Baleful Godmother Historical Romance Series Volume One

by Emily Larkin

  They fell into silence again, traversing streets and neighborhoods Letty didn’t recognize. Finally, the hackney turned into the Strand. A few minutes more, and they’d be back at Hatchard’s. She smoothed her gloves on her hands, tweaked each fingertip.

  I don’t want to go home.

  “I apologize,” Reid said abruptly. “I should never have taken you to Marshalsea. It was unconscionable.”

  Letty glanced at him. His expression was grim. Was he in the throes of a fit of conscience?

  “It was interesting,” she said, and heard the bell-tone of truth in her words. It had been interesting—the sordid room, the coarse language, the violence. More interesting than any afternoon in her life. “Matlock. Would that be Lieutenant Thomas Matlock? The Earl of Riddleston’s brother?”

  Reid put up his brows. “You know him?”

  “Extremely well. He’s a close friend of my cousin, Lucas Kemp.”

  “I don’t think it was Matlock.”

  “He’s in England at the moment. Did you know? He’s on leave.”

  From Reid’s expression, he hadn’t known.

  “My cousins hold a house party in Wiltshire every year, before the hunting season starts. I’ll be there. And so will Tom Matlock.”

  “I don’t think it’s Matlock,” Reid said again.

  * * *

  All too soon, the jarvey deposited them opposite Hatchard’s bookshop. Letty stared across at the wide bow-fronted windows. I have been to another world and back.

  “How do you intend to . . .” Reid’s brow knitted. “To reenter your life? Will your maid meet you here?”

  Letty shook her head. “I’ll pretend my friend sent a footman to escort me home—she lives only one street over from me.”

  “An invisible footman?”

  “A footman I dismissed on my doorstep.”

  Reid looked dubious. “Will it serve?”

  “It will,” Letty said. “If only because no one expects subterfuge from me. I’m extremely cautious, Mr. Reid—and my servants know it. I never go anywhere unattended. I have no wish to be trapped into marriage!”

  Reid didn’t state the obvious: that she hadn’t been at all cautious today. “You live on Hill Street, I understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “I shall escort you.”

  They walked along Piccadilly, and turned into Berkeley Street. Their strides matched. Reid walked silently. It was a novel experience to be in the company of a man who wasn’t trying to impress her with his wit or his charm or his antecedents.

  Letty glanced at his profile. Reid would be a handsome man if he wasn’t so gaunt. Even gaunt, he was striking. What will you do now? she wanted to ask. But she knew. Find Green. Find Houghton. Find Cuthbertson.

  And then die.

  Her throat tightened painfully. A chilly breeze found its way through her veil, making her eyes sting.

  Berkeley Square opened out in front of them, lofty houses with windows reflecting a darkening sky. Hill Street was on the far side. They walked around the winter-bare fenced garden in the middle of the square. The house she’d hired was just visible: tall and brick, with a gabled roof and crown cornices, as lofty as its neighbors.

  The house was no prison, as Marshalsea was—and yet it was a prison. Her prison. Walls hung with silk, Aubusson carpets, gilt-edged dinner sets. The housemaids and the liveried footmen, the housekeeper and the butler, her chaperone Mrs. Sitwell, were all her warders.

  Letty’s steps slowed. I don’t want to go back.

  What she wanted was to go to Basingstoke with Mr. Reid and discover whether Green was his traitor. But that would entail lies. Many lies.

  She frowned down at the pavement. Three Portuguese scouts. Good men, Reid had said. Brave men. Men who’d been betrayed to their deaths.

  In her mind’s eye she saw a set of scales. The justice the scouts deserved weighed down one pan heavily. In the other pan were today’s lies. One to her maid. One to Miss Torpington. And one lie yet to be told, to her butler when he opened the door and saw no footman at her heels. Compared to the three deaths, the lies weighed almost nothing. They were . . . acceptable? No, not acceptable, but at least excusable. Small untruths uttered in the pursuit of one great truth. But if she went to Basingstoke she would have to tell more lies. At what point would the balance tip? When would the weight of lies become more than the weight of those deaths? When would the lies become inexcusable?

  Perhaps it would be better to tell none at all. To let Reid struggle on alone.

  But he’s dying.

  Letty worried at her lower lip with her teeth, and thought about the scales—and then she looked at Reid, and the decision made itself. She would help him.

  A carriage passed with a rattle of wheels on cobblestones. Mr. Reid stepped onto the roadway. Letty stayed where she was.

  Reid halted, and glanced at her. “Miss Trentham?”

  “Let us go to Basingstoke and look for Mr. Green.” Letty heard the words with faint shock. Did I truly say that?

  She saw her own shock reflected on Reid’s face. He came back to her side. “Miss Trentham, it’s one thing to absent yourself from your household for an afternoon; it is quite another to go to Basingstoke. It’s all of fifty miles!”

  “Don’t you wish for my help?”

  Reid was silent for a long moment. “Yes,” he said finally. “But not if it means your ruin.”

  Letty gave a humorless laugh. “If only my suitors had your decency, Mr. Reid. Most of them would jump at ruining me if it meant I had to marry them!”

  Reid’s face stiffened. “Decency? You know I have no decency. Not after Marshalsea. No decent man would have exposed you to such brutish behavior!”

  “It was extremely interesting,” Letty said.

  Reid’s eyebrows lifted.

  “If you’re concerned about Dunlop’s language, it was shocking, but I assure you I didn’t understand everything he said. There was one word I’ve never heard before.”

  Reid clearly understood which word she was referring to. His lips tightened. “An unpardonable piece of crudity.”

  “And I must be lacking in sensibility, because I thought he quite deserved to be throttled.”

  Reid gazed at her. His expression was bemused.

  “Have I shocked you, Mr. Reid?”

  Reid considered this question, and didn’t answer it directly. “I’m relieved the experience didn’t overset you.”

  “I’m not a chit from the schoolroom to be thrown into the vapors by such a scene,” Letty told him. “I’m a grown woman. And I wish to go to Basingstoke with you. I believe it can be done without anyone being the wiser.”

  “I don’t see how—”

  “I’m engaged to stay with a friend in Andover for four nights, on my way to Wiltshire. I shall write to her, putting off my visit. Helen will think I’m still in London, and everyone else will think I’m in Andover.”

  Reid frowned. “Your carriage—”

  “I shall travel post this time, because . . . because I’ve decided my traveling chaise needs to be reupholstered!”

  “And your maid?”

  “I’ll give Pugh leave to visit her sister in Chertsey for a few days. I can set her down on the way, and she can travel on to Whiteoaks by stagecoach. And as for my chaperone, Mrs. Sitwell, she never goes to Wiltshire. She detests the countryside.”

  Reid’s frown deepened. “Your maid will hardly leave you unattended in a post-chaise.”

  “I shan’t be unattended. You will meet me in Chertsey. You’ll be sent by Helen, to escort me as an outrider.”

  “Would your maid leave you in the care of just an outrider?” His tone suggested he didn’t think so.

  Letty didn’t think so, either. She chewed on her lip, and then said, “You’ll have to hire a girl to pretend to be one of Helen’s maids. She won’t need to say a word, just wait at the posting inn in Chertsey with you. If Pugh sees you and a maid, she’ll be satisfied.”

  “A pret
end maid?” Reid said, in the same tone he’d said An invisible footman?

  “Yes. A few minutes’ work for a couple of shillings—I’m sure you could find someone willing to do it.”

  “What about Basingstoke? You’d need a maid there.”

  “We’ll say my maid has fallen ill. A chambermaid can help me with my buttons.”

  Reid frowned at her.

  “We choose a quiet inn in Basingstoke, where neither of us is known, and put up for a few days.”

  Reid’s frown deepened. “As man and wife?”

  “We look too dissimilar to be brother and sister, don’t you think? We’d have separate chambers, of course!” Letty flushed, glad of the thick veil, and hurried on: “It shouldn’t take more than a day or two to discover Green’s whereabouts, if he’s still in Basingstoke. And if he’s not . . . Well, we’ll deal with that if it happens! And then I’ll take another post-chaise to Wiltshire. You may come if you wish, and speak to Tom Matlock.”

  Reid turned his head away and looked across the square, his eyes narrow.

  Letty watched him, and listened to the echo of everything she had said: Andover and Chertsey, outriders and maids. So many lies to be told. She was aware of a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Do I truly want to do this?

  “I don’t like it,” Reid said finally. “But it could work.” Both statements were the truth. He regarded her for a long moment, as if trying to see through the veil. “Are you certain you wish to lend yourself to such a deception?”

  No, I am not certain.

  Letty hesitated, on the brink of balking—and then she thought of the scales again, thought about betrayal and death and justice and truth and lies. She gave a decisive nod. “Yes.” She was certain. She would do it for the dead scouts. She’d do it for Reid, who was dying. And she’d do it—shamefully—for herself, because she wanted to spend more time in his company, because she wanted not to be an heiress for a few days—and that was selfish and wrong, but at least she would be honest to herself and not pretend it wasn’t true.

  “The risk to your reputation—”

  “If it doesn’t bother me, it shouldn’t bother you.”

  Reid gave her an extremely saturnine look. Too late, Letty realized she’d offered him a deep insult. A gentleman would be bothered by the risk to a lady’s reputation.

  Reid’s lips compressed. Letty found herself holding her breath.

  “Very well,” Reid said, finally. “We’ll attempt it. When?”

  “I’m due to leave for Andover in six days.” Letty’s mind skipped over the hurdles and fastened on the goal at the end: Basingstoke. “Meet me in the park tomorrow. We’ll ride again, and discuss the details.”

  This time, when Reid crossed the roadway, Letty matched her stride to his. He halted when they reached Hill Street. “I’ll come no further. Will you be safe?”

  “Perfectly. Good-bye. Three o’clock in the park. Don’t forget!”

  When she’d gone two steps, Reid said, “Thank you.”

  Letty stopped and looked back. She gave him a nod. “You’re welcome.”

  After a moment, he nodded back.

  Letty turned away and walked down Hill Street. Emotions churned in her stomach: trepidation, a twinge of doubt, excitement. She climbed the steps to her front door and glanced back at Reid, tall and lean and motionless at the end of Hill Street. She couldn’t make out his face from this distance, but she saw it in her mind’s eye: weary and gaunt, with sun-bronzed skin and silver eyes—and a frown, because Reid was always frowning.

  I should like to see him smile.

  Letty pulled off her veil and shoved it inside her muff. Do not become attached to this man, Letitia, she told herself sternly. Remember: he’s dying.

  Her eyes stung. This time, she knew she couldn’t blame it on the cold breeze.

  Chapter Five

  Icarus traveled post to Basingstoke on the sixth, arriving at dusk. On the seventh, he walked around the market town, inquiring after Mr. Green at the inns and looking for a hostelry for himself and Miss Trentham. By noon, he’d found a suitable establishment—on a quiet backstreet, modest but clean—and booked rooms for himself, his wife, and his wife’s maid for four nights, plus a private parlor. He didn’t find Green. That afternoon, he posted back to Frimley, halfway between Basingstoke and Chertsey, where he canceled Miss Trentham’s booking from Frimley to Andover the following day, and arranged instead for a carriage to convey himself and his wife to Basingstoke.

  On the morning of the eighth, he hastened to Chertsey. Midday found him in the yard of the King’s Head, dressed as a servant. Not a liveried footman, but a sober and respectable steward. Alongside him, equally sober and respectable, was a young washerwoman, clad in her Sunday best. Hired that morning, the washerwoman had professed herself quite happy to assist in a clandestine tryst. Course I won’t tell a soul, she’d said, accepting a silver crown. If you want to put your leg over someone else’s wife, who am I to mind?

  Just after noon, a post-chaise swept into the yard, drawn by sweating horses. The ostlers ran forward, the postilions dismounted; all was bustle and noise.

  “This it?” the washerwoman asked.

  “Yes.”

  Two ladies descended from the carriage: Miss Trentham, cool and aloof in dove gray, and a short middle-aged woman with blunt features and a brisk, no-nonsense manner.

  Icarus stepped forward, and bowed. “Miss Trentham?” he said, in a servant’s polite, uninflected voice.

  * * *

  Miss Trentham ate her luncheon at the King’s Head. By the time she’d finished this repast, the maid had been borne off by her sister and the washerwoman had departed. Icarus handed Miss Trentham into the post-chaise, and swung up on the horse he’d hired.

  Chertsey to Frimley was a little over twelve miles. Not far, by a soldier’s reckoning, but more than far enough for a man who’d spent six weeks confined to bed with the fever. When Icarus dismounted at the posting inn in Frimley, his legs were shaking.

  Miss Trentham and her outrider arrived in Frimley; Mr. and Mrs. Reid departed from it. Icarus sank gratefully onto the soft squab seat across from Miss Trentham. I’m as weak as an old man.

  No, he was as weak as a dead man—because that’s what he was: dead. An animated corpse with one task to perform before he could crawl back into his grave.

  Frimley to Basingstoke was almost eighteen miles. They accomplished the journey in silence. Not a chatterer, Miss Trentham. Icarus stared out the window and watched the sky darken, while his thoughts ground through their inevitable circuit: Vimeiro, the ambush, the executions, and finally, the creek.

  It always came back to the creek. Everything came back to the creek.

  When the carriage slowed to enter Basingstoke, Icarus roused himself from his memories. “We’re putting up at the Plough.” His voice was harsh. He cleared his throat and strove for a milder tone. “It’s plain, but clean. I hope you’ll be comfortable there.”

  “I have no doubt I will.” Miss Trentham didn’t sound tired; she sounded alert and cheerful. “What should we call one another, Mr. Reid? If we need to speak in front of the servants.”

  “I shall go by my own name; you may choose whatever name you prefer.”

  Miss Trentham was silent for a moment. “The truth, I think. You may call me Letty.”

  “My name is Icarus.”

  “Icarus?” The coach was now too dark for him to see her expression, but he thought she sounded faintly surprised. “An unusual name.”

  Icarus shrugged. “A family name.”

  The post-chaise deposited them at the Plough. The innkeeper bustled out, short and stout and bobbing his head. “Mr. Reid, Mrs. Reid, welcome, welcome. A cold night. I’ve lit the fire in your parlor. Come in, come in.”

  They stepped inside. Icarus watched England’s wealthiest heiress examine her surroundings—the simple furnishings, the humble drugget carpet. No disdain came to her face. Rather, her expression was wide-eyed and curiou
s.

  “My wife’s maid took ill this morning,” Icarus said. “We hope she’ll be well enough to join us tomorrow.”

  The innkeeper arranged his face into a sympathetic smile. “Not to worry, Mr. Reid. My daughter will be pleased to wait on your wife. A good girl, she is. I’m sure you’ll find no fault with her.”

  Miss Trentham murmured her gratitude.

  The innkeeper led them upstairs. Their bedchambers were side by side, low-ceilinged and old-fashioned, with tiny-paned windows.

  “Charming,” Miss Trentham said, with apparent sincerity.

  * * *

  They ate dinner in the parlor he’d hired, just the two of them. The repast was substantial, but simple: fried sweetbreads and a raised mutton pie, with curd pudding to follow. The curtains were drawn, a fire burned in the grate, candles glowed in the sconces, and it was as intimate as if they truly were husband and wife.

  Icarus laid his knife and fork neatly on his plate and glanced at Miss Trentham. An unmarried lady. An heiress.

  Miss Trentham didn’t look like either of those things. She looked like someone’s wife, cool and mature and well into her twenties. Her husband was clearly a man of only moderate means; her clothing had none of the embellishments a wealthy woman would sport.

  “Is that all you’re going to eat?” Miss Trentham said.

  “I have no appetite.” It was another of the many things he’d lost at Vimeiro.

  “Nonsense! You’ve not eaten enough to keep a sparrow alive. No wonder you’re so thin. Eat!”

  Icarus looked down at his almost-full plate. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Eat!”

  Icarus was too weary to argue. He sighed, and picked up his knife and fork again, and ate another sweetbread.

  “And some pie,” Miss Trentham said, in a tone that brooked no argument.

  Icarus ate some pie, too.

  Miss Trentham didn’t cease harassing him until his plate was half empty. “You must have some curd pudding, too,” she said firmly.

  “I’ll be ill if I eat any more,” Icarus said.

  Miss Trentham cast him a sharp glance, but didn’t argue; she must have heard the truth in his words.