Most Eagerly Yours

by Allison Chase

  Judging by the reciprocal delight in Lady Fairmont’s eyes, the two of them shared something rather more en privé than a casual acquaintance.

  Laurel ignored yet another assault on her foot as she pondered the nature of their connection. Together they negotiated the crowded dance floor without ever missing a step. They seemed . . . how had he termed it on the terrace?

  Well synchronized.

  A scandalous notion lashed Laurel’s nerve endings. Could Lord Barensforth and Lady Fairmont be lovers?

  Like the blast of a summer wind, envy roared through her, leaving her feeling scorched and not a little bewildered. She was here to do a job, and it should not have mattered one bit what Lord Barensforth or Lady Fairmont did, or with whom they did it.

  Shame followed swiftly on the heels of her speculation. The countess had shown Laurel nothing but kindness in taking her under her wing. She did not deserve to be so cruelly judged. Mercifully, the music ended and Laurel wasted no time in curtsying to George Fitzclarence.

  “Thank you, Lord Munster. I believe I shall return to your sister now.”

  “Surely not, Mrs. Sanderson. A charming m-minuet is next. You cannot mean to m-miss it.”

  “I am afraid I mean to very much. I confess I find myself growing exceedingly weary.” An understatement, for her toes ached, her head throbbed . . . and . . . as she watched the Earl of Barensforth prepare to dance again with Lady Fairmont, another, more reprehensible thought occurred to her.

  Could Lord Barensforth be after the countess for her fortune?

  “Ah, but my dear Mrs. Sanderson, may I p- point out that my sister herself is presently engaged on this very dance floor. J-just there.”

  He pointed across the way to where a laughing Lady Devonlea waited for the recommencement of the music. At her side stood a robust- looking young gentleman who could not have been more than twenty-five years old.

  Humph. Perhaps the pairing of older women with younger men on the dance floor was an accepted break from tradition here in Bath. She should not have found that so refreshingly, vigorously reassuring. But she did.

  The musicians played the first notes of the minuet, setting those on the dance floor into graceful motion. A kind of sigh went through the room, a stirring of romantic nostalgia evoked by the archaic dance.

  The Earl of Munster stood before her, his hands outstretched. “Dance again, Mrs. Sanderson, d-do. I should s-so enjoy it.”

  Laurel’s reluctance died on her lips. Behind the man’s bloodshot eyes, a ghost of desperation pleaded for her acquiescence. A tentative twitch of his lips promised the first genuine smile she had yet seen from him. Suddenly the egotistical rogue Victoria had described seemed . . .

  Vulnerable. Uncertain. Heaven help her . . . sweet?

  Despite the music and the surrounding voices, a deafening silence echoed through Laurel as she contemplated the man before her. Could such ingenuousness exist in an unruly, unprincipled king’s son bent on damaging his cousin’s position as monarch? Laurel had arrived in Bath with convictions set in black and white, only to find herself awash in myriad shades of gray when it came to the earls of both Munster and Barensforth.

  Compelled by the former’s quiet appeal, she returned her hand to his and was startled by the triumphant gratitude that lit up his face.

  Which left her not only puzzled but also uneasy about this task Victoria had set her. While the prospect of deceiving a villain did not particularly compromise her scruples, how to proceed if her quarry was less to be reviled and more to be pitied?

  Early the next morning, Aidan made his way slowly across the gentlemen’s dressing rooms at the Cross Bath, examining each private cubby and scrutinizing every inch of the tiled floor, cupboards, and benches.

  He had been standing outside the Bath Street entrance before sunup, waiting for the first attendant to arrive. Initially the man had balked at letting him in, protesting that the facility did not open to the public for another hour and that there were towels to be folded, floors to be swept, refreshments to prepare, etc. Aidan didn’t know if it was the silver he’d pressed into the man’s hand or his disgruntled explanations that had silenced his objections.

  “My physician insisted I come here,” Aidan had griped to the man. “Claimed it would cure this bloody stabbing pain in my lower leg.”

  “That it should, sir, if you’ll only be good enough to return at six o’clock.”

  “No, I must see the place now, before anyone else arrives. I tell you, I am an unqualified stickler for cleanliness and order. I must know the place is properly run and maintained before I dare trust my health to the vagaries of indeterminate conditions. . . .”

  Aidan had tossed his hands and ranted about scampering vermin and hidden filth. The attendant, grown red-faced with alarm, had thrown desperate glances up and down the deserted street and hastened to reassure him.

  “Please, sir, do come in and look about all you like.”

  Inside, Aidan searched for signs of a struggle: scuff marks across the floor, scratches on the cupboard doors, threads or bits of torn clothing on the corners of the benches. He followed the narrow corridor from the dressing rooms out to the high-walled courtyard that housed the thermal pool where Roger Babcock’s body had been found floating.

  Steam curled from the surface of the water. The braziers not yet having been lit, the air held a brisk March snap mixed with a humidity that pressed like a weight on his lungs. In the weak light of a struggling sun, he made a slow circuit of the pool’s edge, crouching at intervals to judge the condition of the railings and steps. He examined the coping for loose tiles. Once, he heard a noise and peered over his shoulder to discover the attendant hovering in the arched doorway.

  “By God, is this mold I see growing here?” Aidan exclaimed, as if he hadn’t noticed the man and were merely expressing his indignation out loud.

  He continued his investigation to the accompaniment of rapidly retreating footsteps. Nowhere did he detect any signs of Roger Babcock having been murdered. Yes, the MP had been found floating, but there appeared to be no evidence to support the Home Office’s theory of his having been attacked and forced into the water.

  So how might he have died? Wescott claimed Babcock hadn’t been ill, didn’t owe substantial sums of money, and was not the object of anyone’s animosity. Yet as Aidan had clearly witnessed last night, that third assertion didn’t wash. Not that he could envision the aging, infirm Marquess of Harcourt doing anyone in, but his lordship’s show of enmity at the Assembly Rooms did suggest that Babcock had enemies, and perhaps a few skeletons rattling around in his closet.

  On his way out, Aidan cornered the attendant in the office. “I understand a man passed away here only a few days ago.”

  “I swear, sir, the bath was drained and scrubbed. We—”

  Aidan cut him off. “Any idea on how he died?”

  The man’s sandy brows went up in a show of innocence. “The magistrate called it an accident, sir.”

  “But what would you call it?”

  Backing up against the desk, the attendant stammered, “I . . . we . . . ah . . . call it, sir? I’d call it most unfortunate. Will you be bathing, then, sir?”

  “I shall have to think about it,” Aidan replied. Ignoring the attendant’s fallen expression, he headed outside and went briskly on his way. He was to meet Fitz at the Pump Room later, where he would have his first glimpse—and perhaps taste—of the so-called magical elixir.

  Chapter 7

  Laurel danced, whirling through the room with newfound confidence. Handsome and steady and elegant, her partner never once trod on her toes. In his capable hands, her fears of appearing clumsy and foolish melted away, leaving her with an exhilarating sense of freedom, of being one with the music. One with him.

  But as he twirled her gracefully, a wisp of smoke tickled her nose. Her partner’s hands fell away, replaced by a pair of wizened ones that grabbed her as flames leaped up all around. She was no longer the grown-up Laurel b
ut a small child grown numb with fear.

  Blinding and suffocating, the smoke billowed. The gnarled hands shoved her through a doorway. From somewhere within the crackling flames she heard baby Willow crying, trapped in her crib, shrieking for someone to come.

  “Don’t be afraid, little one,” a woman’s voice rasped in her ear. “Close your eyes. You will be safe.”

  “My sisters—”

  “Will be safe as well, I swear it. Come quickly!”

  A blast rocked the floor beneath Laurel s feet. She fell hard to her knees, but was lifted up just as quickly. A scream echoed from the hall below, filling her heart with fresh terror. A second blast seared her ears. At the top of the staircase, a tall figure draped in black appeared and moved toward her. . . .

  A yank on her arm started her running through the smoke. Flames singed her cheeks and hair while the scorching vapors clawed her throat raw. Her eyes stung with tears as she ran through a dark and frightening place, the roar of the flames distant now but no less terrifying.

  The smell of dirt and dampness filling her nose, the darkness stretched before her like a never-ending grave. Narrow walls closed tight around her. Fear choked her as she imagined being buried alive under layers of earth. Mama and Papa would never find her here.

  Then she and the woman burst into the open air. The morning brightness was stark and startling, the rush of oxygen into her lungs painful in its freshness. She sank to her knees onto the grass, but was scooped up against a hard, male chest.

  Uncle Edward. His beard scratched a reassurance against her cheek. Another man Laurel didn’t recognize held Willow. The twins were there, too, clinging to Uncle Edward’s coattails, their faces stained by tears and blackened with soot. Without explanation the four of them were loaded into a waiting coach.

  The vehicle lurched into motion, the horses whipped to a frothing gallop. Beside her, the twins sobbed, calling out for Papa and Mama. Beside them, Laurel cried silently, somehow knowing that she would never see her parents again. . . .

  “Laurel! Laurel, wake up.”

  Her hands groping at the bed linens, Laurel’s eyes flew open. A cold wash of panic dappled her brow as her gaze darted about a room thankfully untouched by flames.

  It took her a moment to recognize her surroundings, to understand that she had awakened, not in the little bedchamber she shared with Willow atop their Readers’ Emporium in London, but in her comparatively spacious room at the charming Abbey Green lodging house in Bath’s Lower Town.

  “It’s all right, Laurel. You were having a nightmare.”

  She half expected to see the wrinkled features of the woman in her dream, but the attractive face framed by auburn curls and a plumed hat belonged to Lady Devonlea. She clutched Laurel’s shoulders just as the woman in her dream had, giving insistent little shakes to rouse her.

  Gradually the knocking of her heart subsided. With a calmer gaze she took in the cozy furnishings of her rented bedchamber. “How did you get in?”

  “The chambermaid remembered me from the other day and unlocked your door for me. And a good thing she did.” Beatrice released her but searched her face in obvious alarm. “That must have been one devil of a dream.”

  Yes, a devil of a dream, a horror, yet one in whose grasp she would willingly remain if it meant answering the endless questions it raised. She knew a fire had destroyed Peyton Manor, her childhood home in the Cotswold Hills, and taken the lives of her parents. From what Uncle Edward had explained, she understood that she and her governess had escaped through the service tunnel that linked the cellars to the carriage house.

  But what had caused the blasts she had heard?

  That question and others had dogged her for most of her life. Why had her governess vanished from Laurel’s and her sisters’ lives? Why hadn’t she entered into Uncle Edward’s employ and continued raising the girls at Thorn Grove? Did the woman continue to live somewhere in the Cotswolds?

  Uncle Edward had always been vague in his answers, and Laurel had never been satisfied with his assertion that the blasts had been the result of glass and masonry exploding from the fire’s intense heat. She had seen and heard something else that day, something she believed in her very bones explained the tragedy of her parents’ deaths, if she could only remember.

  The figure in a black cloak—had he been real or imagined, an intruder or merely a shadow cast by the flames?

  Beatrice perched on the edge of the bed and studied Laurel with a shrewd expression. “You have suffered this nightmare before.”

  “Since I was a child,” she admitted. “Our home in the Cotswolds caught fire. My parents died.” She had been six at the time, and in all the years since then, the dream had never varied. Until this morning. This time it had begun with Laurel safe and happy in Lord Barensforth’s arms.

  What did that mean? That even her erstwhile protector could not save her from danger? Or that he was no true protector at all, but someone she must take pains to shield herself from?

  With shaky fingers she combed the tousled hair from her face. “What time is it?”

  “Nearly half past ten.”

  “So late?” She pushed up onto her elbows. “I have slept away nearly the entire morning.”

  Laughing, Beatrice placed her hands on Laurel’s shoulders and eased her back onto the pillows. “How delightfully country bred you are, my dear! And here I was about to apologize for rousing you with the chickens.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, why are you here?”

  Beatrice laughed again. “To see if you might wish to accompany me to the Pump Room this morning.”

  Remembering the rancid taste of the famous Bath waters from when she had visited the Pump Room the other morning, Laurel wrinkled her nose. While others had hurried to fill their glasses in the interest of boosting their health, she had happily moved away from the foul-smelling fountain. “I hadn’t planned to. . . .”

  “Oh, do come. There is to be a special presentation. All of Bath’s most notable residents and visitors will be there, including Lady Fairmont and . . .” She gave a mischievous wink. “My brother will be there as well, and he is so hoping to see you again. It seems you made quite an impression on George last night.”

  “Did I?” Laurel pushed to a sitting position.

  “You know you did. He came by my place in Queen Square an hour ago and made me promise to procure you any way I might. Thus, being a good sister, here I am.”

  Laurel swung her legs over the side of the bed, letting her hair fall forward to veil her face. Victoria would be pleased with how quickly Laurel had insinuated herself into George Fitzclarence’s life. But her experience at the ball had left a bitter taste in her mouth when it came to her mission, and grave doubts about how to proceed.

  She had danced with Lord Munster several more times during the evening. Half into his cups and none too steady, he had held her uncomfortably close until she’d been forced to poke him repeatedly with her fan. He had trodden on her feet until her toes shrieked with pain.

  Once, he had gone so far as to suggest, in a whisper that had made her skin crawl, that she ride home with him in his carriage, though whether to his home or hers had remained a mystery, for he never clarified his intentions. She had handled the matter by turning it into a jest, as though she quite believed he had not just insulted her but had intended only to make her laugh.

  In truth, the affront she should have felt had been tempered by how quickly he had retreated from his impertinence and joined in her mirth, making her wonder if he had been joking after all. At that moment, indeed during all their moments together, terms like villain, scoundrel, and rabble-rouser had grown too grandiose for such a man. He had instead revealed himself as imprudent and biddable, as easily led astray as under other circumstances he might have been guided toward decency and respectability.

  Was it the Earl of Barensforth’s fault?

  She shoved her feet into her slippers, but before she stood, Lady Devonlea placed a ha
nd on her forearm. “You would be good for my brother, Mrs. Sanderson. A steadying influence. Dare I hope you might return his regard?”

  Startled by the question, Laurel hesitated. The truth would never do—that she found him piteous at best and repulsive at worst. But neither, she discovered, would her conscience allow her to make convenient use of another human being’s feelings. Not even for queen and country. Lines must be drawn and not crossed, or Laurel might find herself mired in dishonor.

  For the first time she found herself wishing that Ivy or Holly had accompanied her to Bath. As the eldest, she had always set the example for the others, had always espoused honesty and respect and simple good breeding. Now she discovered that old habits died hard. Ivy and Holly, while good girls both, had never held themselves to quite so rigid a code of conduct. When a situation called for it, they saw no harm in cheating.

  If ever a situation called for it, this one surely did. Still . . .

  “I am afraid, Lady Devonlea, that while I found your brother perfectly charming”—a small lie couldn’t hurt too much, could it?—“we are not well acquainted enough to know whether or not we would suit.”

  “Yes, but just the fact that you would attach the word charming to George says something, doesn’t it?” Springing up from the bed, the woman crossed the room and swung the wardrobe doors wide. “What shall you wear today? There is a bit of a chill. . . . Let me see. . . . Ah, this!” She drew out a periwinkle serge walking ensemble trimmed in braided black velvet.

  The maid brought in Laurel’s breakfast tray. Returning shortly after, she carried in a ewer of hot water and laid out a fresh chemise and petticoats. When she left, Beatrice laced Laurel into her corset, jerking on the ribbons with an enthusiasm that cut her breath short.

  “Perhaps you are uncertain of my brother because of all the other choices presented to you last night,” the viscountess teased. “Rather like a buffet, was it not?”

  Laurel peeked over her shoulder at the other woman. “While I would agree I experienced no shortage of partners, most happily quit my side after just one dance. I am afraid I did not live up to your generous assessment of my ballroom skills.”