Chapter 9
For a person unfortunate enough to live in the Dials, timing was everything.
Every fragile piece of a person’s existence hung upon the whisper of a second. If one was late or miscalculated one’s timing, invariably one fell—to the lord whose pocket one nicked, to the constable there to cart one off, and then ultimately to the noose looped over one’s neck as one took that final lesson to the unmarked grave for common street thieves.
Having witnessed enough hangings to haunt her for each day she had remaining on this earth, Gertrude had developed early on an appreciation for punctuality.
And had little patience for those who did not possess a like value and understanding of it.
The following day, standing in the center of the foyer, she stole yet another peek at the walnut longcase clock. She squinted, struggling in the more dimly lit entryway to bring those hands into focus. Unable to make sense of the numbers, she drifted closer until they pulled into focus.
Four and ten minutes past twelve?
Blast and damn. Where in blazes was he?
“Bloody nob,” Stephen muttered.
Gertrude yanked her attention away from the clock and looked at the angry little figure sprawled on the first marble step of the marquess’s sweeping, winged stairway.
Lying on his back, Stephen drew his dagger on the cherub overhead, then sheathed it. He drew it again, on another.
Reggie’s brother hovered off to the side. His cheeks were a stark white as he took in that violent display.
“Put that away, Stephen,” she scolded, stalking over. She’d not further feed the ill opinion the world held of the Killorans.
“I’m not doing anything,” Stephen protested, leveling the tip of his blade on one particularly cheerful winged angel overhead.
“Stephen,” she said, this time nothing more than his name, spoken in the warning tone she’d used on all the children in Diggory’s gang through the years.
“Fine, fine,” he groused. He propelled himself upright, and in one fluid movement that barely ruffled the cuff of his tan trousers, he sheathed the dagger given him by Broderick.
The clock chimed, marking the quarter hour. Gertrude glanced around in search of Edwin. Arriving late to one’s first appointment with his son hardly marked an auspicious beginning for the newly reunited pair. And yet he’d agreed to the appointment. She’d been able to reason with him. He’d put his son’s feelings and wants ahead of his own. Those weren’t the actions of a madman not in control of his faculties. She chewed at her lower lip. Who was the Marquess of Maddock? That question whispered forward once more, needing to be answered. Was he the madman the world accused him of being, a reminder he tossed out at their every meeting? Or was he a devoted father who’d been so riddled by the pain of losing his family that he’d simply come to believe the words spoken about him? Or mayhap you simply wish to reassure yourself, for Stephen’s and your own benefit, that you’ve not willingly committed to living with a volatile lunatic.
Mr. Marlow, who’d been lingering in the shadows, spoke for a second time since Gertrude and Stephen had arrived and she’d donned her cloak. “The carriage is readied, Miss Killoran,” he said, cutting across her musings.
“Yes, you said as much,” she replied absently, doing another search for the marquess.
Nay—Edwin. It was a name that suited him in some ways, conjuring that tale of the great king of Northumbria, exiled.
Do you truly believe that angry, coldhearted man who taunted you at every turn would join you for an outing? Even if it was with his son?
Only, Gertrude’s family was responsible for the misery he’d known. Mayhap that hatred was reserved for her, and when she left, he’d again learn to be happy with the son he’d—
Mr. Marlow coughed.
“Is there something wrong with you?” Before the young man could reply, Stephen added, “You don’t have consumption, do you?” He backed away from the butler.
“Do not be ridiculous.” Splotches of color filled Mr. Marlow’s cheeks. “I was merely attempting to gain Miss Killoran’s attention.”
Stephen scoffed. “Pfft, ain’t the way to grab anyone’s attention. You want her attention, you say, ‘I need to talk to you about business.’ Or—”
“Stephen,” Gertrude warned. “Return to what you were doing before.”
The stubborn boy pouted. “I’m not a child to be ordered about.”
She skewered him with a glare.
“Fine, fine,” he mumbled, but she’d have to be completely blind to fail to note the eagerness in those little fingers as he grabbed his knife and proceeded to point it ominously overhead at the marquess’s mural.
Her brother attending his threatening task, Gertrude drifted over to Mr. Marlow. Alas, despite the low opinion of her survival skills, Gertrude was no fool and knew her brother enough to glean his ears were attuned to the exchange taking place without him.
“What is it, Mr. Marlow?” she asked in barely audible tones.
“Miss Killoran, it is—”
“Gertrude, please,” she put forward instead. “Given that your sister has been like another sibling to me and is now my sister by marriage, we should dispense with the formalities.” She forced a smile for the young man’s benefit.
He bowed his head. “Marlow.”
Gertrude cast a glance over her shoulder at Stephen, still engrossed in his foreboding study of the painting overhead. When she spoke, she lowered her voice all the more. “You wished to speak with me?”
“It is about your scheduled outing for this afternoon.” He leaned closer and said in a pathetically loud whisper: “You are . . . certain that His Lordship indicated his intentions to go?”
“Most certain,” she said automatically. Reaching inside the pocket sewn along the front of her cloak, she began to draw out the pair of serviceable French leather gloves tucked there. Sethos nosed at her finger, and she gave him a discreet, reassuring pat. “I was quite clear about the time we would be departing.” She frowned. “Is he not here?” she asked. Drawing one of the brown leather gloves on, she buttoned it at the wrist.
“No. He is here. In his offices.” Marlow wrung his hands together.
Gertrude remained silent, giving the young man the time he required.
“Lord Maddock generally does not leave the townhouse to oversee . . . business.” From behind his lenses, regret glimmered in his eyes. “The world has not been so very kind to the marquess.”
You fear the madman, after all, I see. The memory of Edwin’s taunt brought her up short, and she paused with the other glove in hand, forgotten. She’d been so very focused on her family’s loss and Stephen’s return to his rightful place and fear over living—and leaving Stephen—with Lord Maddock that she’d simply glossed over what life surely had been like for the marquess . . . before Stephen’s return. Branded a murderer of his wife and babe, accused of arson, and scorned by society for those claims, Edwin had lived a life in exile. Not so very different from the king whose name he carried. The suffering he’d endured would have turned most sane men not. Her frown deepened. She and her family had erroneously believed Stephen the most affected, and yet . . . in Edwin’s case, one could not simply relegate the seven hellish years that came before as forgotten. She sighed and again glanced at the clock. At the very least, the gentleman required her patience.
“His Lordship indicated he’d come, and he does not strike me as one who’d renege upon his word.” In his failure to gather Stephen from the Devil’s Den and now to arrive in the foyer for their scheduled appointment, however, he had demonstrated that punctuality was not amongst his strengths.
Still, Quint Marlow hovered. “I’m not certain you are correct, Miss—Gertrude. No offense meant,” he said on a rush. “His Lordship tends to avoid Polite Society.”
Her heart pulled. Given how the world freely spoke of him and his circumstances? The gentleman was better off. “Wise man,” she muttered, shoving her other fingers i
nto the leather scrap.
Mr. Marlow angled his right ear toward her. “I beg your pardon?”
Gertrude patted his arm. “That isolation was before his son’s arrival,” she substituted instead. “Everything has changed now.” For all of them. With determined steps, Gertrude started down the hall.
“Miss . . . Gertrude,” Mr. Marlow stammered, rushing after her. “Where are you going?”
“To fetch His Lordship.” Gertrude didn’t break her stride, and even though taller, Reggie’s brother struggled to keep pace.
“To fetch . . . ?” By the horror lacing that unfinished echo, she might as well have stated her intentions to gather up the jewels tracing back to the first Marquess of Maddock. “But . . . His Lordship does not welcome intrusions from anybody.”
This time, Gertrude stopped so quickly the servant stumbled out of the way to keep from knocking into her. “Ah,” she said with a wag of her finger. “But I am not just anybody.”
Reggie’s brother eyed her warily.
She flashed him a reassuring smile. “I’m Stephen’s sister.”
The other man slapped his palms over his face, muffling the groan that escaped him. “Miss Killoran,” he entreated.
“No. No,” Gertrude cut him off. “I’d advise you to go watch after Stephen, lest he run . . . off.” Quint Marlow was already sprinting in the opposite direction toward her brother.
She gave her head a bemused shake and resumed her march to Edwin’s offices. Poor Mr. Marlow. She’d spent all the years lamenting the existence she’d lived in the Dials: a life of fear, poverty, uncertainty. But she’d learned to conquer fear so that it did not serve as master to her. She’d not wish to go back to the life she’d known, but she’d also carried away with her valuable lessons which would never have her stammering and stumbling as Reggie’s brother did.
Gertrude reached Edwin’s offices and rapped. “Edwin?” she called, leaning into the ornate oak panel.
A faint, muffled cursing reached her ears, followed by the rapid beat of angry footfalls.
She wrinkled her brow. Now, that was hardly a congenial welcome for the person who’d be calling his house home—albeit a temporary one. Why, her speech to him yesterday may as well have fallen on deaf ears. Nonetheless, as he yanked open the door, she swiftly plastered a smile upon her face.
“What in . . . ?” His brusque question trailed off. His penetrating brown gaze went to her mouth and lingered there.
Her heart beat a funny little rhythm. Did she imagine the heated intensity of that stare? For there was something else there. A spark of the desire she’d seen in the eyes of countless patrons in her family’s clubs. But never had she been a recipient of it . . .
“What in hell do you want, Miss Kill—” He flushed. “Gertrude,” he substituted.
And those frosty, indifferent tones had the same effect as the bucket of freezing rainwater Diggory’s men had once doused her with, for no other reason than the cruelty of it.
“You are late,” she said evenly. Unfastening the latch at her throat, Gertrude loosened her cloak and displayed the pearl-set brooch watch affixed to the front of her dress. She tapped her index finger against the face of the timepiece. “Now eight and ten minutes late.”
Edwin cocked his head. “Late for what?”
For what? She opened her mouth to chide him, when Mr. Marlow’s words from a short while ago flickered forward.
. . . Lord Maddock generally does not leave the townhouse to oversee . . . business . . . The world has not been so very kind to the marquess . . .
How very difficult all this would be for him. He’d gone from widower and father to a murdered child . . . to a father once more.
All her outrage dissolved, and Gertrude resolved to answer his curtness with kindness. “May I enter?” she asked quietly.
She was determined to torture him.
There was nothing else for it. And no other explaining it.
Gertrude, a Killoran or Diggory or whatever she fashioned herself on a given day, one day would see him completely mad.
And by God if it didn’t seem that this would be the exchange to put him beyond the point of no return.
“May I enter?” she repeated.
Wordlessly, he stepped aside, allowing Gertrude to sweep forward, her muslin skirts swirling about trim ankles encased in soft-blue silk stockings.
It was an odd detail to note. A dangerous one.
Neck burning, he shoved the door shut, hard. “You have two minutes,” he said sharply.
The young woman glanced over at the ledgers laid out upon his desk, and this time, uninvited, she drifted over to his desk.
Edwin stiffened, all his muscles screaming with the urge to demand she stop.
Gertrude paused alongside his desk. “Hmm,” she said noncommittally as she took in the leather journals piled around. Books he’d neglected for too long; turning them over to Quint Marlow’s expert hand had seen his estates in largely a good place. And yet . . . there had been errors made, too. Just another failure on his part. “Ah. I see,” she finally said, glancing back over her shoulder.
And she sounded very much like one who did see, though for the life of him, he didn’t have a bloody clue what in blazes she thought she saw. “What?” he snapped, folding his arms defensively at his chest.
This time as she spoke, he detected a layer of gentleness to Gertrude’s words. “You were busy with your accounting.” She nodded her head, almost approvingly. As if he sought or needed approval from her or anyone else. “Many people forget appointments,” she said in placating tones. “It happens to everyone at some point or another.”
Forget appointments? What in blazes was she talking about?
“If it is a habit you have, Edwin, I would suggest a daily diary.” He lowered his brow. What . . . ? “A commercial diary?” she clarified. “A portable account book?” she prodded through his blank confusion. “Oh, you must have one.” She gave a firm, finalizing nod. “They are quite popular in the Americas. Their George Washington and Thomas Jefferson insisted upon carrying one.”
A strangled choking sound escaped Edwin. “George . . . ?”
“Washington,” she stretched out those three syllables like one would when speaking to a slow-witted child.
Edwin closed his eyes and counted to ten, praying for patience. “I know who George Washington is,” he said coolly.
“Ah, forgive me.” Except she didn’t sound or appear even remotely apologetic. “I forget you are . . . very . . .” She chewed at that enticingly full lower lip, drawing his gaze there, stirring an awareness that he didn’t wish to have of this woman. She dipped her voice to a husked whisper that washed over him, tempting, captivating. “British.”
And then that word, whispered like an insult she’d sought to hide, sank through the quagmire of inexplicable awareness he had of her. “You are also very British, madam.”
“It is not quite the same, though, is it?”
Do not engage her. Let the matter rest. No good could come in discussing any of this . . . whatever this was . . . with her. Except . . . she looked so very damned knowing. “In what way is your Britishness different from my own?”
Gertrude smoothed her palms down the front of her muslin skirts, warming to her topic. “You are a marquess, and I was born on the streets.”
“I know very well the differences between our stations,” he said without inflection. She and her family were guttersnipes who’d risen to kings and queens of the underworld. And she’d also been a girl without a name. A vise squeezed at his chest. And he who’d believed himself incapable of feeling anything was proven wrong, and for this woman, no less.
“Given that difference, I expect we do not have the same loyalty to king and country.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Most would consider that a hanging admission, madam.”
“And that is precisely the difference between us.” Gertrude shrugged. “Regardless, I’m guiltier of far more crimes than those ver
y true words.”
Edwin rocked back on his heels. How very . . . direct and . . . real this woman was. There was no effortful attempt to mask one’s true meaning, as had been the way of his late wife and every other proper lady he’d known. It left him disconcerted in ways he’d never been.
“As I was saying,” she went on, redirecting them back to whatever nonsense she’d been rambling on about. Gertrude once more tapped the place where her timepiece rested. “Daily diaries are tremendously beneficial to those who struggle with honoring strict schedules.”
Edwin ground his teeth, the rows scraping sharply against one another. “I do not forget appointments or meetings, madam.”
“To the contrary.” She lifted a long ink-stained finger, pointing it at the ceiling. “You are late for one even now.”
“With whom?”
She released an exasperated sigh, that slight exhalation sending an artfully arranged lone curl dancing back and forth over her brow. “Stephen and me.”
He searched his suddenly muddled mind. A mind he’d believed jumbled after his life had fallen apart, only to find he’d been in far stricter control of his thoughts. “What are you talking about?” he asked in pained tones.
“The cabinetmaker.”
Oh, so that was what this was all about. At last. Edwin returned to his desk and, with the young woman’s attention directed at him, swiftly closed those ledgers that revealed details of his finances for the past four years. “Rest assured, madam—”
“Gertrude,” she supplied. “Remember, we’ve agreed to an amicable relationship as long as I live here.”
“Three and ten days,” he muttered. And then she’d be gone, and he could return to some semblance of naturalness with his son. Edwin’s palms went moist, and he discreetly wiped them along the sides of his trousers.
Gertrude cupped a palm around her right ear and leaned forward. “What was that?”
The insolent minx no more had hearing problems than he had. She knew very well what he’d said. “I said you have an appointment.”
Gertrude shook her head. “I’ve handled the appointment.”
Edwin laid his palms on opposite sides of the desk and leaned forward. “Madam, I do not care if you, or I, or Satan himself scheduled a damned meeting. The only relevant detail is that it has been made, and you are in fact late for your meeting with Mr. Seddon.” As if on perfect cue, the hall clock chimed the thirtieth minute on the hour.
The Bluestocking Page 11