminished, although at my marriage I’d assumed it would do so, in time. Never had I felt more glad to be proved wrong.

  Richard returned, like me, dressed for bed. He turned around for me, showing off his pure white nightshirt, and smiled when I laughed, although I stopped abruptly when my head pounded.

  “Not a style you think I could promote, you think?”

  “Oh I don’t know about that.” When he stood between me and the candle on the night table, I could see the outline of his body, always worth it.

  He laughed and climbed into bed. Nichols had stacked pillows up behind me so I sat up. I’d managed some lemon-flavoured barley water but nothing else, so she’d taken the tray away. I didn’t want to lie down just yet, so Richard sat next to me a
nd took my hand. “I’ve set my watch to chime every hour. You’ll have to wake up when I ask. I’m sorry, my love.”

  I smiled and shook my head, wincing when my bruise contacted the soft pillow. Immediately he was there, arm around my shoulders, supporting me as he always did. I turned a little so my temple wouldn’t touch him and leaned gratefully into his arms.

  “My turn,” I said. I told him what had happened and who had touched me, and who hadn’t. “I’m sure she would have done, had you not arrived. I think Julia wanted me to join in the revels so that she had witnesses of it. To destroy you. John would have enjoyed that as well. But every time I moved, I felt ill. I was ill.”

  “You’ve used vomit as a weapon before.” He stroked a strand of hair away from my forehead, so gently I hardly felt it. “Remember?”

  I’d never forget, but neither would I allow him to dwell on that time. Tonight I’d been ill and annoyed, not terrified out of my mind. “Steven wouldn’t have allowed anything to happen to me.”

  “He’s your saviour now?” The bitterness in his tone wasn’t aimed at me.

  “He might have been tonight. He regrets the lengths Julia has gone to. He wants to stop it.”

  Richard grunted. “Then he should do it. He has the means.”

  Something occurred to me. “If someone tells him how to do it. He doesn’t have that kind of sense. He’ll bluster and bully when it suits him, but he’s not good at thinking things through.”

  “Probably why he’s trying to escape now.”

  “He wants an easy life. He doesn’t care for power games and control—he never did.”

  He stroked my temple, the unhurt one. The soothing gesture improved the pain. Nichols had wanted me to take something, but I refused. I couldn’t have laudanum, it would send me to sleep and they had to keep me awake. People suffering from a blow to the head had been known to slip into a deep sleep they never woke from. They wouldn’t risk that with me. I’d be lucky to get any sleep at all tonight.