by Mary Brendan
She’d not had a wink of sleep and felt utterly exhausted. But she wouldn’t be able to rest with her head crammed with anxieties. The most persistent of which was that her knight in shining armour had gone off without giving his word to keep his lip buttoned. How stupid of her to mention her brother to him! As she closed her bedchamber door, she played over in her mind their conversation and felt a modicum of relief. She’d not said she’d seen Robin, only that she’d had a meeting to attend. She could hint at having heard a rumour that her brother had been spotted in London. Of course, that hardly explained why she’d go out searching for him at dead of night.
Her father had received an anonymous letter a year ago informing him that his son had died of consumption in France. The note had been written in a woman’s hand, although the person hadn’t disclosed any more than they were ‘a good friend’ of the deceased’s. Emma now believed it had been sent by a French mistress of Robin’s, on his instruction, so he could plot his eventual return to his homeland. Obviously, he hadn’t trusted his family enough to know the whole truth. And still he didn’t, it seemed!
Emma closed the bedroom curtains against the early sunbeams striping the walls with golden light. She undressed quickly, putting on her nightgown, then tidied away her clothes before climbing into bed and pulling the covers to her chin. She lay gazing up at the ceiling, then closed her eyes, willing herself to drop off for a few hours at least. But three men occupied her mind: her father, her brother and Lance Harley. Of the trio, a dark visage with mocking sapphire eyes and a cruel mouth took the longest time to banish, but eventually she did fall into a dreamless slumber.
* * *
The Earl of Houndsmere’s manservant was under no illusion as to what his employer got up to when out carousing until dawn. Thus he found nothing unusual in coming upon the scoundrel dunking his battered right hand in a basin of water. Watching him, though, he was hoping the damage was limited to his lordship’s person. It would break the heart of any valet worth his salt to gaze upon an exquisite superfine tailcoat ripped about the seams. Yet were it so, the garment would be tossed to him to dispose of rather than to repair and his lordship’s Italian tailor would rub together his greedy palms. Reeves edged closer, attempting to ease a muscular arm out of a sleeve so he could spirit away the jacket to inspect it. He was bluntly told to desist. A few moments later the Earl of Houndsmere was stretched out on top of his four-poster, fully dressed. Reeves muttered something about sacrilege, but managed not to slam the door of the huge bedchamber as he disappeared to leave his lordship to nap.
Lance pillowed his scalp on his hands and frowned thoughtfully at the tasselled canopy overhead. He was annoyed with himself for being unable to put Emma Waverley from his mind. He liked a pretty woman as much as the next man, but there were plenty to brood upon who liked him in return and were expecting him to do something about that. Perfect manners aside, she’d been cool to him, despite his derring-do, and he didn’t think she was acting coy to pique his interest. He doubted she’d have been any more impressed by him had he introduced himself by his title. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t...other than to save her father’s feelings. The man lived in a shoddy house and might have become yet more defensive on discovering a nobleman was within his humble abode. The poor fellow did have worries aplenty: a son who might or might not be dead, a daughter given to making midnight visits to slums and pockets quite obviously to let.
But Mr Waverley was fortunate in that his beauteous daughter was protective of him. Lance believed she was also protecting her brother. If so, he must have faked his own death to avoid pursuit after killing his opponent. It wasn’t an unusual trick for a duellist to flee abroad, then send home a tale of his demise before rising phoenix-like years later after the fuss had died down.
Lance regretted charging right up to her door like an idiot and getting her into trouble, yet...he was glad he’d gone inside the house and had the chance to talk to her. From the moment they’d been left alone together and he’d got a proper look into her glorious golden eyes he had seen a sadness that no amount of defiance could disguise. Something was very wrong in her life. Intrepid little thing that she was, she’d nevertheless possessed an endearing vulnerability that had moved him and had made him pry not simply from curiosity, but to understand if there was a way in which he might help. He wasn’t given to sentimentality or to solving puzzles, but he knew this one would eat away at him if he didn’t look further into it. Besides, dwelling on Emma Waverley and her intriguing family would make a change from pondering on his own kin making of themselves a blasted nuisance. If it weren’t for his sister Ruth nagging him to sort things out, he would have long ago turned his back on his stepmother and her tiresome daughter in the same way his father had.
He sat up and shrugged out of his coat. Although he still felt enervated, he knew he wouldn’t sleep. The day stretched in front of him and he needed something to occupy the time that didn’t involve him joining Ruth at her afternoon salon. The prospect of drinking tea and listening to her friends wheedling for him to attend their debutantes’ balls was enough to send him off early to his club with the intention of remaining there until nightfall.
‘What in God’s name are you doing up at this hour?’
Lance addressed the newcomer, but continued taking off his crumpled clothes as his friend sauntered into his bedchamber and slunk down on the window seat.
‘I’m not up... I haven’t retired yet.’ Jack Valance dragged some fingers through his fair hair. ‘And neither have you by the look of it.’ He yawned, watching the Earl ripping off his boots and lobbing them into a corner. ‘Any chance of some coffee? Or a kip in your bed if you’ve finished with it?’ Jack stretched out his legs in front of him, then crossed his arms and rested his head back against the wall as though to snooze.
‘Ask Reeves for coffee.’ Lance jerked his head to indicate the anteroom where his valet would be skulking.
‘Fancy a trip to Newmarket races later?’ Jack asked, opening one red-rimmed eye to watch his friend’s reaction to his suggestion.
‘Can’t. Got things to do.’
‘What?’ Jack perked up, hoping to hear about something interesting that he could get involved in.
‘Family matters.’ Lance dampened down his friend’s grin.
‘I don’t know why you bother with that chit.’ Jack sighed. ‘The girl will end up in Bridewell if she don’t settle down.’ Jack knew that his friend’s stepsister was a minx. The Countess had been a courtesan before becoming the old Earl’s second wife. Now the daughter appeared to be taking up where the mother had left off. Lance had already hushed up one scandal after the girl was spotted without a chaperon, visiting relatives on her mother’s side who lived by the docks.
Jack ordered the coffee by poking his head round the anteroom door to speak to Reeves. He found the window seat again with a sigh. ‘I’m in Queer Street since I put twenty guineas on a mare. The damnable filly cantered in second from last at Epsom.’
Reeves backed into the room, bearing a tray holding cups and a silver coffee pot. After the valet deposited it on a table, Lance handed him his creased jacket with an apologetic smile. He’d noticed his servant’s mournful gaze kept returning to it.
‘Do you need some salve for those knuckles, sir?’ Reeves was eyeing the Earl’s grazes.
Lance idly flexed his fingers, having forgotten about the wounds, if not the woman who’d caused him to get them. ‘They’re only scratches.’
‘Had a scrap last night, did you?’ Jack approached to investigate the damage with a raised eyebrow.
‘Nothing worth mentioning,’ Lance said and commenced lathering his skin with a shaving brush.
Jack knew when he was being shut out. They were close friends, but the Earl had a private side and Jack knew better than to pry into it.
Having poured the coffee and distributed the cups, Reeves perambulated the room, foraging
beneath chairs and cabinets for shoes and boots for polishing while the gentlemen continued their discourse. He halted with an armful of supple leather to say, ‘You should allow me to do that for you, my lord.’ Reeves was frowning at the sight of his master shaving himself.
Lance half-smiled. ‘You’re probably the only man I would allow to hold a blade to my throat, Reeves.’ He drew steel up a column of tanned throat to a square, bristly jaw, then dipped the soap-edged razor into warm water. He’d been in the army for six years and had grown used to doing things for himself...even cooking over an open fire. Dragging a servant along on campaign to mollycoddle you was to his mind an unnecessary vanity when all any soldier needed was a surgeon and a priest on standby. Lance heard a gruff laugh and his eyes strayed to his friend’s reflection.
Jack had been observing an entertaining spectacle of a street urchin pickpocketing for some minutes. He’d been giving his friend a running commentary as the scene unfolded. Jack gave another guffaw before dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief. ‘Just what I needed to wake me up,’ he said, turning to Lance.
‘Escaped, did he?’
‘The little toe-rag did at that,’ Jack concurred with an amount of admiration.
Lance continued shaving with one hand, his other extended meaningfully.
Jack groaned and plunged a hand in a pocket. He dropped a coin into his friend’s damp palm.
‘Shall I bring a breakfast tray, my lord?’ Reeves offered over a starchy black shoulder. ‘Or will you go to the dining room for a proper sit-down?’ His master was wont to breakfast quite insubstantially. A pot of tea and a plate of toast was not a meal fit for an earl in Reeves’s estimation.
‘Toast and tea will suffice,’ Lance said, and Jack rubbed his hands together in anticipation of a quick snack.
Lance was deftly folding a sepia-silk cravat as he strolled to the window and looked out over Grosvenor Square. Smart vehicles thronged the street, people strolled and a few liveried servants could be seen weaving busily between the gentry. Mentally, he sorted through his business affairs. There were several matters to finalise before he journeyed later to Hertfordshire to find out what in damnation his stepsister had been up to this time. If he were to bring her home he first needed an idea of where to find her. He hadn’t spotted Augusta in town for weeks and neither had he heard gossip about her, which was unusual. She was staying in town with a chaperon chosen by her mother. Obviously the woman was unable to discipline Augusta well enough to keep her out of trouble.
Within a short while Lance’s mind had wandered back to Marylebone and an image of an exquisite raven-haired woman. Before he left town he knew he’d be compelled to call on Miss Waverley again. He wasn’t particularly vain, but for some reason he needed to show her he wasn’t a drunken ruffian...well, not very often, anyway. And he knew she was no fallen woman, although he’d hinted as much to her and seen her bristle angrily. But what in damnation had she been thinking of, going to a rookery at night, even to meet her fugitive brother? He felt a genuine concern for what might have happened to her had he not gone to Cheapside to visit Jenny last night. And he had been in two minds about it.
Although she’d been his mistress for less than a year he was already contemplating pensioning her off. He never accounted to a mistress for his whereabouts or his behaviour and Jenny had lately been expecting he might do both. Lance knew an opera singer was angling for his attention and he’d given Maria enough reason to expect he might approach her. Now he couldn’t recall what about the soprano had attracted him.
The more he tried to forget Emma Waverley, the more his thoughts returned to finding an excuse to pay a call at Primrose Square. He could go back to ask after her welfare following her mishap. Another meeting between them would be unwelcome to her, she’d made that clear, so the reception he’d get was uncertain. But he liked a challenge and was desperate enough to be in the same room with her again to take a few barbs.
‘White’s or Watier’s?’ Lance asked over a shoulder. ‘We could have a game of Faro before I set off. You might win your losses back.’
‘Fat chance of that if you’re in on it.’ Jack snorted grumpily. ‘Watier’s...the food’s better,’ he opted, having given the matter a second of consideration. ‘Besides, yesterday there was some talk at the Faro table about a duel on Wimbledon Common. Didn’t recognise the names of those involved, but I’m curious to know who was victorious.’
Lance gazed down on to a sunlit street scene, hands thrust into his pockets. ‘On the matter of duels, d’you recall anything about a fellow called Waverley fleeing abroad after a scandal?’
‘That’s going back some years,’ Jack said in surprise. ‘This duel was over a woman, but nobody deserves to end up in the dung like Robin Waverley. Damnable pity for him.’
‘Refresh my memory,’ Lance said. ‘I can’t bring it all to mind.’
‘Why d’you want to know?’ Jack crossed his arms over his chest, looking inquisitive.
‘If I ever need to act as your second, I’d like to know what I’m getting into.’ Lance shrugged into a charcoal-grey tailcoat his valet had laid out.
‘Same as last time you acted as my second...or I acted as yours,’ came the dry reply. ‘I know you ain’t forgotten as it was barely a month ago I met Bellingham.’
‘That was over a Covent Garden nun. Was Robin Waverley’s sister involved in his trouble? I don’t recall the details.’
‘I believe she was. She eloped with Simon Gresham. At the time nobody knew why she’d do that when Gresham could have approached her father for his consent. Still, they wanted to do it on the sly and her brother discovered the reason for it and pursued them. He brought her back and called Gresham out.’
‘How old was she then?’ Lance was listening intently.
‘About eighteen, I think.’
‘Simon Gresham wasn’t acceptable to her father, perhaps?’
‘I should say he wasn’t!’ Jack snorted. ‘If they’d reached Gretna and done the deed he’d have made of himself a bigamist.’ Jack poured himself the dregs from the coffee pot. ‘That’s what Robin Waverley found out: Simon Gresham already had a wife.’
Chapter Three
‘You look rather tired, my dear.’
‘I stayed up reading until quite late,’ Emma replied coolly, meeting the watchful eyes of the man standing opposite her. She knew he was expecting her to invite him to sit down. But she wanted him gone, not making himself comfortable. ‘My father will not be home for some hours. He has gone out on business. You should return another time, sir.’
Joshua Gresham refused to take the hint to leave. He shifted his feet even wider apart, crossed his arms over his bulky torso and treated her to another of his false smiles. ‘But I am here to see you, as I imagine you well know.’ He glanced at the small servant hovering in the doorway of the parlour. ‘Will you send her away?’
The maid’s expression didn’t change and neither did she move. Mrs O’Reilly remained where she was, glaring into space. But Emma knew that the woman was biting her tongue in the same way she was herself. In her Irish brogue, and behind his back, Cathleen O’Reilly had called Mr Gresham a nasty fat feller on previous occasions that he’d visited.
Customarily he’d turn up unannounced on the pretence of visiting her father. But she wouldn’t put it past him to have watched and waited for Bernard to leave the house today before knocking on the door to trap her alone. She was well aware that she was the one he really wanted to torment.
‘I am expecting my friend to call on me this afternoon. We are going shopping.’
‘Then we have a chance to talk before she arrives,’ he purred.
‘As you wish.’ The effort of being civil to this loathsome individual made Emma’s stomach squirm. She avoided Cathleen’s eyes. The maid was muttering beneath her breath and Emma knew the woman was itching to be told to show him out. But there were
things that even her father wasn’t aware of that had gone on between his daughter and this man.
She’d not pretended to have an appointment, but her friend wasn’t due to call until four and the clock on the mantel had only just chimed three.
Joshua Gresham propped an elbow against the chimneypiece, cocking his head to peer at her. His stance reminded Emma of another gentleman who had recently been in this room. But Joshua, shorter in stature and thicker of frame, had none of Mr Harley’s fine physical attributes. Neither did he have that man’s character. Oddly, as she compared the two of them, she realised that she had found Mr Harley quite charming...a fact that she imagined might make him give her one of his ironic smiles, did he but know it.
Emma went to the window and gazed along the street, hoping her friend might come early and save her enduring Gresham’s company. For all his sham politeness he was a nasty piece of work and his brother had been little better. It had been a terrible error of judgement on her part to get involved with Simon, let alone fall in love with him. She had put her faith and trust in a lying wretch and thereby destroyed her family.
Yet, even knowing Simon had tricked her couldn’t prevent a residue of wistfulness welling up inside. The man she’d wanted to marry had been the same one who had driven them all into debt and disgrace, losing his life in the doing of it. Her brother and her father had declared it was his own fault and no less than the scoundrel deserved. But Emma had shut herself in her room and howled for days when she found out that the man she’d believed she would grow old with had died. She pushed memories of Simon from her mind as his elder brother spoke to her.
‘I have been patient, my dear, but must insist on having my answer from you.’ Joshua had crept up behind her and was curving over her shoulder as though he might touch her face with his lips.