“Lady Somers, Viscountess Seaburn,” Val corrected the woman. “Lillian and I were married only two days ago.”
Miss Hartnett frowned. “If you were married two days ago, what on earth were you doing traipsing through Whitechapel?”
“I think we’re entitled to ask the questions here more than you are, Madam,” Lillian interjected. “The confluence of fate and coincidence that would have to occur together to bring us back into one another’s circles of acquaintance are too impossible and too improbable to be borne! Who are you really?”
Miss Hartnett raised her eyebrows. “That is a very pointed question, my lady. Think long and hard about whether or not you truly wish to have it answered.”
“I don’t think we have a choice,” Val said. “We’re in a bit a situation ourselves and I have to think perhaps they overlap. You weren’t just a simple streetwalker as I originally thought. Nor are you simply a gently-bred woman fallen on hard times. I think you were there, in that precise location, for a reason. Why were you lingering near that particular warehouse last night?”
Miss Hartnett inclined her head in acknowledgement of his assertion. “No, my lord, I am not now nor have I ever been a woman of ill repute… only a woman of poor judgment. As to my identity, the name that I abandoned years ago, at the same time I was forced to abandon my daughter whom I loved so dearly, was Elizabeth Ann Burkhart. And I do believe that I am now your mother-in-law.”
Lillian stood so quickly that the chair she’d occupied rocked back and would have tumbled over had Val not righted it. Her breath was coming in pants and her palms were sweating. Her heart raced in her chest and she blinked rapidly as her vision began to darken around the edges. She would not faint. She had never fainted in her life. “You are not my mother. My mother is dead. She left me on my worthless father’s doorstep and drowned herself in the Thames!”
She was still shaking when Val took her hand.
“Whatever you decide to do when we leave here today, I will support you in it entirely. But for now, we must hear her out because there are things that have brought us all here together that we cannot ignore. Marchebanks is your cousin, and therefore he is her cousin… and he is the man who is responsible for the schemes Elsworth has fallen in with.”
“But it’s lies… it’s all lies!” she insisted. It had to be lies. If not, everything she’d believed about her entire life was false. Still, she sat, sinking down into the chair and staring at the woman across from her with a fury that ran so deep she couldn’t even fathom where it had come from. Had it been trapped inside her all along?
“You have every right to be angry,” the woman said. “I must start the story from the very beginning. It should offer a certain amount of illumination about Alfred Hazleton who is now Lord Marchebanks.”
There was a knock on the door and a serving girl entered with a tea tray and sandwiches. She paused after taking only two steps into the room, the tension clearly palpable.
“You may leave it on the table and we will serve ourselves,” Val instructed.
The girl nodded, deposited the tray, and left hurriedly.
“Go on, Miss… what should we call you?”
“You may call me Miss Hartnett. That is the name I have used most frequently and I believe it is the one that your wife will be most comfortable with,” she said with a sad turn of her lips.
Val poured tea for everyone. When he placed the cup in front of her, Lilly stared at it as if it were something foreign that she had no notion what to do with. Even as he added cream and sugar to it, just as she liked, it sat there untouched.
“Go on, Miss Hartnett,” Lillian said. “Tell your story.”
“I met William Satterly during my first season… but I thought him arrogant and he thought me beneath his notice. It was only later, in my second season, that he began to turn his attentions toward me. He was actually charming, and I found myself questioning if perhaps I had been hasty in my judgment. I didn’t know then that it was all a bet. That he had wagered my cousin that he could seduce me and my cousin, because he was always a terrible person and utterly without conscience, took that wager. Suffice it to say, I made several errors in judgment. Falling for him, trusting him, and allowing myself to be alone with him. He is not a man who takes no for an answer, regardless of how forcefully it is uttered.”
Lilly flinched, recalling the very similar situation she’d found herself in with the son of the family she’d first worked for. But he’d been small and thin, a boy she could fairly easily get away from with the training that Effie had seen to for all of them. Miss Hartnett had likely had no such training.
“When I discovered I was with child, I told my mother and she was stricken with apoplexy and took to her bed. My father was ashamed of me. He disowned me and tossed me into the street. Not knowing what else to do, I went to the rooms that I knew William kept near his club and I knocked on the door and pleaded to speak with him. The doorman never let me in, but William did come out, and my cousin, Alfred, was there with him. The two of them came out together laughing uproariously and right in front of me, Alfred handed William a sovereign and called the wager his.”
The woman paused, sipped her tea, and then continued. “My aunt, Margaret Hazleton, Lady Marchebanks, took me in, but it was made clear to me that I was there on her charity and her charity alone. I was a virtual prisoner in their home, hidden away in an attic room that wasn’t even fit for servants. When I gave birth to you—”
“Not to me,” Lilly insisted. “You are not my mother. I have no mother.”
Miss Hartnett nodded her head. “Very well. When I gave birth to my daughter, I did so alone, with only a housekeeper to attend me. And less than a week afterward, I was kicked out of their house and told to make my own way in the world. It was foolish, but I went back to William. I thought, despite everything he had done, that when he saw our daughter, he would have some of the feelings for her that I did. Because I had loved her instantly. More than I could have ever imagined loving anyone or anything. But while I lurked about his rooms, I heard him approach and he wasn’t alone. Alfred was with him and they were arguing about Alfred’s scheme to get a manufacturer to sell goods to the army and then steal them back. William might be a terrible man, but he is at least a patriot. They argued so fiercely that I was afraid to let my presence be known. So I left. I found a group of women in a hovel in Whitechapel. All of us had children, small infants, and all of us needed to earn a living. I slept on the floor with my daughter in my arms, and another woman cared for her in the day while I worked as a seamstress in a shop where I had once purchased my very own ballgowns.”
Lilly listened to all of it and felt as if her entire world were shattering—as if she were shattering. But she couldn’t think about her mother, she couldn’t think about why she had done what she had or how she might have suffered. “What goods was Marchebanks selling and stealing back?”
“It was general supplies then I believe. He’s moved on now and managed to get a few arms manufacturers in his pocket,” Miss Hartnett replied. “That is why you were following him, wasn’t it, my lord?”
“I wasn’t following him,” Val admitted. “I was following my own troublesome cousin, Elsworth Somers. He did not have William Satterly’s patriotism to steer him clear of such schemes, it would seem.”
“I don’t want to hear any more,” Lilly said. “I want to go home.”
“I would say one thing more before you leave,” Miss Hartnett implored. “I did not abandon you on your father’s doorstep by choice. Alfred discovered that I had overheard their conversation because I, emboldened by desperation and the foolish belief that he would not do violence against his own kin, attempted to blackmail him into providing a place for me to live with you—with my daughter. I barely escaped with my life. And I knew the only person who might protect my daughter from him was William Satterly, but only if he was left with no other choice. I loitered outside their home for hours. I watched William enter and st
ill I waited. It was only when I saw his mother’s carriage turn up the street that I knew what I had to do. I left my child, and a note, on their doorstep and I fled… not because I did not want her. Or because the burden of her was too much for me. I did so only because I knew I had to leave her behind in order for us both to live.”
Lilly rose to her feet again. “I’ll wait for you at the doors. I can’t hear anything more.”
“It’s the truth,” Miss Hartnett said.
Lilly looked at her. “I believe that it is. But I can’t hear anything further now. I simply can’t.” With that, she turned and fled the small room.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Val stared at the woman before him and was torn. They both needed comfort and he was at a loss in terms of how to provide it to either of them. Rising to his feet, he reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and retrieved a card that belonged to his man of affairs. He pressed it into her hand along with some coins. “Go to him first thing in the morning. I’ll have made arrangements by then for you to have a place to stay and adequate funds to see to your needs.”
Miss Hartnett—no, Miss Elizabeth Burkhart—gave him a baleful stare. “I am not here for charity.”
“I know that you are not. I don’t think you knew who I was last night and I certainly don’t think you knew who would be with me today.”
The woman looked down at the card in her hand. “I thought she was dead. I lingered in Millstead, eking out a meager existence there as a maid of all work. But a fever swept through the area and the school. I went there in the days after and I begged the headmaster to let me see her. He told me she was among those who had perished. I didn’t know until two months ago, when the marriage of Wilhelmina Marks, her half-sister, was reported in the papers that my daughter yet lived. When she’s ready to hear that, will you tell her?”
“When she is ready to hear it, you will be able to tell her,” Val offered kindly. “She is hurt and she is shocked to the very core of her being at this moment. But she longs for a family more than anything else in this world, I think. Given time to absorb this information, she will come around.”
“I hope you are right. In the meantime, watch her carefully. Alfred is a devil, and I imagine your cousin is, as well.”
Val nodded. “Do as I said. You cannot mend your relationship with her if she will have no notion where to find you.” With that, he walked out, leaving his wife’s mother behind in the small parlor.
He found Lilly sitting at a table near the doors. She was staring out into the street as the rain trickled down. When he approached her, she looked up at him. “There’s a man outside watching us.”
Val looked up and across the street. Standing in a doorway was Stavers, the brawler turned butler. “Wait here.”
“I will not stay in this establishment with her,” Lilly said. “And I’m not angry and I’m not even hurt. I just can’t. I can’t take it all in.”
Val sighed. “Come on then. We’ll get you into a cab and you can wait there while I see to this other business.”
“You know him?” Lilly asked.
“I wouldn’t say know is precisely the right term… there is a man of somewhat questionable morals and ethics whose assistance I enlisted in finding out who had made an attempt on your life—whether it was Elsworth, someone hired by Elsworth or if Elsworth was even involved. That man is a representative, if you will.”
Val watched her look through the window at the burly and dour-faced man and then back at him.
“I don’t think I like you doing business with these sorts of people,” she said.
“This is the last job I am to do,” he said. Until the Hound called in his favor. “Once all of this is behind us, you and I will retreat to the countryside, if you wish, and we will become the most boring people in all the world.”
She heaved a heavy sigh of relief. “That sounds like heaven. I don’t think I can bear any more dead relatives who aren’t and dying relatives who aren’t.”
Val grinned as he led her outside and hailed a hansom cab. Seeing her into the back of it, he pulled yet another coin from his pocket. “I have to talk to someone just across the way. You will wait here with my wife until I return. Is that understood?”
The driver accepted the coin, lifted it to his mouth and tested the metal of it with the few teeth that remained in his skull. When it proved to be real, he offered up a gap-toothed grin. “Aye, m’lord. ’Appy to wait, I am!”
Val dashed across the street, dodging carts, pedestrians and horses alike. As he neared the doorway where Stavers lurked, the man stepped back and opened the door that he’d been guarding. So he was to meet with the Hound himself rather than just the lackey. He glanced over his shoulder at the still waiting cab, and then followed the butler inside.
The building itself was under construction. White cloth draped most of the surfaces, and plasterers had scattered in the middle of their shift. Their work was only half-completed, leaving intricately carved panels interspersed with exposed brick and wood. In the center of the room, impeccably dressed and sitting on a crate as if it were a throne at the palace was the Hound.
“Hardly your typically luxurious surroundings,” Val remarked.
“You came to me about attempted murder and I find myself in the midst of a treasonous plot,” the Hound said.
Val arched one eyebrow. “Your diction has improved.”
“My mastery of diction and the English language is unchanged. What has changed is my willingness to let you see something beyond the underworld thug most people believe me to be,” the Hound said in a supercilious fashion that sounded far more like a duke than Val himself would ever be capable of.
“I see. Go on. You have my attention.”
The Hound’s lips quirked in amusement. “Careful, puppy. I’ve paved the bed of the Thames with bodies for less. Elsworth Somers did not carry out the attempt himself, but he did pay someone to do so. A man by the name of Foster. Not to worry. He won’t be completing that job or any other. As to your cousin’s involvement in this other scheme, he’s in well over his head. But I think you know that, don’t you?”
“I’m aware. What I don’t know is the name of the ship they mean to transport the weapons and who’ll be in on the attack. I don’t suppose this is something you’d consider handling, would you?”
The Hound drummed his fingers on his thigh for a moment. “I could be persuaded to see this thing through for you… for a cost naturally.”
“Not simply out of the goodness of your patriotic heart?” Val asked with a grin.
“I’d help for that, but I wouldn’t spearhead the operation. You, Viscount Seaburn, are interfering with my ability to retain my anonymity and my low social profile. Why should I do this for you?”
Val considered. “Well, I’d owe you two favors instead of one.”
“No, you wouldn’t. I don’t need favors to end traitorous plots. That’s a matter of duty for any Englishman, no matter his profession or standing. I’m not even certain you owe me the first favor as it all seems to be part and parcel of the same plot. Lillian Burkhart, I beg your pardon, Lillian Somers, is a by-blow of Alfred Hazleton’s cousin… the one that died all those years ago. Isn’t she?”
The status of Elizabeth Burkhart as being very much amongst the living was not his secret to tell, so Val simply concurred, “She is.”
“And Hazleton, who recently got the Marchebanks title and all the Marchebanks debt, is front and center in this plot. Did you know his mother was French? Oddly enough, they escaped France with a great deal of their wealth intact. Her skirts were so laden with jewels it was a wonder the bloody ship didn’t sink,” the Hound said. “Unfortunately, they had less success keeping their wealth. Spendthrifts and gamblers.”
“You really should consider going to work as an agent,” Val offered. “You’d be very good at it.”
“Contract basis only. I’m not good at working for other people outside of a limited capacity,” he answered. �
��I’ll get you the name of the ship. Then I’m out of it. Who you choose to pass it on to is at your discretion.”
“Send word when you have it. It’ll be dealt with. Now, I need to get my wife home. It’s been a difficult morning,” Val stated.
“Delicate, is she? Hardly seems like one of Miss Darrow’s girls!”
Val laughed. “No. I wouldn’t call her delicate. But since you know so much about Marchebanks, you ought to know this, too. I’d considered not bringing it up, but I think it has bearing. My wife’s mother is very much alive and has been living under an assumed name for all these years because Lord Marchebanks wanted her dead. His treasonous plots go back quite a ways, it would seem.”
The Hound sighed. “Now you’re just goading me. You want me to hate him so badly that I will agree to take it all off your hands.”
“Did it work?”
“Yes, damn you, it did.”
Val smiled. “Any information can be sent directly to Lord Highcliff.”
The Hound’s expression of ennui transformed into one of shock. “That popinjay?”
Val grinned as he turned to head for the door. “You’re not the only one who knows how to disguise his true nature, my good man!”
Leaving the building, Val had just stepped outside when the driver of the hansom cab across the street, the very one that housed Lilly, fell off the box and landed with a thud on the pavement. Another man jumped up and grabbed the reins. Val didn’t have to ask for Stavers’ assistance. The unlikely butler had already broken into a run, heading for the end of the block. Val cut across the street, and managed to reach the cab first. Traffic was too heavy and the street too congested for the driver to make a hasty getaway. But rather than be caught, the man simply abandoned his post, jumping down from the box and rolling away from the clashing hooves.
The coach lurched and swayed alarmingly, the horses now given their heads with no one on the box to control them. Trying to balance on a moving coach, climbing up toward the now vacant box, Val lost his balance and slipped, saving himself at the last moment by grabbing the railing along the top of the coach. By some miracle, he managed to avoid getting his legs crushed under the wheels. The second time, when he reached for the box to hoist himself onto it, he made it. But the reins were lost beneath the carriage itself and he’d have to grab hold of the bridle itself to slow the horses down. The only way to achieve that would involve climbing out onto the back of one of the beasts who likely would not take kindly to it.
Barefoot in Hyde Park (The Hellion Club Book 2) Page 19
