by Amy Quinton
“And you think I’m the person to fill that role?” She laughed as if he jest.
“Well, you are many things, Lady Beatryce,” he would not enumerate that long list, “but weak is not one of them.”
“A compliment, Dansbury? I’m surprised.” She shook her head. “Adelaide will be fine.”
“But…”
“Dansbury, she is better off without me.”
“Better? Lady B…”
“Look. I will not argue the point with you. They will be fine.” She raised her chin a notch. “The subject is closed.”
“I find myself surprised, Lady Beatryce,” he blurted out. She’d not interrupt him again. “I had not realized you were this cold-hearted, so much so as to not even concern yourself with the welfare of your family…” He didn’t know what else to add to that. What more was there to say?
She crossed her arms. “Are you quite finished?”
Should he tell her that her stepmother had been laughing hysterically, like a madwoman, when he left? Lady Beatryce just didn’t react the way he expected; he was somewhat at a loss with how to handle her.
“I suppose so.” This was the most bizarre conversation he’d ever had. He briefly wondered if there would ever come a time where something she did or said would ever not surprise him.
For tonight, though, he was finished with her. He cleared his throat. “Well, then. I’ll leave you to your…dancing,” he said and walked away.
“When are we leaving?”
Oh, this woman was cold-hearted, and self-centered. She would finally have a question, but it was about her and her departure from Town.
“We leave in two days.”
He did not look back when he answered her. And he left without another word, all but shaking his head in utter exasperation. For sure, he would never understand this woman.
Chapter 10
“Secrets, silent, stony sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their tyranny: tyrants willing to be dethroned.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses
Later That Morning…
At a Far More Reasonable Hour…
From her bedroom window, Lady Beatryce Beckett watched fleeting pedestrians as they passed by on the pavement outside. Rain showered down upon the city as thick as the velvet drapery surrounding her window.
The gentry marched by with a determined stride, their black umbrellas open to impede the steady downpour. The servants and laboring classes, who had to attend to their duties regardless of the weather, scurried impatiently behind them, not daring to pass yet resigned to becoming drenched with water; it was probably the first bath they’d had in a week, perhaps longer.
She couldn’t imagine living that way herself…filthy as a soiled rag and as smelly as a costermonger’s cart full of rotted vegetables. Was it any wonder they were never able to better their lot in life?
She might have felt a pang of remorse for her unkind thoughts, but swept it aside. Beatryce watched it all…life…advance before her with a somewhat detached air, her mind turned inward.
Why wasn’t she dancing about her room and laughing with great relief? Her father was dead and could hurt her no more. Perhaps she had yet to really believe it? In a way, the news of his demise still seemed too good to be true…was she finally, after all these years, actually rid of her father? Forever?
She’d always thought she’d instantly feel…transformed and relieved. Perhaps lighter…Alive.
Instead she felt the same, trapped and hardened…and experienced in a way she would never wish on any other, even maids and thieves and whores. In fact, she even felt a tad glum if one could believe it.
She touched her head to the window, the glass cool and damp against her forehead, and fingered the nearest glazing bar separating the broad, yet intricately shaped panes making up her bedroom window. The craftsmanship was of the highest standard; Stonebridge must pay an exorbitant amount in excises for the windows in his home.
She laughed at the errant thought. Such was her way…to find herself dodging persistent yet random thoughts even at the most unlikely of times.
Beatryce dropped her hand and looked to the right, further up the cobbled road. Plenty of carriages tumbled past, pulling unknown occupants to their various destinations amid the gray of dreary rain.
Life carried on as usual. Father’s death didn’t affect them either.
A break in the river of umbrellas flowing up the pavement across the street revealed a man standing still and shrouded in a cloak and facing the house. Right at the window she presently occupied.
Her heart began pounding in fear. She swallowed the lump that swelled in her throat.
It couldn’t be; it just couldn’t.
Yet she feared it could…and had. Yet how had the cloaked man known she was here?
A mass of carriages and a wave of fresh umbrellas arrived, blocking her view of the man as if swallowing him whole. No interruption in the flow signaled a lone person standing still against the tide.
Beatryce stood on the tips of her toes. She looked left, then right. She stretched up, then down and tried in vain to see through the sea of black, to no avail. Twice her sawing breath fogged the window. Twice she rubbed it clear with her sleeve.
At another break in the flow, she searched the pavement opposite with renewed fervor, but he wasn’t there. As if he’d never even been.
Was she going mad? Now, of all times, when she was finally free?
* * * *
That Night, After Dinner…
The First Floor Drawing Room…
“Ah, Grace, you should have seen Dansbury. There he sat, muddied and bedraggled…his jacket torn and his hair soiled and disheveled. But the cat that was curled in his arms…was altogether tidy and clean.” They all laughed, then Stonebridge continued, “…but as he reached with his hand to pet the beast he’d just rescued, it turned round, latched onto his hand, and bit him, leaving scars that are still visible today.”
Dansbury shook his head. “Yes, it was my first experience with a cat’s claws. I daresay, I never forgot the lesson.” He looked at Beatryce as he said this.
Was he implying something with that remark?
They all laughed again, or at least Grace, Stonebridge, and Dansbury did. Beatryce did not. Oh yes, Dansbury was kind. And charming. They were hearing about it all; Stonebridge was regaling them with tales from their youth, particularly of Dansbury. Oh, what a saint.
And she was bosom bows with sarcasm.
“Ambrose, do you remember Head Master Smythe?” asked Dansbury.
“Oh, how could I forget? He was callous and cruel.”
“And smelly…”
“He looked like death…”
“Yes. And hated children…” Dansbury looked at Grace. “He was our Head Master at Eton when we were thirteen…our first year there. He’d been there for thirty years before that.” Dansbury looked back at Stonebridge. “…Though he looked like he’d stopped aging at about thirty-five…”
“…because he wore his hair so tightly bound, it smoothed his face…” They said it at the same time, and laughed through it all.
“You played so many pranks on that man, Cliff, I cannot believe you managed to pass your year.”
“That is because I never got caught. And they were harmless pranks. But funny. And he deserved it.”
“True. All true.”
“So he was only there for one year with you? Sounds like you were fortunate.” Grace asked.
“Ah, yes, well…he died from a heart attack while beating a student, or we might have had to endure him for much longer than a year. We all swore he was already preserved; he was going to outlive us all.”
A knock on the door interrupted their remembrances. The butler entered, bearing a missive. The sounds and sighs of laughter died slowly as the butler made his way towards them.
“Your Grace, a message has arrived…”
“Ah, thank you, Ledbetter.” The duke stood and approached h
is butler.
“Ah, but your grace, this message is not for you.” The butler turned to Beatryce. “It is addressed to Lady Beatryce Beckett…”
One might have heard a pin drop, the silence was deafening. They all turned as one toward her. “For me?” The blood drained from her face; in fact, alarm graced the visage of every person in the room, the butler included.
How could anyone know she was here? The question was on all of their minds.
Stonebridge walked over and handed her the note, then stood back to give her room. For a minute, she stared at the parchment as if it would suddenly burst into flame and scorch her near-to-trembling fingers. She shook off such fanciful thoughts and opened it to the curious eyes of everyone in the room.
Lady Beatryce,
I know you are here.
I know why you are here.
I’m coming for you, sweet.
Tick. Tock.
-Your Cloaked Friend
PS. Tell Dansbury, I know his secrets.
Beatryce couldn’t say a word; her tongue was thick in her mouth. Any words she might have uttered died in her throat. She stood on unsteady legs and handed the note to Stonebridge who read it out loud whilst her thoughts raced in out of control panic.
How does he know I am here? What am I to do? That was him looking at me in the window, after all…La, what am I to do?
She automatically looked to Dansbury.
“Cliff? What is he talking about? What secrets?” asked Stonebridge. The question piqued her curiosity, pulling her to the edge, but not out, of her anxious worry.
“The hell if I know.” La, she doubted that. Dansbury mingled with the dregs of society as an agent for the Crown and rubbed elbows with the top echelons of society through his title; between the two, he was bound to have secrets.
“Did you tell anyone? Were you followed?”
“No and no. I’m no green lad.”
“I know, friend; I had to ask.” Stonebridge turned to her, “Lady Beatryce have you left the house? Gone outside at all? Written to anyone?”
“No.” She swallowed. “But this morning, I was looking out the window, and I thought I saw that madman in the street. But then a flood of carriages and pedestrians crowded the road and pavement, momentarily blocking my view, and when they parted again, he was gone. I thought I must have been mistaken.” She was pleased her voice didn’t waver. She had managed to convince herself that he hadn’t really been there, watching her from the street.
“Evidently not.”
“No.” So she had been wrong.
“Well, this moves up our timetable and makes your departure more urgent.” Stonebridge said this to Dansbury.
“Indeed, it does. We leave now.” He replied as he stood and exited the room. “Let’s go.”
Presumably that last part was directed at her. She followed in his wake. She had nothing to pack.
Chapter 11
“A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally.”
― Oscar Wilde
A Less Travelled Road Out of London…
June 1814…
Dansbury eyed his traveling companion with more than a little distaste. He could just make out her silhouette in the dim light emanating from their carriage lamp. The lamp hung on her side of their conveyance, swaying with every dip and pot hole, casting her profile in light, then dark, then light again.
Lady Beatryce didn’t want to die, surely. But the chances increased with every minute of their enforced proximity. They were already at odds with each other from their four day stay at Stonebridge House…but this…this…closeness…was so much worse.
And he’d felt that way since half an hour into their trip. On their first day out. What would it be like after five days?
Lady Beatryce should be worried.
He could have refused to take the assignment. Ambrose would have grumbled and cursed, but he would’ve accepted his decision…eventually. Ambrose could have easily brought in MacLeod or Kelly.
So why had he said yes? Because someone needed him. He was a fool for it every time.
Even when he despised the very person he was saving, apparently.
Now, he was seriously beginning to regret his capitulation.
He eyed his companion again and wondered aloud, “How can someone as beautiful as you be so ugly inside? Do they teach that sort of the thing at that fancy finishing school you attended or is it a Beckett family trait?”
He didn’t know why he’d voiced the question. It was rude and ungentlemanly. Call it a temporary madness, like when someone decides to poke a stick at a wild animal. Well, that might be idiotic, but at least his madness was only temporary. He hoped.
Lady Beatryce ignored him. She sat frozen as if turned to stone, her expressionless gaze fixated on the scenery passing by outside the window of their traveling carriage. Or what she could see of it. It was cold and dark and damp out. If he peered too closely outside his own window, his breath fogged the glass.
Their ratty conveyance squeaked, rattled, twisted, bounced, and jerked every time its wheels found even the smallest hole in the road—which was often—yet she was so still, one wouldn’t guess that the carriage was even in motion, much less traveling at great speed over such uneven terrain.
Well, well. Apparently, she was very good at cool aloofness and unflinching immobility, when she wasn’t pulsing with unreserved ire that is. He’d seen that side of her often over the last several days. Firsthand. Some might call it passion.
He didn’t.
Yet he really didn’t understand her current behavior. What happened to the passionate virago of the past week? He’d seen every manner of behavior from her—from angry to antagonizing to sarcastic. She’d provoked him at every turn and ordered him around for four days. Utter silence was a first.
He snorted to himself. He couldn’t care less about her current inclination toward aloofness. It was a blessing. For him.
Dansbury sighed, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and turned to study the view outside his window. He pushed thoughts of Lady Beatryce from his mind. Easily and with pleasure. He was glad she was inclined toward silence. Now. He might even finish this unwanted assignment without murdering her. He glanced over at the witch again. Maybe.
He clenched his jaw and his teeth rattled with the windowpanes as they rode over a particularly rutted patch of road. Their unmarked and decrepit carriage squeaked and groaned, but held together. Just. His walking stick vibrated against his leg; the jarring making it slide ever closer toward his knee. He caught it just before it landed on the floor.
Still, Lady Beatryce didn’t move.
Damn, she is good.
He forced himself to let go morbid thoughts of strangling her and concentrate, instead, on their investigation. And of the secrets their assassin threatened him with…
“Ahem…”
Dansbury blinked and was surprised to see Lady Beatryce come into focus before his eyes. Brilliant blue orbs stared back at him in question, and his gut clenched in response. Clearly, he had been staring in her direction, though it was with unseeing eyes as his thoughts had been inwardly turned. For a moment, he forgot his hatred for this woman. His breath caught in his throat as her beauty hit him like a punch in the gut. Just like that day on the terrace…
He shook his head and reason returned. He lifted his brow in question, exuding supreme confidence and patience. But he also had the inexplicable urge to clear his throat. He forced himself to appear unconcerned as he waited for the witch to respond to his unspoken query.
Lady Beatryce clenched her hands until her knuckles were white with tension. She lifted her chin. “I asked if we are nearly there.”
He reached for his pocket watch without lowering his eyes. He flicked open the lid, and then, after a few seconds more, glanced down to check the time. With exaggerated slowness, he nodded at the time and replaced the watch before returning his attention to his unwanted companion. He tossed his walking stick ba
ck and forth between his hands, stalling for time.
Two spots of pink appeared high on her cheekbones. Aha. She noticed he was taking his time and was angry. Good. He smiled at how easy it was to spark her anger. If possible, her fists tightened further. She’d tormented him all week. But she’d played with a master.
“I suspect we shall arrive within the half hour.”
Lady Beatryce relaxed; she unclenched her hands and smoothed out her skirts while he absorbed her every move.
“Do you make it a habit of staring at people in such a fashion?” She said it without once looking in his direction. He would have noticed.
He admired her forward attack. “Only at those I wish to throttle.”
She smiled, and he dropped his walking stick; it rattled about with the carriage before settling half on his foot, half on the floor. He stepped on it and kicked it against the base of his seat. As if he’d meant to do that.
She didn’t remark upon it. “Let us hope it does not come to that before we reach our destination, shall we? Do you have a plan for our arrival? A story to tell? A change of clothes?” Beatryce nodded to the small valise on the seat beside him.
He grinned with pleasure as he prepared to enjoy her reaction to what he was about to say. She was going to hate this. “I’m glad you asked. I do, indeed, have a change of clothes in this bag.” He patted the bag. “For both of us.”
She was once again wearing her wedding finery. It was all she had, save for a small reticule. He hadn’t had time to secure much being that they fled in such a rush. They were fortunate he’d been able to acquire what he had.
She waited, eyes focused and hands clasped, for him to continue—she appeared the serene lady in perfect composure, demure. It was a good act. He wanted to savor this moment for as long as possible.
But he was uncharacteristically impatient. “Unfortunately, we fled in quite a rush, as I’m sure you’ll remember; so you’ll have to understand when I say that we’ll have to manage changing into them…in the carriage.”
He leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms behind his head. Satisfied. Like a cat basking in the sun. He was thrilled to provoke her, and he waited with great anticipation to see what she would say or do next. He was rewarded when the pink tinge returned to her cheeks. It shouldn’t have been comely, but he had to admit that it was.
