by Jo Goodman
Restell inclined his head. “As you wish.”
Emma regarded him suspiciously. His gracious capitulation was unexpected, and he seemed to be lending his words more gravity than circumstances warranted. There was also the merest suggestion of a smile playing about the edges of his mouth. She realized that he was agreeable to her blaming him but accepted no responsibility for the same. “So you make no admission of guilt.”
“Hardly. I cannot be held accountable for what you find diverting. What if your sense of humor is tickled by the absurd, or worse, by farce? I cannot promise that I will never be caught in some improbable scheme, and if you knew my family better, you would not suppose for even a moment that I could resist it. If you fancy the ironic or the vaguely twisted, you might be less aggrieved in my company, but if you are amused by such observations as I make about circumstances of the moment, then there is no help for it but that you make a full recovery and come to embrace laughter as you would your dearest friend.”
Emma removed the handkerchief from her mouth, but she was quite without words. She blinked widely instead.
“I know,” Restell said sympathetically. “I have no argument for it myself.” He indulged his urge to grin, offering it with an insouciant shrug of his shoulders. “Perhaps one will occur to me later.” Nelson’s light rapping at the door caused Restell to turn his attention in that direction. The careless air he’d affected vanished as he observed Emma’s response to the sound. Out of the corner of his eye he was witness to her immediate wariness. She did not draw herself up like a hedgehog this time, but it seemed to him that she was fighting the urge to do so. Had it been his knocking at the door that provoked her faint?
Restell chose not to call attention to her reaction as she was struggling to do the same. He called for Nelson to enter. The pot of hot tea was exchanged for the cold one, and Restell dismissed the butler and poured a cup for his guest. “Will you take a dram of whiskey with it? It is mildly efficacious in calming the nerves.”
“You know this for a fact?”
“Dr. Bettany assures me it is so.”
Emma wondered if she could believe him. It seemed to her that Mr. Gardner was not above prevarication if it served his ends. As he obviously did not want an overwrought female on his hands—and truly, what gentleman did?—it was in his best interests to lie without compunction. She nodded and watched him add the whiskey to her cup. His notion of what constituted a dram was more liberal than her own, but she offered no comment. It was better to keep a sense of proportion about the whole, she thought, than focus too narrowly on the particular.
She accepted the tea, holding out both hands to balance the cup and saucer. She was gratified to see her fingers did not tremble. “Thank you.”
“You’re quite welcome. Will you have a biscuit?”
Emma shook her head. The thought of eating just now had the power to make her stomach turn over. “The tea is sufficient. More than that, really.” She sipped from the cup and found the taste was not unpleasant. The tea settled warmly in her stomach.
Restell turned to his desk, hitching one hip on the edge, and observed the light pink color that flushed his guest’s cheeks as she drank. The more subtle effect on her nerves would take longer to note, but Restell was confident that alcohol would serve her better than the laudanum had done.
Aware that his steady regard was not at all useful just now, Restell’s glance fell on the bank draft lying on the blotter. He gave it a cursory look before turning it over.
“Is it not enough?” Emma asked when he made no comment.
“I have no idea. For what service did you mean to reimburse me? It is rather a lot for a cup of tea, even accounting for the whiskey.”
“It is compensation for your time.”
“I put no price on my time.”
“That is very generous of you, but I think you are due—”
Restell held up one hand, palm out, effectively quelling her objection. “You misunderstand, Miss Hathaway, or perhaps it is that I was not clear. My time is priceless. You haven’t sufficient funds to effect payment. No one does.”
Emma’s brow furrowed slightly as she considered what this meant. “Can you really think so much of yourself? Your time cannot be so precious as to be invaluable.”
Restell simply shrugged.
“But what if I desire to engage your services?”
“I am not a hack driver, Miss Hathaway, waiting at the curb for someone to hire my cab.” He waved aside her objection. “In any event, I do not deal in currency. I deal in favors.”
“Favors?” The shadows beneath Emma’s eyes deepened as she speared her host with a narrow glance. “What do you mean?”
Restell folded his arms across his chest. “Let us suppose there is a physician with a penchant for placing wagers on cockfights. Let us further suppose that he’s had a run of bad luck so that his wagering far exceeds his ability to pay. He is profoundly motivated to change his habits, in part because the man he owes quite a bit of the ready to has threatened to break his hands, one finger at a time. To prove this is no idle threat, the man encourages the physician to make the acquaintance of a young gentleman who had a similar debt to pay.”
Restell saw Emma’s eyes drop to his hands. Not offended in the least, he held them up, splaying his fingers so she might view them clearly. “I am not that young gentleman.” He wiggled his fingers for emphasis. “But you are right to suppose that I might have been. My brother made a timely financial investment in my future.”
“So that you would have one.”
“You have it exactly.” Restell lowered his hands to the desk, curling his fingers around the edge. “For purposes of this illustration, our physician has no wealthy relative to see him clear of his debt, so let us imagine that he applies to me for assistance.”
“You pay his debt?”
“Hardly. It’s precisely that sort of interference that encourages more wagering. Ask Ferrin.”
To suppress her laughter, Emma quickly took a sip of tea. She could not say whether it was the whiskey or Restell’s discourse that was calming her nerves, but she knew herself to be more at her ease than at any time since her abduction.
Restell’s grin underscored his lack of contrition. “Let us pretend that what I am able to do for this physician is to reverse his losses so that his debt is nullified. You might wonder how such a thing is possible without cheating, so I will tell you that it’s not. Cheating was very much involved, though no more than was done to the physician. The fights are fixed, you see, and the physician is a mark from the outset, the object being to relieve him of his savings, of his livelihood, of his reputation, and most likely, in the end, of his life.”
“But why?”
“For sport.”
Emma’s cup rattled in the saucer as she shuddered with the cruelty of it. “Can you mean it?” she asked softly.
“I mean it. Can you really doubt there exists such evil among us?”
She found herself oddly reluctant to answer him. Emma leaned forward and placed her cup and saucer on a nearby table. The small movement served to remind her of aches that had not yet healed and new ones that were surfacing. How had she forgotten that she’d been the victim of that sort of evil? “For sport,” she said on a thread of sound. “Yes, I understand.” She shook her head slightly as if to clear it. “What of the favor, then? What do you ask of the physician whose debts you clear and hands you save?”
“I might ask anything of him,” Restell said. “It is all hypothetical, you understand, but I might be moved to request that he attend a man who is gravely ill from a pistol ball lodged in, shall we say, an unmanageable location. Further, this physician would lend his expertise without raising a single question. He would be expected to offer his assistance at the precise moment he was asked, no matter the complication it presented to his own life. If all this is accomplished in a satisfactory manner, the favor is discharged.”
“It is a rather ingenious approach.�
�
“Hardly. It is barter. An eye for an eye, or at least something akin to that.”
“Do the people you assist know what favor you will require of them?”
“No. They can’t. I don’t know myself.”
“Does that ever give anyone pause?”
“I imagine it does—after their problem is resolved. No one hesitates to agree beforehand.”
“What happens if someone is unable to meet the terms of the favor you ask?”
“I can’t tell you.” Restell could not miss Emma’s look of dismay. He grinned. “I believe you’ve put the wrong construction on my answer, although I find myself unnaturally flattered that you think I could be so ruthless. The reason I can’t tell you what happens is not because I cause harm to their person but because no one has ever failed to meet my terms.”
“Astonishing.”
He shook his head. “Do I strike you as unreasonable, Miss Hathaway?”
“No,” she said cautiously, “but you will allow we have had a very short acquaintance.”
“You are right, of course. You will perhaps appreciate that those people I decide to help are often asked to agree to my terms on the strength of an introduction only—and my promise that I will resolve the situation that distresses them. They agree, I think, not because they know I am indeed a reasonable man, but because the circumstances of their life have become in every way intolerable. As it happens, though, I ask only what can be given. For instance, I would not demand that our hypothetical physician dishonor his oath to do no harm by asking him to mix a poison, nor would I require that he trod the boards at Drury Lane in the service of my amusement or the amusement of my friends. I have no notion whether or not he might agree to either or both of these things, but I am not inclined to place such disagreeable choices before him.”
“Reasonable and honorable.”
“Depressingly tiresome, but there you have it.”
Emma managed a small smile without causing herself further injury. “It is kind of you to explain it to me.”
“Not at all. You should know the whole of it before I accept you as my client.”
A thin vertical crease appeared between her eyebrows. “I thought you understood I have changed my mind. I do not wish you to do anything on my behalf.”
“On your behalf? Aren’t you here on behalf of your cousin?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then whatever I might be able to do would be done for her, is that not right?”
“Yes, but—”
“So it is not on your behalf at all, is it? You would only have to agree to honor what favor I might ask of you. It is a small enough exchange for your cousin’s safety and your own peace of mind.”
“I suppose…” Emma worried the underside of her lip, trying to make sense of his argument. “It seems small enough, but—”
“Would you ignore the recommendation of Dr. Bettany?”
“No, but—”
“Sensible girl. Then I have your word on the matter.”
“Yes, but—”
“Yes is all that is necessary.”
“Yes.”
“Good. It is settled. We have struck a bargain.”
Had they? Emma knew herself to be breathless with no idea of how she came to be so. It must be how the fox felt after being run to ground. “You bullied me.”
“That is a gross exaggeration and quite unfair of you. Do you wish to reconsider it?”
“My comment?”
“No. Our agreement. Did I recently remark that you were sensible? Perhaps the fall did more damage than is immediately evident to the eye.”
Emma speared Restell Gardner with a significant glance and, lest he be oblivious to it, she added her most frosty accents to sharpen the point. “If there is damage to my thinking it is the whiskey that has provoked it.”
“That seems unlikely given the fact that you managed to arrive here under the considerable influence of laudanum. What is a dram of whiskey compared to soporific effects of that opiate?” He did not permit her time enough to form a reply. Though he was credited to have considerable persuasive powers, Restell knew very well that he hadn’t employed them with Miss Emmalyn Hathaway. He doubted that she would have been moved by his bullying in the past, but recent events made her vulnerable and he had shamelessly used that to his advantage. It wasn’t fair, but it was necessary. “I want to introduce you to Sergeant Hobbes,” he told her. “He will accompany my driver and provide additional escort so that you arrive home safely.”
“That is not necessary. I came on my own.”
“The less we refine upon that, the better.”
Emma wished she might raise a more cogent defense against his high-handedness, but in truth, she was weary to the bone. He would have his way in the end; there was no benefit to her in making him labor for it. “I will be glad of the escort,” she said. She was pleased that her tone communicated exactly the opposite.
“I hope you do not regularly mistake sarcasm for wit,” Restell said.
Emma flushed. With effort, she managed to keep her chin up and made no apology. It was not worthy of her, she reflected, but she did not allow herself to care too deeply. She had not sought out Mr. Gardner to secure his good opinion.
“Hobbes is my valet,” Restell told her, “though you should not make too much of that.”
“Is he the man who assisted placing me on the chaise?”
“Yes.”
“How did he lose his leg?”
Restell had wondered if she’d been alert enough to notice the valet’s uneven gait. The peculiar sound of the peg’s contact with the floor would have also alerted her. It may have even been that sound that brought her around to consciousness. “You will have to hear the particulars from him, but I can tell you that it happened in the final hours at Waterloo.” He waited to see if she would offer some comment as people frequently felt compelled to do. She merely nodded and kept her own counsel, though he did not believe he imagined the wave of compassion that briefly crossed her features.
“Are you entertaining doubts?” he asked. “I assure you that he will provide superior protection.”
“If you say it is so, then it is so, but I must remind you that it is Marisol who requires it.”
“Yet you are the one with the bruises.”
“I have explained that.”
Not to my satisfaction. Restell let the thought turn over in his mind without giving it voice. He pushed away from the desk and rang for Hobbes. The valet appeared so quickly that Restell suspected he had been lingering in the entrance hall.
The former sergeant impressively filled the open doorway until Restell gestured to him to enter. Hobbes uneasily shifted his weight from his good leg to his wooden one while the introductions were made, then he stood at attention waiting for further instruction.
“At ease, man,” Restell said. “Miss Hathaway is no threat to you.”
“I am certain she is not,” Hobbes said stiffly.
Restell shifted his glance back to Emmalyn. She had pulled her veil down the moment he rang for Hobbes. He did not upbraid her for wanting to obscure her face from Hobbes, though his man had certainly seen far worse on the battlefield and probably the equal in and around the pubs he frequented upon his return from the continent. “Hobbes will require your address, Miss Hathaway, and some directions as well.”
“Number Twenty-three Covington. That is not far from Saint Mary’s Church and the park.”
“I know it, sir,” Hobbes said to Restell.
“Good.” Restell addressed Emmalyn again. “Who do you expect to be at home when you arrive?” He checked his pocket watch. “It is already after the noon hour.”
“My cousin is likely to have returned from the modiste’s. Uncle Arthur, though, departed earlier than I did in anticipation of sketching by the Thames near Greenwich. It is the sort of thing that will occupy him until the light is lost.”
“What will your cousin make of your absence?”
“I don’t know. Marisol is wholly unpredictable in that regard.”
“You have some explanation at the ready?”
“She is familiar with my desire to be out of doors. It was my habit to be gone from the house most mornings, so I suspect she will want to believe that my actions are proof that I am ready to embrace my former routine.”
“That is all to the good, then.” He turned to Hobbes. “You will permit Miss Hathaway to exit the carriage at the park, then you will follow her at a safe distance. There is nothing to be gained by calling attention to your escort at this juncture.”
“My thoughts exactly,” said Hobbes.
“Afterward, I would like you to visit Madame Chabrier’s shop on Bond Street. You will be glad to hear there’s no need for you to go inside the establishment. I will do that with one or two of my sisters in tow. It is the mews behind the milliner’s that is of interest. I will want all the particulars.”
“Very good.”
Restell approached Emmalyn. “I regret that I cannot accompany you myself, but I have an appointment I must keep.”
“Of course.” In fact, she was relieved. She was glad of the veil because she did not have to concentrate on schooling her features. She had no desire to have Mr. Gardner or his man living in her pockets. “You will not forget that it is Marisol in want of your attention.”
“I could not possibly,” he said. “You understand, don’t you, that a complete accounting of events is in order.”
“An accounting? But I have told you everything.”
“You have told me what you know. At the risk of insulting you, that is hardly everything. It would be shortsighted of me to accept your perspective alone. It is but one aspect of the whole.” He paused. “Do you agree?”
Emma found it difficult to dismiss the notion that he could see through her veil. His gaze was frank, expectant, and above all, piercing. “I am engaging you for your expertise in these matters, Mr. Gardner. It would be foolish of me to instruct you to act in opposition to what you believe must be done.”
