He went to the coach and said something through the window. The vehicle picked up speed and turned away at the next street.
Vergil strode alongside her as he tried to shield her from the jostling bodies. “Where are we going?”
“Where you told me to go, to one of the partnerships that insures ships. I learned of one called Lloyds in the City.”
“That will be a long walk. Surely St. John would have taken you.”
She gritted her teeth. Daniel had promised to take her “in a few days.” That had been two weeks ago.
Of course, he saw no need to hurry. What did he care? He wasn’t the one adrift in the world, with no history, no family, no home. He did not carry an emptiness in his heart that ached to be filled with something, anything. He could put her off until he had absolutely nothing else to do, which would be never.
They had been walking half an hour when the bulk of a horse cast a shadow on them.
“You took your time getting here, St. John,” Vergil said.
Diane stopped in her tracks. Her gaze traveled up the mass of gray horseflesh to the rigid rider blocking the sun.
“I did not want to trample anyone,” Daniel said. “Hampton is following, and if you retrace your steps you will meet his coach. Thank you, and my cousin apologizes for the delay this has caused you. Don’t you, Diane?”
“No apologies are necessary,” Vergil said as he turned away.
Daniel dismounted. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Staying out of my way would be the wisest choice today.” She began walking again.
He came along, leading his horse. The crowd parted like the Red Sea as the huge steed approached.
“A woman does not walk alone in London. Didn’t my sister explain that?”
“I see plenty of women walking alone.”
“That is different. They are poor and have employment to attend.”
“So am I. So do I.”
He ignored the first part. “What employment?”
“I am going to Lloyds.”
“Ah, so this rebellion is the result of a little temper because I have not tended to that yet.”
She stopped and faced him, so furious that her eyes hurt. “Do not mock me. This is why I am here. This is why I left the school. Not to amuse you, and not for your sister, much as I love her. If I wait for you to tend to this, I will grow old first. If I did not know that I am completely insignificant to you, I would suspect that you lied in the garden to put me off.”
She turned on her heel and walked away. He fell into step beside her.
“Go away.”
“I must insist on accompanying you. The streets are not safe, and it is too far to call for Paul or someone else.”
She ignored the man beside her, but no one else did. The two of them, and the snorting, huge horse pacing alongside in the road, garnered a lot of attention.
“We are making a spectacle,” Daniel said.
“The next time I will dress in my school clothes. When I did that in Paris, no one ever noticed me.”
“If you wear your school clothes, no one will answer your questions. In fact, no one would today, except for the fact that I will be with you.”
He might have explicitly said you are nothing without me. I have made you.
“You think so?” Her lips pulled tightly against her anger. “We will see.”
Lloyds was in the Royal Exchange, which reminded her of an English church with its classical temple portico. The cavernous square space inside was crowded with merchants and men of business, and its sides lined with goods. Daniel took her arm so she would not get swallowed by the crowd and guided her up some stairs into a large chamber full of men.
“This is Lloyds,” he said. “The brokers are along that wall. I will introduce you to Thompson. He knows me.”
She did not shrink into Daniel’s shadow, much as she wanted to. She approached Mister Thompson’s desk as grandly as she could and looked his clerk right in the eyes.
The young man flushed and stammered and dropped his pen on the floor when she smiled at him.
Diane slid Daniel a sidelong glance, only to find him sliding one back to her at the same time.
Mister Thompson was delighted to see Daniel. Daniel introduced her and tried to impose his authority on the interview, but with another smile she demanded Mister Thompson’s attention.
He was glad to give it to her. His scalp blushed beneath the strands of his sparse white hair. Forgetting the hovering presence of Daniel St. John, he beamed across the desk as she made her request.
“I am seeking information on a relative of mine, Jonathan Albret. He was in shipping some years ago, fifteen or thereabouts. I am hoping that if your partnership ever insured one of his ships, that you will have something to aid my search.”
“Well, we can certainly see what we have. I can have our clerks check, and send the information to you.”
“Would it be possible to do it now? I would be very grateful. I have been searching for many months.”
Daniel emitted a sigh. “Mister Thompson is very busy—”
“Not too busy to aid a damsel in distress.” Mister Thompson’s face fell into a mask of sympathy. He gave orders to his clerk, and huge bound tomes began arriving.
Mister Thompson leaned over her shoulder to explain how the entries were made. “Do you know the names of the ships or their masters?”
She looked at Daniel, who shook his head.
“No, only the owner’s name.”
“Ah, that makes it more difficult. We must examine this column here, but there will be no order to it. Here, you do this one, and I’ll do the other and my clerk will manage the third.”
She smiled up with gratitude at his very close face. He flushed to the edge of his receding hairline.
“Mister St. John, if you have other business in the city, I am sure that Mister Thompson and his clerk will assist me,” Diane said.
“Have no fear, St. John, your cousin will be safe with us.”
“I will stay here,” came the firm reply.
There were only three tomes, so he just sat in a chair near the window while Diane and her two smitten assistants paged through them.
Two hours later Diane had irrefutable evidence that her father had insured no ships through Lloyds during the six years before he disappeared.
She had walked into the Royal Exchange feeling bold and confident and certain of making progress. Now, as she closed the heavy binding of her volume, a wretched discouragement gripped her.
Mister Thompson noticed. “I am so sorry. We could search further back if you want.”
“No, thank you.”
The two men looked at her with expressions that said they’d each cut off a leg to spare her this unhappiness. That only made her feel guilty for her little flirtations.
“Come, Diane.” Daniel’s voice was right behind her.
She did not want to look at him. He would probably be annoyed that she had caused so much trouble to no purpose.
Forcing her disappointment down, telling herself that there were other insurance partnerships and this was not the end of her hopes, she accepted his escort down to the street. As he untied the lead of his horse, she saw his face.
Not annoyed. Something else tightened his expression and burned in his eyes.
They walked west in silence. That relieved her. She was too disheartened to meet any scolds with the self-righteous challenge she had thrown at him a couple of hours ago.
She could practically hear the scold anyway. It came to her in the indifferent tone of the old school questions. Are you contented now? Will this be enough for a while? Is it sufficient to have wasted the afternoons of three men on your great quest?
As they neared Temple Bar, the chaos and rhythms of the streets abruptly changed.
People walked a little faster. The poor and common ones streamed toward the river, while the carriages and better dressed people hurried in the other direction. D
aniel stopped and peered down the narrow lane, cocking his head.
A rumble could be heard vaguely on the breeze.
“Another demonstration,” Daniel said. “Near Parliament. The session should have started for today.” He took her arm and aimed in the direction from which they had just come. “We will have to go another way. Unfortunately, it means passing through an unsavory part of the town.”
They found a quiet lane, empty of people. The shops had closed their doors.
Daniel led the horse over to a mounting stone. “There is no telling what we will meet. It will be better if we ride. Get up on this block and I will help you onto the horse, behind me.”
She stepped up. “I have never ridden a horse before.”
“Then today will be a first for many things, won’t it?” He mounted the horse, then leaned toward her. “The first time riding a horse, and the first time flirting until men gave you what you want.” His expression tightened again as he said the last part.
His arm circled her waist, bringing him distressingly close. “Also the first time for displaying your legs to all of London. This will only work if you hitch up your skirt, since you must ride astride. Do it now and I’ll lift you up.”
She obeyed. With a swing she was behind him, her skirt scrunched up to her knees.
“Cover yourself as best you can with your cloak. Then hold on to me so you don’t fall off.”
She resisted the final command, and grabbed the back of the saddle instead.
She almost bounced off, and the animal was barely walking. She gingerly slid her arms around Daniel’s body.
It wasn’t an embrace. Not really. The connection, the warmth, instantly overwhelmed her, however. Just as Madame Leblanc’s parting hug at the school had left her breathless, just as Daniel’s scandalous handling in the carriage had weakened her, this hold, even lacking intimacy, caused an immediate reaction.
The void engulfed her and then cried with relief, almost moaned, as the softest, most human contentment flooded it.
See, not completely alone, her heart whispered. There are other ways. Other homes, and other loves, beside those of family.
It had been wise to ride back and not walk. They passed through rude streets. The people loitering in them had been stirred up by the demonstration they had not even joined. Daniel trotted along at a fast clip, ignoring the shouts aimed their way.
Suddenly he stopped the horse. Peering around his body, she saw that a crowd had formed on the street ahead of them. Daniel turned their mount, but bodies were pouring into the crossroad they had just passed too.
Muttering a curse, he turned once more and trotted forward. “There must have been some violence near Parliament. Word must have spread on it. Hold tightly now.”
She held on very tightly. Faces around her wore ugly expressions that deformed the humanity of the group into the snarling masks of a mob. She remembered the attack outside the opera in Paris, and worried that some of these poor people had knives.
Using the bulk of the horse, Daniel pushed through. A few men tried to stand their ground and only jumped aside at the last minute. Curses and vulgarities flew directly at them.
“Why are they angry at us? You are not in the government.”
“They are angry at anyone who can eat without counting the pennies left.”
The faces sneering at her did not look so inhuman suddenly. “If they are hungry, I suppose that excuses such behavior.”
He turned his head to glare back at her. “There is no excuse.”
Just then a man grabbed the horse’s bridle. Another grasped Diane’s exposed ankle. Horrified, she tried to shake him off, only to have him laugh.
With a snarl, Daniel kicked her attacker so viciously that the man flew and fell back into the gutter.
Diane caught a glimpse of Daniel’s face while he reacted to the threat. For an instant he appeared so hard and cruel, so primitive and ruthless, that she almost released her hold of him and veered back. Then she blinked, and the look was gone so quickly that she wondered if she had imagined it.
Daniel moved the horse to a faster gait. The crowd split. There were no more challenges.
Soon the crowd thinned and disappeared, along with the poverty of the buildings. The familiar low rumble still flowed on the breeze, but all other evidence of unrest ceased.
“You must get down now,” Daniel said, stopping the horse. “Others must not see you like this.”
They walked the rest of the way to his house. He didn’t say anything, but she sensed that he wanted to. Not pleasant things, of that she was certain. His silence had a dark edge to it.
“Come to the study, please.”
She felt as she had at school, when summoned to the headmistress’s office. She hated that reaction in herself. She resented being at such a disadvantage, and not even knowing why, or what it was that he expected of her.
At least he did not sit behind the study’s desk and examine her as if she were some errant schoolgirl. Instead he went to the window and, as he so often did in her presence, looked out, instead of at her.
She resented that too.
“I know that you are unhappy about today. I am sorry for that.” He sounded sincere enough. So why did she sense that he wasn’t entirely sorry at all?
“Perhaps you should not dwell too much on finding lost relatives, Diane. The disappointment—you are young and have a life to build. The past can be a chain, and you have been spared that.”
“You do not understand.”
“I think that I do, better than you know.”
“If you did, you would never call the past a chain, as if it imprisons a person.”
“It can.”
“Then I want some of those chains. I want to be tied to a family, good or bad. I want to be able to say my grandfather lived in this town and my uncle had that trade.” She heard resentment and pleading in her voice, but could not stop either. “I want to know that someone cared about me when I was born and was sad to leave me and thought about me sometimes. I want to know that somewhere there is some cousin or aunt who wonders what became of me.”
The chamber rang with her declaration. It echoed for a long time before the silence swallowed it.
“Is that all? I want to leave now.”
He turned. “No, that is not all. You must not go out alone again.”
“In Paris we agreed that I could continue here as I did there.”
“I did not know that you walked alone in Paris. Take an escort in the future.”
“Are we finished now?”
“No. I realize that these last weeks you have learned the power that a beautiful woman has. However, the way that you flirted with Mister Thompson and his clerk today was too bold.”
“It was not bold at all. It was very subtle. I have seen duchesses do far worse.”
“You are not a forty-year-old duchess.”
“No, I am a twenty-year-old penniless orphan. If a smile will get the Mister Thompsons of the world to open their books, it is a small price to pay and the only currency I have.”
“I would have gotten the books opened for you.”
“I preferred to do it myself. Tell me, m’sieur, is our arrangement producing the results you had hoped?”
“What do you mean?”
“Am I attracting the attention you expected? Are you meeting the men you hoped to meet? Is business getting done over cards and at clubs? Is your investment in me bringing returns?”
“What a thing to ask. You astonish me sometimes.”
“I prefer you astonished to scolding. If all is happening as you wanted, I do not think your lessons are appropriate. Count your winnings, and leave me to amass my own.”
She left, and with each step the little fury she had known since he confronted her on the street grew. She approached the staircase almost trembling with frustration and an inexplicable sense of insult.
Two Oriental urns stood on the ends of the banisters. Unlike the ones in her ch
amber in Paris, these were rose and green and covered with flowers. She looked at them, propped on display for all to see, announcing the urbane taste of the man who owned them.
Who owned her, too, in a way.
She lifted one of the urns. The thinness of the porcelain proclaimed the craftsmanship as clearly as the decoration did.
Cradling it in her hands, she reveled in its feel.
Expensive. Perfect. An object of exquisite beauty.
She released it from her grasp. It crashed to pieces on the marble floor.
The sound echoed down the corridor. Doors opened and servants rushed out and gaped. Daniel emerged from the library, curious.
She stood amidst the shards, barely containing a naughty euphoria.
The servants stared from her to Daniel.
He walked over with the oddest expression on his face. He pointed to the broken urn.
“That was Ming.”
“You give your vases pet names?”
“Ming Dynasty. At least three hundred years old. As a pair they were priceless.”
“You said to break one. Every day if I wanted.”
“Those were the ones in your chamber.”
“It matters?”
He headed back to the library with an expression of forbearance. “That you broke anything at all is what matters. It does not bode well for me, does it?”
chapter 12
They have not concluded, my lady. I expect it will be at least an hour.” The footman spoke through the coach’s window before his face disappeared.
Penelope looked apologetically at Diane. “I hope that you don’t mind waiting for them.”
“Of course not.” That was the most disarming thing about the countess. Even though she had befriended a shipper’s obscure cousin, she acted as though Diane should not be grateful and even had some right to “mind.”
“Well, I do. Not this delay. If my brother asked me to wait all afternoon, I could not complain. However, it vexes me that I am such a coward. I resent that the earl can do this to me, but I am helpless against the fear.”
“That you are attending this party at all shows you are not a coward.”
The Seducer Page 12