The Golden Season

by Brockway, Connie

  “You see, people had begun asking uncomfortable questions about my banking practices, in spite of the fact that my initial investors had made a tidy sum. In fact, they all recommended me to their friends.” He sounded pleased, even flattered. “Alas, subsequent investors were not so fortunate. If only they had given me more time to convince a third wave of investors to subsidize me, I could have gone on for some time. But they wouldn’t and so, well, my demise was best for all.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Lydia bit out the words.

  “Because I want you to understand why you are going to pay me fifty thousand pounds.”

  “What?”

  “I recently returned to England after a . . . misfortune abroad. Alas, imagine my disappointment when I realized that my former clients have long memories. I’m very much afraid I have already been recognized. In spite of my new name.”

  He sighed at the unfairness of it, then continued. “Lately, I have been thinking how well my old investment strategies worked and that it is high time I founded a new bank in a new country, where I will not be recognized. But these things need seed money and that’s what you shall provide.”

  “No.”

  He ignored her as if she hadn’t spoken. “I have already booked passage on a ship leaving Portsmouth tomorrow evening. I intend to be on board with the fifty thousand pounds you will secure for me by four o’clock tomorrow afternoon. A draft from the Bank of England will do.”

  “You must be mad.” She’d had enough of Bernie Cod. She turned to ring for the footman. The only one left. He was a strapping lad and she would take great delight in giving him instruction to bodily remove this filth.

  “I wouldn’t be so hasty, if I were you,” Cod said, his voice growing dark.

  His tone was such that Lydia hesitated despite herself.

  “I believe you are forgetting about my wife. She is still my wife, you know, my legal responsibility. I must say, I was quite amazed to discover that you’d adopted her as your pet.”

  “Emily is not a pet. She is my companion,” Lydia said, but her hand did not tug the bellpull.

  “How gratifying to hear how fond you are of her. Otherwise, I would be forced to commit her again. This time to Bedlam.”

  “Emily stays with me,” Lydia snapped, but alarm had begun to build inside of her.

  “As long as I allow it,” he agreed. “And I shan’t allow it unless you get me that money.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “But I can.” He did not sound angry, merely impatient.

  “I shall tell everyone who you are. You will end in debtor’s prison,” Lydia declared.

  “You know,” Cod mused, “I anticipated this reaction, but I still cannot help but be disappointed. I heard you were intelligent.”

  She did not reply, only stood rigid, caught between horror and fury.

  “Pray, think, ma’am. My legal problems have no effect on my rights as Emily’s husband. I can still have her committed.” At her continued silence, he went on. “The ton is filled with stories of Emily’s bizarre and uncontrolled light-fingered way. I’ve asked around. She’s quite notorious. No one is going to oppose her commitment. If you send for the authorities, I may end up in jail, but so will Emily. Of a different sort.”

  “You cannot be so evil.”

  “I am not evil. I am a businessman. This is a simple transaction and one where you get as good as I.” He sounded so practical, so reasonable. “You give me the money and I leave. And lest you think I will only impose on you again at some future date, consider this. I would be a fool to risk my freedom by returning to England now that I realize how long my enemies will hold a grudge. I am no fool and I can hardly commit dear Emily from halfway across the world.”

  Lydia stared at the man, trying to sort out what to do, how to alleviate the threat posed by this man. Ned was gone and she’d awoken to a nightmare. “I don’t have the money,” she said hoarsely.

  “Now that is even more than disappointing and it only raises my ire, indeed it does.” All traces of feigned equanimity evaporated from his voice. Lydia shivered. “How stupid do you think I am? You are one of the wealthiest women in the ton. Now listen to me, Lady Lydia.” His voice grew thick. “I need that money. I owe money to people besides the ones here in England. People from other countries. Countries with barbarous practices, if you take my meaning. And these chaps have far worse punishments for those they catch up with than prison. Indeed, I’d sooner take my chances in an English prison than encounter one of them without having the wherewithal to pay them off. Do I make myself clear?’

  “Yes. But I am telling you, my fortune is gone. All of it.”

  Cod snickered. “Gammon me another, Lady Lydia. I saw the jeweled gown you wore at that masquerade ball, the gold mask, the gems in your hair. The ton is talking of nothing else. And I know it was you. I saw you. I was at the gate when you and Emily drove out.”

  “It is window-dressing.” Lydia’s voice rose in desperation. “I spent everything on making myself unforgettable. In order to . . .”

  She faltered. She had been so careful not to let the news of her impoverishment leak. Her friends and Terwilliger had been the souls of discretion. But if she had to lay her pride on the floor before this monster, she would. “It was all a ploy to make myself irresistible to a certain sort of man, a rich man, so he would offer for me.”

  Cod looked up at that and Lydia held her breath, praying that Cod would believe her. But he wasn’t listening.

  “Right, then.” With a grunt, he rose to his feet, dusting off his hat. “Have Emily make sure her bags are packed. On the other hand, there’s really no need. They only take away everything they bring with them.”

  “No!” Lydia cried out. She could not risk having Emily sent back to an asylum. It would kill her. And she knew Cod would do it, even if it meant staying in England and going to prison himself. He said he’d rather be in an English prison than meet the men he owed without the wherewithal to pay his debts to them. “No, wait. I can’t promise you anything, but I’ll try.”

  “That’s all we can ask in life, isn’t it, Lady Lydia? That we try and be prepared for the consequences if we fail.” His tone was once more smooth and conciliatory. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a scrap of paper with writing on it. “Meet me here tomorrow by four o’clock.”

  She stared at his hand, unable to bring herself to draw nearer to him. He understood and it amused him. With a snicker, he dropped the paper to the floor. He tipped his head and donned his hat. “Tomorrow, then.”

  As soon as the door closed behind him, Lydia sank down to the chair. She bent over and picked up the paper, noting an address down near the docks.

  Four o’clock tomorrow.

  She didn’t even consider trusting to the courts to sort out if Emily Cod was mad and who would determine her future. Because she already knew. Husbands, even criminal ones, held their wives’ and children’s welfare hostage in the palm of their hand, or center of their fist, to be sheltered or crushed as they wanted.

  Yes, there were laws to protect a woman from being physically broken too badly, but her person, her property, and in most ways her freedom, were her husband’s to do with as he saw fit. He could take her children, as had Sarah’s, or her money. He could abandon her, exile her, or commit her to an asylum with little cause.

  The worst of it was that Cod knew he held the trump card; Emily’s peculiarities provided more than enough reason to have her committed. In truth, there was enough evidence against her to have her arrested, convicted, and even transported should someone bring suit. The law could send a boy to Australia for lifting a handkerchief. It could certainly do as much to a woman known to pilfer regularly. Of course, as long as Emily was with Lydia, she’d been safe. No one would gainsay Lady Lydia Eastlake.

  She leaned forward, her forehead falling into her hand, and closed her eyes, trying to think through this horror.

  Ned.

  She could
send for Ned.

  But the rush of comfort thought of him inspired evaporated before grim realities. What good could Ned do?

  He had no more money than she and far less chance of finding it in so short a time. Even if she could get a message to him at Josten Hall and he could return by four o’clock tomorrow afternoon—and she did not know how that would be humanly possible—nothing he could do would alter the situation shy of his killing Cod. And he would.

  He would challenge him to a duel and if Cod refused, he would kill him outright. Then he would stand trial for killing Cod. And if Cod did accept, Ned could be hurt or even killed himself. She would not sacrifice Ned to save Emily. She couldn’t.

  She considered taking Emily and running away, but what good would that do other than buy some time? As long as Cod was in England, in jail or not, Emily could be wrenched from her and sent to Bedlam.

  She had friends, powerful friends that she knew she might convince to take up Emily’s cause should she be committed. But the laws that deeded a man rights over his wife were ones most men would not like trifling with. The effects of bringing a successful suit against Cod and his rights to determine Emily’s fate would have long-ranging effects that she was not certain her friends would want to see come to pass. Even if she did convince them, there was no saying they would be successful. And in the meantime, Emily would languish in Bedlam. The thought of that place, the horror stories told about the treatment of the inmates there, made her shake.

  Fifty thousand pounds was an immense sum of money. Almost impossible to come up with in so short a time. But there was one man she knew who could do so.

  She knew what she must do; she must ask Childe Smyth to loan her the money. She also knew that there was scant chance he would make such a loan knowing she had no way to repay it. Childe had proved himself a pragmatist above all.

  She drew a shaky breath. She had one thing Childe might consider taking in payment: her hand in marriage. And that meant giving up Ned. She closed her eyes briefly and a tear leaked out the corner and trickled down her cheek. What else could she do? She had not been the friend she should have been to Sarah. She could not do the same to Emily. Perhaps a month or two ago she would have railed and cried but ultimately failed to make such a sacrifice for Emily. But she was not that person anymore. She had changed. Ned had reawakened her deepest sense of honor and commitment.

  She would never be able to live with herself if she did. She would know for a fact that all she amounted to was a pretty, hollow shell without substance or loyalty or compassion. Ned would hate such a mannequin. She would hate such a mannequin. She was better than that.

  She stood up and walked to her small writing desk and, without sitting down, picked up a pen and hastily wrote a few terse lines. She tugged the bellpull and while she waited sealed the note. When the maid entered, she said, “I want this message delivered to Mr. Childe Smyth at once. Have the boy await a reply.”

  Emily Cod heard Lydia’s command and knew at once that Lydia was seeking from Mr. Smyth the means to ransom her. The older woman knotted her hands together fretfully, wondering what to do. Lydia might ask for a loan, but Emily knew Childe Smyth and his situation. He would demand something in return: Lydia’s hand in marriage. And Lydia would agree.

  If Lydia didn’t, Cod would send Emily to the asylum. He was vicious enough to do so. He’d been vicious enough to push her down the stairs when she was pregnant because he didn’t want to provide for “her brat.”

  She didn’t want to go to Bedlam. The thought of such a place, endless mutter of the mad, the stench of incontinence, the howling and giggling, but worse, the vacant eyes of those who had entered there not mad, but over time had retreated deep within, never to be recalled again. No. She couldn’t.

  She thought of all the things she had said to Eleanor to convince her that Lydia ought to marry Captain Lockton. But that was yesterday, before Cod. Now . . .

  Would it be so bad, after all, if Lydia married Childe Smyth?

  They could all settle back into their regular routine, just like Eleanor had been saying. Life could go on much as it had since Lydia had taken her out of Brislington. They could discuss what Lydia would wear to such and such a party, the latest on dit, which operas would win acclaim and which would fail. They could go to the lending library and art museums and shopping arcades. They would plan where to travel during the off season and whose great estate they would visit for hunting season.

  Their lives would once again conform to Society’s predictable, opulent rhythms.

  And Lydia would be miserable.

  Because she loved Captain Lockton.

  Emily moved sightlessly up the stairs to her apartments. It was a beautiful room, handsomely decorated and comfortably furnished. Her wardrobe contained a dozen dresses and several gowns. A pearl broach lay nested in an ivory-inlaid ebon box. Both had been gifts from Lydia.

  She sat down on the rose-colored satin armchair. Even had Cod not reappeared, Emily’s future looked grim if Lydia married Captain Lockton. There might not be room in their much smaller household for a companion. Terwilliger had even said as much. Left to her own devices, Emily doubted she would fare very well.

  Lydia had always protected her from the consequences of her petty thievery. True, she’d gained some control over her addiction, but that was only evidence of her contentment. With anxiety, the compulsion grew. Without the safe harbor Lydia provided, she would falter on rocky shores. There was no doubt about it, Emily’s interests were best served if Lydia married Childe Smyth. So were Eleanor’s. So too even Lydia’s.

  No, she doubted she could be self-sacrificing enough to try to talk Lydia out of her plan to accept Mr. Smyth’s proposal. She had already been forced to sacrifice so much in her life: her dreams, her freedom, her child, her sanity . . .

  Emily buried her face in her hands and wept.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  The trip to Josten Hall had taken Ned sixteen hours by mail coach. While not nearly so hard on his leg as riding astride, the old wound had begun to ache. He’d arrived to discover that Nadine and Beatrice were in Brighton with Mary and Josten was in Portsmouth and not due to arrive until evening. He’d hobbled to his room, there to bathe and change and await his brother. Josten would doubtless rage and roar, he did it well, but in the end Ned did not think marrying Lydia would cause an irreparable break with his family.

  Since Josten had been a young man, the weight of inheriting the monstrous, ever-ravenous organism known as Josten Hall had been heavy on his shoulders. He hadn’t had a clue how to go about managing the estate, so, lacking guidance, he’d spent his first few years as earl emulating his high-born friends, indulging himself and everyone around him with gifts and presents and toys and in between throwing impressively loud parties.

  It was all for show. Josten was a monumentally tenderhearted and sentimental man. Not overly bright, but a born romantic. Which is why he had married Nadine, with whom he had fallen madly and forever in love after one short dance—as, luckily, she had with him—and retired with all haste to the countryside, where the new earl wouldn’t have to put on a worldly facade for people he did not really know and in whose company, if truth be told, he felt rather shy. It would be no great sacrifice for either Nadine or him to live modestly. Or Beatrice, either.

  But Josten would not like losing Josten Hall, the Lockton ancestral manor. Josten would feel he had failed in his tenure as custodian of the place.

  As the hours dragged on, Ned filled them with thoughts of Lydia, remembering her arms stretching up to him, her eyes sparkling with vivid lilac lights, and her smile filling him with the sense of homecoming that Josten Hall no longer could. His heart had been breached, the vessel confiscated, and it was now occupied by a beautiful pirate. It would never belong to another.

  He walked through the house gardens to the cliff overlooking the North Sea and finally turned around to study the great old house, no longer seeing it through the eyes of a wounded man seeking
sanctuary, a still point in a world that had cruelly changed.

  Instead, he now saw so clearly that coming back here and trying to convince himself that things could return to the way they were when he was a lad had never been a feasible goal. There were no still points. Situations changed, children grew, and time traveled on and he would, too, and gladly, because he would be making the journey with Lydia. And all he wished now was to return to her side.

  He made his way back to the house and from there to the library and waited impatiently, watching the clock. The dinner hour rang, then nine, and finally ten o’clock before he heard Josten’s booming voice from outside the window on the front drive. “Ned’s here? Where is he?”

  Ned went into the hall to meet him. A few seconds later, Josten strode into the library looking magnificent and lordly, his air of ownership and noblesse oblige never more pronounced. An Irish wolfhound trotted in at his side. The footman started and snapped rigidly to attention, though Josten barely glanced at him.

  Why, Ned thought with weary amusement, even footmen held themselves to a higher standard in Josten’s presence. He really did have being an earl down to an art.

  “Good God, Ned,” Josten said when he saw him, “you look fagged to death, mi’lad. What the devil have you been doing? You haven’t taken up Will and Harry’s nasty habits, have you?” he asked suspiciously.

  “No, sir. I have come with news that I am afraid will disappoint you.”

  At this, Josten, who’d bent over to scratch the head of the great Irish wolfhound, glanced up. Reading the solemnity on Ned’s face, he sighed. “Must you?”

  “Yes, I am afraid I must.”

  “Very well, then. Into the library. You may leave us,” Josten told the footman. He strode ahead of Ned into the nearby room and flopped down in a leather armchair, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He stared broodingly at his boot tips. “Is it Harry? Have you set him up with the press gangs?”

  “What?” Ned asked, startled. “Good God, no.”