“What happens next?” she asked instead.
“Mr. Pastor is lowering a dinghy now. You and your party will be rowed in and set off at the nearest steps. My crew and I must remain on board until customs finishes with us. Even with no goods aboard, that may require a week or more.”
Blu did not give a mouse dropping if the Duke languished forever in the center of the Thames. Bugger his silver eyes and beautiful mouth.
“Blusette—are you all right?” He examined her expression with curiosity and concern.
Because she would rather have lost a duel to a scab such as Mole than allow the Duke to glimpse her fear, and because anger was more comfortable than fear, she let her eyes harden.
Lacing her fingers together, she pressed them out before her, popping her knuckles with a brisk air of annoyance. “Get out of my way, you codless buffle,” she hissed between her teeth, elbowing him aside. His eyebrows rose, then he grinned and lifted his tankard in a salute.
“I am reassured,” he said, laughing. “Godspeed, Miss Morgan. I wish you every triumph, and I pity the gentlefolk of London Town for what is about to descend upon them.”
Stonily, she watched the last of her goods go over the rail and down to the dinghy, then she turned and narrowed her eyes. “You will live to regret your many insults. You have not seen the last of Beau Billy’s daughter!”
Something flickered in his smoky gaze and when he spoke again his voice was oddly gentle. “I hope not, Miss Morgan. It would please me greatly to encounter you one day and learn how you get on.”
“When you do, you will discover a genuine lady. And when you humble yourself before me I intend to stomp your fingers and grind your bones!” To seal the promise, she licked her thumb and spat on his boots.
To her surprise, he did not show her his back. Instead his smile widened and he shook his head. “My dear feisty Blu. Don’t let them change you overmuch.”
As there was no answer, she glared at him. The issue of her impending ladyhood had become confusing. Because Lady Katherine would try to make a lady of her, Blu resisted the notion as ever she had. But because the Duke believed she could never be a lady, she wished to prove him wrong. Like a blind frog, she no longer knew which way to jump. His smile widened and she glimpsed a flash of straight white teeth. “Adieu, Miss Morgan.”
“Go bugger yourself,” she snapped, tossing her head. With as much dignity as she could muster, she allowed herself to be helped over the side and assisted into the dinghy. She settled herself at the center of the boat beside Isabelle and faced resolutely toward London Town.
Only once did she look over her shoulder to discover he remained at the railing, watching her. For an instant their eyes held, then she turned back toward the city.
“Oh Isabelle,” she whispered, feeling a sting behind her eyelids. She had danced near a flame before fate snatched her back. She had not burned herself, but neither had she found the warmth she craved.
Then the dinghy bumped the river steps and the noise and the stink and the crowds overwhelmed her mind, sweeping away all thought of silver eyes and hard thighs and a kiss that still scalded her memory.
7
How they managed to carry themselves from the docks to a lodging in Covent Garden was never entirely clear afterward. A surfeit of impressions fragmented Blu’s memory.
At about the same instant that she realized Monsieur had vanished and she felt the beginnings of an unfamiliar panic, Monsieur had reappeared with a hired cart. Mouton loaded their goods and pulled the cart through the streets to the nearest hackney stand. The trek to the lease coaches was a horror. Refuse trickled down the lanes toward the river. It wet the hem of Blu’s skirts and soaked her slippers with damp and stench. Hawkers and tradesmen grabbed at her hands and shouted in her ears. “Diddle diddle dumplings, hot,” “Cucumbers here, cucumbers for salting and saying!,” “Flag brooms, mistress!,” “Knives to grind!”
Her next coherent memory was of sitting inside a coach, the first coach ride of her life, as they hurtled through the narrow streets, then halted with bone-jarring jolts to wait for long minutes while voices screamed and shrieked until the traffic sorted itself out and they could bolt forward again. White-faced and clinging to the leather strap, Blu peered out the window at the marvels speeding past her dazed eyes. The houses amazed her, houses fashioned of brick or stone with windows of genuine glass. Two houses in St. George were grand enough to boast glass windows; here every house had them. From the coach window, she could not see the upper stories or the source of the slops that cascaded into the streets. Each street was like a narrow canyon enclosed by soaring buildings.
And never in her life had she observed so many horses or so many conveyances. Heavy swaying vans which required six horses to pull, light fancy gigs, lumbering ale wagons, coal carts, lone riders, sedan chairs, and on and on until her head reeled with the sight and smells. And everywhere people. People leaning from windows, people moving inside shops, people in carriages, people on the walks and dodging across the corners and lanes. More people than ever she had imagined the world contained. And such people. Dressed like princes, they were. And here, naked mouths were as common as flea bites. As were wigs. The wigs came in all sizes and shapes; she even saw women wearing them.
When the coach stalled in traffic, hawkers swarmed to the windows to shout their wares and wave samples in her startled face.
“Holland socks, mistress. Three pair a shilling!”
“Oysters! Fresh oysters while you wait!”
Long before the hackney deposited them before a bed and board in Covent Garden, Blu had shrunk back into the coach seat, confused and overcome by all she had seen.
“Bueno,” Isabelle sighed happily when they had stepped to the pavement and stood gazing in wonder at the mobs thronging Covent Garden.
“What? What?” Numb, Blu gazed about her, only belatedly noticing what drew Isabelle’s smile. Across the street, a half-naked woman leaned from a second-story window and waved a fan at them, smiling coyly at Mouton and Monsieur. Her face was heavily painted and patched; there was no mistaking her profession. Isabelle gave the woman a cheery wave, and the woman smiled and returned a shrug of recognition.
Whirling, Blu spun to see who had jostled her. Instinctively, she pulled into a protective crouch, not straightening until she understood she was not being attacked. She was merely in the path of two drunken men who fell out of a chophouse door and brawled across the pavement,
An outpouring of relief soothed her nerves. Brawling was something she understood and could deal with. Deliberately walking between the fighting men, she slapped them both aside. When they did not challenge her, she swallowed her disappointment and entered the chophouse. It was dark and close inside and smelled of gin and rum and roasting meat and packed bodies.
Feeling stronger by the moment, Blu followed Monsieur up a flight of creaking stairs to lodgings better suited for goats than humans, but adequate for the one night they intended to stay.
Covent Garden was the nearest thing to home Blu had seen since she began this hated journey. Leaning out the window, knowing she would be mistaken for a whore and not caring, Blu surveyed the scene below and finally relaxed enough to smile.
Market stalls ringed the square. Much of the produce she did not recognize, but some she did. She recognized the whores doing business here as they did at home. She saw the bulks and Adam-tilers, the pickpocket’s allies, and grinned as a flat realized his purse had been stolen and shouted, then took off running after a dodger whom she guessed the flat would never catch. She observed a huckster tip the wink to his accomplice, then both vanished into the crowds. A dozen urchins darted through the mass of people, stealing apples and cherries from the vendors’ carts. A fight broke out beneath her window.
Ducking her head back inside the room, she smiled and commented to Monsieur, “They dress differently here, but I think London is not all that different from home.”
“Oh my dear, you could not be mor
e mistaken.” Taking her hands, Monsieur led her to a sagging cot and sat beside her. “Parts of London are as raw and perilous as the Mound can be, but in England a man hangs for stealing a shilling or a pound of bread.” He lifted his gaze to include Isabelle and Mouton. “London is not like Morgan’s Mound. Here stealing is never thought of as justice. It is never condoned for any reason. I beg you to remember. You must never, never steal a single item no matter how small, or you will die for it. You will end in Newgate Prison, and a worse hellhole you cannot imagine.”
They listened while Monsieur explained English law and warned them of the perils of a big city. He spoke of constables and runaway coaches and thievery and how to walk well out of the path of cascading slops.
As Blu listened, she silently applauded Monsieur’s wisdom. It had been her desire to proceed directly to Lady Katherine’s home in Grosvenor Square and put quit to her anxiety regarding the upcoming confrontation. But Monsieur had insisted on a night of rest and preparation, and he had been correct.
Her mind whirled with the strangeness of London and all the new things she had seen. Even their lodgings contained unfamiliar marvels. To begin with, there was a fireplace in the room, the first she had seen indoors. She saw no cooking utensils, but supposed utensils could be provided upon payment. One of the windowpanes was shattered, but the panes were of glass. Both she and Isabelle worked a piece of the shattered glass loose from the frame, examined it closely, then tucked it away as a souvenir. The rug on the floor was not woven from palm strands but was made of braided cloth as warm to the toes as morning sand. And it was the first time ever in her life that Blu would sleep in a painted room on a real bed in a house with solid walls.
Before taking their rest, they went downstairs to the common room for supper. Monsieur ordered oysters, a shoulder of mutton, and roast pigeons and, because it was May, a dish of strawberries and clotted cream. Afterward, they had tankards of sky blue and two men played music on violins such as Blu had never heard and Isabelle danced and earned a few shillings in the back room while Monsieur discoursed with a man who claimed to have seen a bearded woman at the May fair. Mouton flung away any man who approached Blu until Blu grasped she was missing an opportunity. Then she wagered the company that Mouton could best any man in the house at arm wrestling, and she, too, earned a tidy profit. All in all, it was a fine evening to remember as her first in England.
Tomorrow promised to be another matter.
Because he sensed a case of hips overtaking her at the mention of tomorrow, Monsieur suggested a walk before they returned upstairs, and Blu readily agreed. As Isabelle could not be parted from profitable pleasures, they left her behind and stepped outside to take a turn about the square.
“I be awash in me mind regarding tomorrow,” Blu confessed when they had walked the length of the square.
Because he understood her distress, Monsieur remained silent and did not protest her speech.
“Me mam will try to make me into something strange and new.” She lifted her chin and her mouth set. “I mean to resist, Monsieur.”
“That would be a slap to your father’s face and pride,” Monsieur reminded her gently. “Mr. Morgan took the decision to send you to Lady Katherine only after much thought and much anguish. He parted with you hard, my dear Blusette. You surely know that. More than anything in God’s world, Beau Billy Morgan wishes his daughter to be a great lady.”
Guilt bowed her head and tears of homesickness pricked her eyes. What Monsieur was saying was true. She knew it.
“It is not what Lady Katherine wants, dear Blusette. This is what your father wants. I carry a document of which your mother is aware that will force her to do as Mr. Morgan has instructed. And that is to make the best of you that she can. If you resist, my dear, it is your father and his sacrifice which you resist.”
“Then I must become what I am not and what I don’t wish to be,” she conceded finally. Angry tears glistened in her eyes.
“You must become all you can be.”
They turned the corner. Behind them, Mouton snarled and threw an approaching pickpocket against the wall of a building.
Monsieur pressed her arm. “Grosvenor Square, where Lady Katherine lives, is much different from Covent Garden. You must conduct yourself accordingly. Remember all I have taught you—and I pray it is enough to begin—and you will make us proud.”
Before they returned to the chophouse, Blu stopped and grasped his hands. Her own were shaking. “Will she like me?” she asked in a low voice, closing her eyes.
“She will come to love you, my dearest Blusette. Of this I am certain.”
“I don’t care. It does not signify,” she said abruptly, pulling her shoulders straight. “I hate her.”
~ ~ ~
Because Monsieur insisted first impressions were vital and lasting, and because one did not every day call at the home of a genuine lady, they took pains with their appearance, preparing meticulously for the great event.
Although Monsieur dispatched a lad in search of coconut oil for Mouton, none could be found, so Mouton had to settle for oiling his head with perfumed lard. He also used the lard to liberally oil his upper body before donning his gold brocade waistcoat. Originally he had planned to wear the shirt Monsieur had sewn for him aboard ship, but both the shirt and his stockings split down the backs the moment he pulled them on. It was decided he must of necessity appear barelegged and bare-chested except for the waistcoat. When Mouton doubtfully requested their opinion, they assured him he cut a fine figure.
Isabelle chose much the same rig as she had worn for the Duke’s first dinner party, but glued additional patches to her breasts, bringing the number to twenty-two. Everyone privately agreed Isabelle appeared poxy, but she was so delighted with patching that no one had the heart to own it aloud.
Regretting there was no time to purchase a new wig and spectacles, Monsieur compensated by donning his most flamboyant attire in hope of diverting attention from his head. He began with lemon-colored velvet breeches, as out of season as they were out of fashion, over which he donned a crimson waistcoat and an emerald outer coat. This only after he had applied a fresh dusting of powder to his wig, filling the room with chalk dust and near choking them all. After choosing his shoes with the high red heels and after a half-dozen attempts to tie his stock just so, he pronounced himself well satisfied and finally ready.
Blu, the pièce de resistance, required the most time to assemble. As no event could be construed as more formal than a first meeting with one’s mother, Monsieur selected the most magnificent gown from the trunk of plundered clothing. The gown he selected was heavy mauve brocade with pink and navy bows and flounces, satin flowers over one shoulder to the waist, and garnished with a hundred tiny seed pearls, some of which had unfortunately turned yellow. In their favor, the yellow pearls were near Blu’s armpits, and after much discourse, it was agreed if she kept her arms down, most likely no one would take notice.
The brocade gown fit over a pannier extending fully three feet wide at the sides of her waist. The original owner of the gown had been a bit smaller than Blu and it was necessary for Mouton to help Isabelle lace her to make the gown fit. At the end of the lacing she was gasping and sucking for air.
“I... cannot... breathe!”
Monsieur stood back and considered. “The cerise rouge, I think. Isabelle?”
“Si. I think the cerise.”
“Help... I can’t... breathe!”
Ignoring her, Monsieur poked through his tin of cosmetics. Using a strip of Spanish wool, he applied a heavy coating of rouge to Btu’s cheeks, forehead, and chin. If she had possessed the breath to do so, she would have protested, as her face was already turning scarlet from her panicked efforts to breathe. Following the rouge came several slaps with a powder puff, then an argument ensued regarding the desired number of patches. Three was the number finally agreed upon, one for cheek, forehead, and chin. Then Monsieur and Isabelle devoted themselves to her hair.
An hour later, Blu was sweating as if she stood on a scorching sand dune beneath the noonday sun.
“That is simply not right,” Monsieur pronounced for the twentieth time.
Isabelle flung the hairbrush at the wall and stomped to the window. “I can do no better! Basta! Do it yourself.”
“Me? Me, dress hair?” Outrage sputtered from Monsieur’s lips. “I, a gentleman’s gentleman must dress a lady’s head? A man who has glimpsed a king? It is beyond consideration. That is your position!”
Isabelle swung about and leaned forward, fists clenched against her plump hips. “I am a whore, Monsieur! A very good whore! Whoring is my position. That is what I know; that is what I do. I know nothing about dressing heads. Nada. And I do not wish to!”
Isabelle and Monsieur stormed and shouted, Mouton’s hands moved in unseen words, Blu felt the beginnings of a headache. Finally, to regain their attention she threw the lard jar into the fireplace.
“I shall wear it this way,” she announced. Throwing back her head, she settled the matter by shaking her hair loose and pulling a cap over the crown. “Now—we go.”
Monsieur protested, waving his hands. “This is not proper. I’m almost certain a lady wears her hair wrapped upward. Undressed hair is never seen out of doors!”
“Today it shall be.” The glitter in her eyes warned him this item had been discoursed all it would be. She would wait no longer. “Help me down the stairs.”
With Mouton supporting one arm and Monsieur the other, she managed to force the pannier down the narrow staircase by slowly moving sideways. The next obstacle was getting herself into the coach Monsieur had arranged to have waiting.
When Blu finally located her slipper beneath the volumes of brocade and petticoats, then located the coach step and forced herself sideways again, her weight on the step was enough to tilt the coach and pitch her backward toward the pavement. Mouton caught her and hoisted her up and finally inside.
Lady Reluctant Page 12
