Fairchild Regency Romance

by Jaima Fixsen

  “Oh.” Anna reached behind her, hunting for the chair she’d heedlessly pushed away. She sat down. “Why?” Her hands reached for a bit of wire she’d left on the table, twisting it unconsciously.

  “It’s impossible. You know what I am,” Laura said, choosing the simplest explanation.

  “Rubbish,” said someone from behind the chair. Alistair. Laura turned scarlet.

  “Laura believed we were private!” Anna hissed.

  “Aren’t I allowed to say anything?”

  “No,” Anna told him.

  “I think it’s a pity you refused him,” he said, rising to address Laura, laying aside a battered book. “I quite fail to understand this sudden attack of conscience and surrender to convention. Really Laura!”

  “We wouldn’t be happy together,” Laura said. She hadn’t expected to fight a rearguard action, which must be why she was doing it so badly.

  “I suppose not since you’ve decided it. Shall I walk round and stop him from blowing his brains out?”

  “Alistair!” His wife tried to frown at him.

  “It’s kind of you but quite unnecessary,” Laura said stiffly.

  “He’d do no such thing,” Anna added.

  Laura pinned her lips together, not wishing to say that if she hadn’t sworn never to set eyes on him again she wouldn’t mind inflicting some physical harm. Alistair broke the silence by reaching for his walking stick.

  “Well, I can tell I’m not wanted. Anna, dear, try to persuade her,” he said, managing in spite of the limp to stroll from the room.

  Persuade her to stay? Or marry Jasper? Probably both, Laura thought sourly. They were lunatics, the whole family. Self-sufficient, dictatorial…and since she had no intentions of marrying—or speaking with Jasper again, it was impossible to remain in Basil Street. She was still wrangling with Anna when Alistair came back into the room.

  “I haven’t changed my mind,” Laura told him. Why was he back so soon? “Did Jasper shoot himself already?” Alistair had only absented himself a few minutes.

  Alistair ignored her sarcasm. “He’s sent a message for you.” He stood aside so a grave-faced Peter could enter the room.

  “Mr. Rushford sends this with his apologies,” Peter said, holding out a folded note. “But Miss Laura…you should know he’s not well.”

  “How so?” she demanded crisply, unwilling to muster sympathy.

  “I went round to his lodgings last night after bringing you home. He wasn’t there. Found him not two blocks away from Jermyn Street, weak as a baby bird and casting up his accounts.”

  “He hadn’t drunk that much,” Laura said, disgusted.

  Peter shook his head. “Not drink. He’s down with a megrim.”

  “A migraine,” Anna, ever one for details, corrected. “Thank goodness you found him.”

  “Lucky he wasn’t robbed. I helped him home, but he’s still laid out in his bed and no signs of getting out of it.”

  Blood drained from Laura’s face.

  “It will pass,” Anna said, glancing at Laura. “They do. But in the meantime,” she glanced at her husband, “I should go look in on him.”

  Alistair nodded, explaining for Laura’s benefit, “He gets headaches, you know. Has since he was a boy. Recovers after a day or two in bed, but in the midst of an attack even scents make him vomit. He can’t stand light in his eyes and sometimes he can’t even see.”

  But he’s safe now, Laura reminded herself, shutting out the picture of him in a dark street, blind and crippled by pain. There was a tinny whistling in her ears, but she shook it away. Thank goodness he hadn’t been angry with her—some of that outburst must have been pain. If he’d been himself, he would never have proposed. Never. Yet even as she thought it, hope trickled into her. Perhaps if he’d been well he might have asked better, with the words and the gaze—and the kiss—that would have convinced her.

  Stop. She mustn’t imagine anymore. No matter how he asked, her answer must remain the same. She’d burdened him enough. It was wrong to permit him to shoulder her troubles for a lifetime. She couldn’t ruin any man, let alone one she loved. Used to love, Laura corrected, forcing herself to remember the spiteful words—that had been forced out of him, she knew now, on the point of intense pain.

  Enough. Thinking wouldn’t make this better. “You said there was a note?” She stretched out her hand to Peter. The sounds of her breaking the seal and unfolding the paper were the only ones in the room.

  Laura,

  Forgive me for last night. I wasn’t myself—in fact, I’m quite unwell this morning.

  Laura snorted, furious at him for diluting the facts. Quite unwell? She hoped Anna did physic him. He deserved every one of her teas and leeches.

  “This isn’t his writing,” Laura said.

  Peter grunted. “He dictated it to his valet.”

  Anna gave a displeased hiss. “I will see him at once.”

  Laura turned back to the note.

  Please don’t allow my behavior to rush you into any decisions. My offer still stands, but I’d like another chance to put it to you. Perhaps in a week? I shall be better in a day or so, but expect you’d prefer more time than that before we consider the future once more. It’s not much time, but perhaps if I am lucky my worst gaffes will be forgotten—or at least the pain I’ve inflicted on you will have worn off. In a week I shall put my case to you, if not eloquently, at least rationally.

  Yours always,

  Jasper

  Silently Laura folded the letter, remote from the hasty arrangements Anna made with her husband and son.

  “I will meet you at the theatre,” Peter told Laura as Anna trundled him out the door. Laura nodded, but couldn’t say exactly what she’d settled with him. It was a relief two hours later to leave Basil Street for the theatre. Troubling, though, that she expected less drama there.

  *****

  “I hope you aren’t thinking of Rushford,” Sarah said after afternoon rehearsal. “It’s no good when you start wearing that look.”

  Laura looked up from the props she was fruitlessly rearranging, sorting by size, by color. The paste jewels marched across her velvet-lined box neat as a row of cabbages. “I’m not pining for him.”

  “Sure.” Sarah dragged over an oval-backed chair of faded brocade, sitting herself sideways on it so she could rest her clasped hands and her chin on the back. “It generally helps if your men believe you’ve fallen in love with them, but actually doing so isn’t very kind to yourself.”

  Laura glanced at her out the edge of her eye. “Does everyone know?”

  “Dan and I expected it right from the first. Rollins didn’t say so, but I say that’s just his wishful thinking.”

  Laura gave a wan smile. “I’m in a fix, aren’t I?”

  Sarah was too kind to agree. “Maybe you shouldn’t have waited so long. When dreams grow too long, pruning is hard, never mind uprooting. I want you to be all right.”

  “I will be.” Laura tried to displace wistfulness with a deep breath. “I’ve cured myself of love before.” It was just as well, Laura decided, that she wouldn’t see him for a week. She’d need at least that long to think of a way to refuse him. She probably shouldn’t let him ask. It was kinder to both of them.

  “I know you have.” Sarah rolled her cheek onto her soft arm, pale except for a scattering of golden freckles. They were the tell that gave away the relationship between her and her daughter Kate, but with Kate the freckles glittered like the kiss marks of angels across her snub nose. “I don’t blame you for losing your heart to him. If you hadn’t gotten him first, I wouldn’t have minded him myself.”

  Laura gave a weak smile. “How is Sir Eustace?”

  Sarah wrinkled her nose. “Adequate. I’ll keep him around. For the time being I’ve no better prospects.”

  “Trouble?” Laura asked. It would be a relief to think about Sarah’s problems instead of her own.

  “He wants to see me more. I’m not sure if it’s the prelud
e to an extravagant gift or the end—sometimes I think I wouldn’t even mind.” She sighed. “He likes to stay overnight.”

  Sarah was expert at begging favors without asking, so Laura knew what came next. She didn’t mind. “Rushford’s gone for a week. Let me look after Kate for you.”

  “You certain?”

  Laura was. Sarah looked tired. She never slept well when her gentlemen insisted on resting in her bed too. “Of course I’m certain. I’ve missed her. Unlike you I like the sound of someone else breathing in my room.” She’d missed it since her mother’s passing, but Sarah would think she meant Jasper.

  “You’re an angel,” Sarah said.

  Laura just smiled and told her to make sure Kate brought her toothbrush. It would be a relief to mull things over in her own rooms instead of Basil Street, with Anna and Alistair trying to prod her round to their way of thinking. She might be already partway to forgiving him, but she could never accept him. She should begin as she meant to go on and use this week to put distance between them. By then Jasper would be in his right mind and her refusal should come as a relief.

  It wasn’t hard to send Betty with a note to Basil Street to let Anna and Alistair know she would spend the night in her rented rooms not far from the theatre. As there was no performance that evening she and Kate slipped out the back door with the stagehands, peeling away from them in the bustle of the market and walking the half mile to Mrs. Goodwin’s trim boarding house. Relieved to find everything as it should be, Laura spent the evening crouched beside Kate on the hearthrug, cutting dolls out of paper and toasting bread and cheese over the fire. Thank goodness for Kate. Laura knew she’d be surrounded by damp handkerchiefs if she’d had to sit here alone.

  “Will it be safe for me to go home to Mama tomorrow?” Kate asked. She spoke quietly because of her malformed lip, but Laura was used to leaning close.

  “I expect so. If not I’ll keep you here with me.” Laura set down the scissors and unfolded a row of ladies in wide, old-fashioned gowns. She had red marks on her thumb and finger from so much cutting, but Kate’s laugh made it worthwhile. The girl sprawled out on her stomach, chin on one hand, coloring gowns and faces on the ladies with some of Jack’s old drawing pencils that Laura had rummaged out of the back of her desk.

  When at last sleep began dragging the long fronds of Kate’s eyelashes, Laura peeled her out of her rumpled dress and wrapped her in the heavy nightdress Sarah had sent along in her basket. The hour was late; Laura decided this once they could forgo conversing with the toothbrush and slid Kate into her mother’s empty bed, her cheek round and golden as a bun from the oven. Soon the child was asleep. Laura sat in her own bed thinking of Jasper and missing her mother. And Jack.

  Her bed felt small after Chippenstone and Basil Street; she’d gotten used to more and thicker pillows. Piling them behind her back she tried to read, propping her book against her bent knees until her stunted candle flickered a plea for mercy. She snuffed it with her fingers and let it live for one more day. Wishing Jack’s new home was not so close to Jasper’s, Laura fell asleep.

  Kate was an early riser and a sturdy eater of Mrs. Goodwin’s oatmeal. When her bowl was emptied down to the shine, Laura offered to walk out and get the child an orange since she’d already dispatched Peter to fetch her things from Basil Street.

  “Stay put, mind. You can draw in the rest of your dolls.”

  Kate promised so Laura got herself buttoned and bonneted, tucking back her hastily pinned hair as she ventured into the street. It was good to be back in her own rooms, Laura decided. The same fruit seller hawked wares at her usual corner, so Laura lingered, telling as much of the truth as she could to explain her absence—she’d been in Suffolk with her brother, who was setting up his medical practice there. Bargaining merely for old time’s sake, Laura left with three oranges instead of two. She’d have one herself and tomorrow, when she collected her things from Alistair and Anna’s home, she’d give the last to Henry. Clutching the bright globes to her stomach because she’d forgotten to bring a basket, Laura hastened home, her boot heels marking time on the pavement.The errand had taken longer than planned and she didn’t want Kate to worry.

  She glanced down the street and saw no traffic but a wagon heading the other way. Laura cut across the road, jumping over the clogged gutter onto the opposite pavement. Ahead of her a smocked laborer trudged along. “Pardon me,” Laura said, darting past him. She was nearly home, just three more houses, busy imagining her apologies to Kate, when something slammed into her shoulder. Her arms flew wide, one hand catching the wall. Before she could steady herself, she was shoved into the brick, fire igniting her palms and right cheek. The oranges rolled like toys down the street.

  “Wha—” A thick hand—none too clean, for she tasted dirt and salt—silenced her and cut off her air. Heaving against the wall, she writhed and twisted, trying to catch his palm between her teeth or jam an elbow into the bulk behind her. Pulse hammering, desperate for air, her thoughts grew loose and thready. She kicked again and was answered with another shove. Feeling for his feet, trying to gouge a heel into them, she crunched into bone, but won nothing. Panic rose in her throat and black fog curled in front of her eyes. She shoved again and the seal over her mouth broke long enough to her to gasp and fire a strangled cry. She flailed again with her elbows. “Help!”

  Dim above the pounding in her ears, she heard footsteps.

  “Hold there!”

  Thank God, she thought, as the grip around her slackened and was gone. She fell away from the wall. Hoarse and gulping air, her eyes cleared and she swayed into the arms of her across-the-road neighbor, Mr. Perkins, a solid man who kept a cheese shop. “My boys are after him,” he said, nodding after his two pursuing sons. They tore after her assailant and vaulted into the traffic on the next street. “Are you—”

  “I’ll be all right,” Laura interrupted him. She forced her fingers to let go of his shirt and tried to rub feeling back into her arms.

  “He didn’t steal your purse.” Perkins stooped to pick up her dirty reticule. It was torn and looked like it had been stepped on. “I hadn’t much in it,” Laura said. A few coins. A handkerchief. Rouge and a hairpin or two. She swallowed.

  “Nice thing, young ladies being assaulted in the light of day. What’s the world coming to?” Perkins’ glare scoured the street. Laura tottered forward, her feeble steps recalling him. He slipped an arm beneath her shoulders. “Let’s get you inside.”

  Laura tried to minimize the fuss. She didn’t want to alarm Kate. But Perkins repeated the story twice to her astonished landlady, Mrs. Goodwin, and then his sons returned sweaty and red-faced to say the ruffian had gotten away.

  “I’m just glad you saw and came to help,” Laura said, wincing as Mrs. Goodwin pressed a wet cloth to her bleeding cheek. “Thank you.”

  “We’ll watch for him. You be careful now.” Perkins left her to Mrs. Goodwin and her pot of salve.

  “Smells but it works a real miracle,” she said, dabbing the greasy ointment over Laura’s cheek bone. “Give it a few days and no one will know what happened.”

  Steadier now Laura realized she had a problem she hadn’t considered. “Kate, dear, will you fetch my mirror?” Solemn and round-eyed, the girl complied. Laura raised the glass and winced. Well, Alice would be pleased. There was no way she could go onstage tonight.

  Aided by the sympathetic Kate, Laura changed into a clean dress and sat down to write a note to Mr. Rollins, ignoring her unsteady fingers. She spattered the sheet and had to start over twice. She was rattled but it would pass and sooner the less she attended to it.

  She’d talked herself into quite a state of fortitude by the time a liveried messenger arrived. Puzzled, Laura opened the note. Her confidence shattered.

  It was from Saltash. She read it again, her damp hands leaving spots on the paper. Kate, sensing her distress, went still as a startled rabbit. Laura looked up. The footman was gone. She raced to the window, but already he was half
way up the street, his powdered hair and gold-crusted coat clearing lowly maids, draymen, and errand boys out of his way.

  “What’s wrong?” Kate asked, her voice quavering.

  “Nothing.” Laura said, suppressing a shudder as she heard Saltash’s cultured vowels reciting the note.

  It’s a pity you are too indisposed for tonight’s performance. The crime in this city is shocking. Just think…suppose he’d carried a knife?

  She must send for Peter.

  Peter came but not alone. Jasper and Betty were with him.

  “He needed to know,” Peter said, cutting off her protests.

  Jasper reached for the note. “You can’t stay here.” He folded it away into his pocket.

  She didn’t want to, not now, but returning to Basil Street was unthinkable. What if she brought danger to Anna? To Henry?

  “Perhaps a hotel,” Peter suggested.

  Jasper shook his head. “Too public. Too easily found.”

  “Then where?” Her voice was high and tight.

  “The theatre for now. Give me a few hours. I’ll think of something.”

  “And Kate?”

  “She’ll be safer with her mother. We’d best go,” Jasper said.

  “Wait.” She and Kate were mostly packed. It had helped pass the time as they waited for Peter. Some few things remained, but it would take only moments for Betty to add them to the baggage. “I must do one thing more.”

  Jasper didn’t understand at first when she sat down and picked up her pen. “Letters? Now?” he asked.

  “It’s for Saltash,” Laura explained, scratching against the page.

  My dear uncle,

  Bruises heal. Forewarned is forearmed. A pistol will take care of any ruffian with a knife.

  “That’s the spirit,” Jasper said and she felt a little better. But not much.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Crossing swords

  Their arrival backstage, with Laura in bandages and a hair-raising story besides, added a new measure of havoc to the preparations for the evening performance, but Jasper was pleased to see Rollins took the matter in stride.