Rakes and Roses (Proper Romance Regency)

by Josi S. Kilpack

  Sabrina walked through Hyde Park toward her London rooms, stopping to converse with a few acquaintances also enjoying the summer day.

  No men were allowed past the common parlor on the main floor of her apartment building, and the tenants—all unmarried women like herself—shared the expense of a butler and housekeeper, Mr. and Mrs. Billings, and the services of the girl of all work, Clara, who often filled in as a lady’s maid when needed.

  Mr. Billings came out from his quarters on the first floor when he heard the front door open.

  “Lady Sabrina,” the gray-haired man said, removing a handful of letters from his pocket and sifting through them before selecting two. “These have come for you the last two days.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Billings,” Sabrina said, trading him her cloak—the light-blue one that looked particularly nice with her yellow-and-blue pin-striped walking dress—for the letter.

  As soon as she saw Mr. Gordon’s name, her smile fell. He’d expected her to have been in London following her meeting with Mr. Stillman so that he could keep her apprised of his work settling the accounts. What did he think of her not having responded? How had she managed not to think about him at all these last thirty hours or so?

  “Is everything all right, Lady Sabrina?” Mr. Billings asked.

  She repaired her expression immediately and smiled at him with feigned reassurance. “Yes, of course. Thank you, Mr. Billings.”

  Sabrina lifted her skirts but did not allow herself to run up the stairs despite her anxiety.

  Once she’d closed the door to her apartment behind her, she quickly broke the seal on both letters, determined which had been sent first, and read them in order.

  Yesterday’s letter included a report of the notices sent to all of Mr. Stillman’s creditors. By the time Mr. Gordon had written the letter, he’d already heard back from three creditors eager to have their accounts settled. Each had furnished him with a statement confirming the amounts Mr. Stillman had given Lord Damion at their meeting. Mr. Gordon planned to settle those accounts immediately, and he ended by telling her he would send a letter with his updated progress tomorrow—which was now today.

  The second note had a very different tone and had been sent that morning.

  Lady Sabrina,

  A gentleman by the name of Mr. Clarence Ward contacted me early this morning regarding Mr. Stillman, who did not return from his appointment with Lord Damion yesterday. Mr. Ward’s attempts to locate Mr. Stillman have led him to no additional information, which brought him to me, since he was aware of Mr. Stillman’s correspondence.

  Mr. Ward is quite anxious about whether or not Mr. Stillman arrived at his appointment and wishes to know where that appointment took place so that he might trace his route that morning. I have assured the man that I will ask Lord Damion on his behalf and relay the information to him as soon as possible. I’ve asked him not to speak with anyone else about this situation.

  I shall not move forward on this matter until I hear from you.

  Sincerely

  G.R. Gordon

  Sabrina was pacing by the time Joshua let Mr. Gordon into the parlor of Wimbledon House Tuesday night. She had fretted all day about how to go about this meeting and still feared she’d chosen poorly.

  “Joshua, please see that Mr. Gordon and I are not disturbed.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The door closed, and Sabrina turned apologetic eyes to the older man she’d known for the better part of a decade. “I am so very sorry to have made you come all this way, Mr. Gordon. I simply did not know how best to manage this meeting.”

  They kept to strict rules about their communication. She visited his offices on Garner Street only once a month, a reasonable time frame for an enterprising widow to be updated by her man of business who also worked for a number of wealthy people in the city. All necessary communication between meetings was done via notes sent through messengers. Sometimes weeks would go by without the need to be in contact, and then, such as this last week, there were several notes back and forth as they conferred about a client’s situation. Lord Damion made the decisions, but Mr. Gordon was the contact point. He was also the one who would be watched should someone come snooping.

  Fear that Mr. Stillman may have been followed to the Monday meeting, coupled with Mr. Ward’s inquiry about Mr. Stillman’s present location, had left Sabrina paranoid. Mr. Ward may have already asked questions of the wrong person, which could ignite speculation that could invite unwanted attention on Mr. Gordon’s office. They could not meet anywhere else in the city without risking exposure. The only safe way to conduct this meeting was to take it out of London entirely.

  Mr. Gordon’s ring of gray hair stuck out in a dozen different directions. “I do not mind the distance as much as I am concerned for your disposition, Lady Sabrina. I have never known you to be quite so worked up.”

  Because she had never had such cause. “Mr. Stillman is here,” she said without preamble as though it were a race to get the words out.

  Mr. Gordon blinked, then tilted his head slightly. “I’m sorry, did you say Mr. Stillman is here?”

  “Yes, he is here. In my house.” Her tone was pleading and scared. She shook her head at the folly of it all and pointed to the ceiling. “On the third level, the east bedchamber.”

  “Right,” Mr. Gordon said in a slow exhale of sound and breath. As always, he was perfectly calm. “And why, may I ask, is he here?”

  Sabrina explained what had happened yesterday morning, relieved to be able to confide in someone. “I could not leave him there. He had nowhere to go.”

  “Except, perhaps, back to Mr. Ward’s house.”

  “Malcolm must have followed him from there, which meant he knew where Mr. Stillman had been staying, just as Mr. Stillman had feared.”

  “Yes, that concerns me too, but for a different reason than it seems to have concerned you. The beating Mr. Stillman received rendered him incapable of escaping London, which was surely the point. Malcolm has no reason to debilitate him further, so allowing Mr. Stillman to return to where he’d come from poses no additional risk.”

  Sabrina blinked. “I had not thought of that.” Why had I not thought of that? “But he also needed care. I had no way of knowing he would receive it if his friend were to take responsibility.”

  “I suppose not.” Mr. Gordon’s tone was conciliatory rather than agreeable to the justification. What he did not say was that Sabrina had taken on unnecessary risk to herself by bringing him here. Which was true. There were doctors in London whom Mr. Ward could have brought in. Her taking on so much responsibility further complicated an already complicated situation. For a woman of sharp mind and wise instincts, she’d acted rashly.

  “Regardless, he is here now,” Mr. Gordon said. “How is he doing?”

  “He’s been mostly sedated since his arrival. Therese felt the least movement possible would best allow the bones to knit. She will be lessening his dosage of laudanum over the next few days so he can properly withdraw from his addiction to drink, which we already saw signs of yesterday when he first arrived.”

  Mr. Stillman had been shaking and sick, begging for a drink, and seeing things that were not there. Therese suspected he’d been drunk for months on end. The laudanum would address his pain and help him taper from his dependency on drink, but he needed to find sobriety as soon as possible so his body could focus on healing.

  “And he does not suspect you are Lord Damion?”

  “I have not spoken to him since discovering him in the alley, but there is no reason he would suspect me. Therese, my housekeeper, is a bit of a physician and has been caring for him. No one here knows anything of Lord Damion.” She glanced at the closed door. They did not know of Lord Damion because none of that work ever took place or was spoken about here. She’d broken that protection.

  “What does your staff believe warranted this act of . . . charity?”

  “I told them I came upon him in a London alley when I wa
s in search of a particular cobbler shop in the area where I had an early-morning appointment.”

  “At eight o’clock on a Monday morning?”

  She dropped her hands to her sides and sat heavily in a chair, her shoulders falling forward. “I know,” she said. “The story felt inconsequential in comparison to a man who may have died without my help.”

  “Or been found within the hour by a shopkeeper who would have orchestrated a more natural solution. He’d have been taken to hospital, his friend contacted, and you would not be involved to this degree—or at all.”

  “I did not think of that at the time.” She felt like a complete fool to have not seen all the flaws that were so obvious to Mr. Gordon. “And I cannot undo it for at least four weeks, according to Therese. Yet I set sail for Naples in five weeks, and I have no idea who might take him in after that.”

  Mr. Gordon waved away her concerns. “His uncle’s response to our inquiry about the inheritance showed compassion for the boy. I’m sure he will take responsibility once Mr. Stillman is capable of travel. I will encourage that route when Mr. Stillman is once again communicating with me.”

  Mr. Gordon sat in the chair next to Sabrina before removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. He didn’t repeat his opinion that they should not have taken Mr. Stillman’s case in the first place, but she felt sure he was thinking it.

  The first fox they had accepted this Season had been Bartholomew Hopkins, who had owed eighteen hundred pounds to Malcolm. When Mr. Gordon had sent notice of settlement, Malcolm had required it to be paid in banknotes and in person by Mr. Gordon, whom he’d then interrogated about Lord Damion’s terms and processes.

  It was not the first time a lender had thrown a tantrum over the payoff; after all, a settled debt meant lost profit on the accruing interest. Due to Malcolm’s reaction, Mr. Gordon had denied three potential candidates in part because they owed Malcolm. But Mr. Stillman’s case had been different, in Sabrina’s mind, at least. Sabrina had used Malcolm’s unsavory ways as further reason to help Mr. Stillman, who would never otherwise be free of his debt.

  “I shall order tea,” Sabrina said, embarrassed she had not done so already.

  “Do not bother with that,” Mr. Gordon said, waving his glasses through the air. He put them back on and smiled sympathetically. “There is a solution to every problem, so we must focus our energies on finding the solution to this one without the staff posing interruption.”

  They parried ideas back and forth for the next half an hour, considering several options in turn. Eventually they determined that Mr. Gordon would tell Mr. Ward that he’d learned that an old friend of Mr. Stillman’s had found him, beaten and bruised, and brought him to her home when he claimed to have no one she could contact on his behalf—most of which was true.

  Deeming Sabrina and Mr. Stillman as old friends instead of having met only once lent credibility to why she had wanted to help him, but for this explanation to be believed, a few things would have to work in their favor:

  First, Mr. Stillman would have to accept that he and Sabrina had known each other beyond that one encounter six years ago—an encounter she was not sure he remembered at all due to his heavy drinking.

  The second aspect was that Mr. Ward would need to agree to keep the situation private in order to protect all the reputations involved. Mr. Gordon would not disclose Sabrina’s identity unless Mr. Ward pressed. Hopefully, he wouldn’t.

  They would both be attentive to anything Mr. Stillman might say that suggested he’d made any connection between Lord Damion and Lady Sabrina, but they agreed he was the only person who might do so. They would have to wait until Mr. Stillman recovered enough to relay what he remembered to know if Lord Damion’s identity remained secret.

  They also both agreed it was imperative that Sabrina keep clear lines between what she knew and what Lord Damion knew. It would be easy for her to give herself away if she did not carefully guard her conversations with Mr. Stillman.

  “It is fortunate this is happening at the end of the Season,” Mr. Gordon said. “But we may need to consider how we move forward with Lord Damion’s work next year. It is my hope Malcolm was only following Mr. Stillman and not sniffing out Lord Damion, but there is no way for us to know that for sure. And if Malcolm is this invested in discovering Lord Damion’s identity, there will be other lenders wanting the same information. We may have done all the good we can do in this particular quadrant.”

  Sabrina felt a pit in her stomach at the idea of closing down an operation she felt so passionate about. Yet, they had always known there would be a point where the risk of discovery would be too high. She had not thought that point would be reached so soon, however. There were so many more men she could help. If she’d taken Mr. Gordon’s advice about Mr. Stillman’s case from the start, none of this would have happened. There was some comfort in knowing she had saved Mr. Stillman, though. Or, at least, she was still hopeful she could.

  She nodded, “I think you are probably right, Mr. Gordon, though I am sorry for it.”

  “As am I, Lady Sabrina. We have done good work.” He smiled kindly, and she tried to match it with her own but feared it did not look sincere.

  It was after eight o’clock when Mr. Gordon climbed back into a hired carriage for the return to his home in London.

  Sabrina ate dinner alone in Rose Haven’s dining room while trying to focus on the day’s paper. She could not stop reviewing her conversation with Mr. Gordon and worrying about her ability to deal rationally with whatever might happen next.

  What if Mr. Ward pressed for her identity and then exposed that she’d taken an unmarried man into her household? What if Mr. Stillman remembered he had met Sabrina only one time? What if Malcolm—who had not yet responded to Mr. Gordon’s request for settlement—had followed Mr. Stillman that morning in an attempt to discover Lord Damion?

  Mr. Stillman had to have been followed from Mr. Ward’s house in Mayfair, and then Malcolm’s men had waited for him during the entire appointment. The fear that Mr. Stillman had been beaten as a warning left a sour taste in her mouth.

  The anxiety of the day compounded with traveling to and from London—two hours each way—had left her exhausted by the time she finished her late dinner. She longed for sleep, but at the third-level landing, where the stairs split, she came to a stop. Instead of taking the left stairs to the west wing where her bedchamber was located, Sabrina found herself drawn toward the east wing where Mr. Stillman was convalescing.

  Therese had said that his awareness and discomfort was increasing in equal measure now that he was receiving laudanum every five hours instead of three. Most of his communication with Therese had been requests for brandy—first politely, then begging, then demanding, and, once, with tears. It was unfortunate that he had to come off the drink in circumstances such as these, but in Sabrina’s experience, a man could not think clearly enough to rise above his mistakes until his body was free of the effects of alcohol.

  Perhaps she should look in on the man she’d risked so much for and see how he was faring. Men were used to ordering women about and getting their way, but Therese had an additional difficulty in that she was merely the housekeeper, not the lady of the house. Sabrina might be the only person Mr. Stillman would view as more powerful than himself.

  Therese kept four bouquets of roses in the house most of the year—one in the entryway, one on the table in front of the parlor window, one beside Sabrina’s bed, and one on the dining room table. Since she’d become the owner of Rose Haven, roses had become Lady Sabrina’s signature, a token of beauty that settled her with a sense of identity and calm. She made rose water from the spent bouquets and wore it every day, ordered rose-colored lip tint from Paris, and wore only shades of pink and red to formal events.

  Richard’s mother, Hortencia, had designed the remarkable gardens when the house had been built: concentric circular hedges of white, red, and three shades of pink, all set with a small po
nd at the center. Sabrina had loved her mother-in-law, though she had not known her long, and the roses held the woman’s memory.

  Sabrina returned to the entryway and picked up the bouquet there—a lovely collection of pink, white, and red blooms set in a porcelain vase. She would cut a replacement bouquet in the morning.

  She tapped lightly on the door in case Mr. Stillman was asleep. When she did not hear a response, she let herself in, telling herself that the flowers would be a nice sight to see when he woke in the morning. The larger reason, however, was simple curiosity. It was not every day a woman had a strange man hidden under her roof; a man she’d saved, no less.

  There was a single lamp turned low on his nightstand, and she was two steps into the room before she realized Mr. Stillman was not asleep. She stopped, held in place by those bright blue eyes until she unstuck her feet and approached the bed where he lay on his back, a pillow beneath his head.

  She settled the bouquet on the nightstand, then looked back to find him still watching her, the lamplight reflecting off his hair and making it look like spun gold in the low flame. The ambience of the room was uncomfortably intimate, and Sabrina was careful to leave an adequate distance between herself and the patient.

  “Good evening, Mr. Stillman,” she said in a regal tone that sounded haughtier than she’d intended. Almost matronly. The five years between them in age felt wider due to the level of responsibility her life required and the opposite responsibility he had taken of his own. “I am Lady Sabrina Carlisle, mistress of this house. I wanted to look in on you now that I am back from London.”

  “You are the mistress of this house?” His tone was unreadable.

  She nodded, and he continued to stare, which was rather disconcerting. She turned up the lamp, but it did not remedy the tension as much as she had hoped it would. She clasped her hands in front of her and moved to the foot of the bed. “We grow our own roses here. Did you know?” She waved toward the vase.