The Infamous Rakes

by Amanda Scott

  “I suppose not, but I can think of no good reason to let Miss Adlam drag me to what promises to be a ridiculously overcrowded event. We’d all do much better to wait until the second or third day.”

  “But Theo won’t wait, and if she is determined to go, Miss Adlam will go with her.”

  “Serves Miss Adlam right,” Crawley said. “Thinks she knows about everything and everybody, and can’t stop for one moment to take someone else’s excellent advice when it’s offered.”

  “Talk of the pot calling the kettle black,” Dawlish said, chuckling. “But I’ll tell you something she don’t know, though I’d have thought you’d have told her. I said something about your affairs being in a way to being settled—”

  “Being helpful, I suppose. You talk too much, Perry.”

  “Fiddle, dashed well didn’t talk enough. Realized when she asked if you’d won the money at Newmarket that she thought you’d been there the whole time you were gone. Not my business to tell her you’d gone on to Longworth, but you ought to tell her, Ned.”

  “Perhaps, in my own good time.”

  “No, dash it, that won’t do. If you mean to tell her, you must tell her at once. And you mustn’t refuse to take them to the exhibition, either. It’s my belief that Miss Theo is in love with Dickon, for she said he had made her see herself as others see her—why, she actually understands that Belinda has been imitating her and that the behavior she criticized in Belinda was her own behavior, and that—” He broke off with a look of utter astonishment. “Good Lord, Ned, I’ve just done the same thing!”

  Crawley, irritated, said, “Stop babbling, Mongrel. I must think what to do here.”

  Dawlish put down his wine glass and got up. “You think all you like, Ned. I’ve just realized that I can’t go about giving folks advice that I refuse to take myself. I’ve some important things to discuss with your sister, and if I’m successful, I shall return to discuss them with you. In the meantime, my lad, harken well to what I tell you: People are too dashed inclined to condemn in others the very things they do themselves.”

  Staring at his retreating back, Crawley shook his head and muttered, “You, my friend, are suffering the consequences of an overlong acquaintance with Lady Augusta.” But once Dawlish had gone, he got up and pulled the bell, telling the footman who responded to have Lady Crawley’s town carriage brought around to the front door at once and to fetch a boy to him to take a message to Park Lane. Then, taking his pen knife from his waistcoat pocket, he moved purposefully toward his desk.

  The footman cleared his throat.

  His mind already on what he meant to write, Crawley said curtly, “Yes, why haven’t you gone?”

  “Begging your pardon, my lord, but her ladyship has driven out in her carriage. I believe she said she meant to call for Lady Dacres to go with her to the Royal Academy Exhibition.”

  “Damn. Very well, then, tell them to bring my curricle around. And never mind the lad.” They would have to take the Adlam carriage, but he could tell them that much in person, and the sooner he got there, the better.

  The footman had gone, and Crawley hurried upstairs to change his coat. When his valet pointed out that he had got something on his neckcloth, he ripped if off and decided to change his breeches and shirt as well. It took time and concentration to arrange his neckcloth again after he had dressed, and it was not until then that he wondered why no one had come to tell him that the curricle was at the door.

  Checking to be sure he had money and a clean handkerchief, he took a final look in the glass, smoothed a crease in his neckcloth, picked up his gloves and hat, and hurried from the room. Encountering his sister on the stairs, he greeted her briskly and moved to pass her. She put out a hand to stop him.

  “Ned, wait, someone said Perry had been here. Where is he?”

  “Gone looking for you, he said.”

  “Oh, dear, I was walking in the park with Caroline Oakley, but when Dacres joined us, I could see that I was no longer wanted, so my maid and I came home. Will he come back again today, do you think?”

  Her anxious expression gave him pause, recalling exactly what Dawlish had said, he frowned and said, “Look here, Bella, do you love Mongrel?”

  “Don’t call him by that horrid name! He stopped calling you Crawler ages and ages ago.”

  “Don’t quibble. I am recalling any number of times that I have seen the two of you with your heads together, and I want—”

  “Perry is a very good friend,” she said indignantly. “I am sure he thinks of me only as a sister, but in some ways he has been a better brother to me than you have, Ned.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” he said with a grimace, “but I begin to think Mong—that is, Perry—don’t think of you as a sister at all, Bella. He will be back, but I am not going to wait for him. You just tell him for me if he does anything to make you unhappy, I’ll cut out his liver.”

  She stared, her mouth forming a small O, as she made a visible effort to comprehend precisely what he was telling her. He let her hold his stern gaze for a moment before he allowed his amusement to show. When it did, she flung her arms around him.

  “Oh, Ned!”

  “Unhand me, Bella. I’ve important matters of my own to attend. Perry will return soon. He won’t have gone far.”

  He soon found, however, that he was mistaken, for when he reached the hall, the footman he had sent to call for his curricle hurried toward him. “My lord, I don’t know what to say. I sent for the rig, right enough, and watched out the window so as I could tell you when it was brought round. But it didn’t come, so I sent to the stables to hurry them along, and they said they had sent it off long ago. And one of the lads has just come running to tell me Lord Dawlish has taken it!”

  “What?”

  “Yes, my lord. He came downstairs all of a dither, demanding to know where Miss Belinda had gone, and someone said she had gone to call on Miss Oakley. Lord Dawlish rushed out of the house, and now the lad tells me he shouted out to your tiger that it was he who needed the curricle, then just swung up into it and snatched the reins. Last thing the lad heard was my lord telling the tiger they was bound for Golden Square. They’ll be halfway there by now, my lord.”

  Rendered speechless for nearly thirty seconds, Crawley finally managed to say wrathfully, “Have my horse brought around at once, Jackson, unless his legs have chanced to fall off.”

  The young footman struggled with himself for a moment, but training stood him in good stead, and he managed a creditable bow, saying, “Very good, my lord. At once.”

  Crawley saw his shoulders shaking as he retreated toward the green baize door behind the stairs. The sight stirred his temper briefly, but a moment later he was smiling, and when his glossy black stallion was brought around in record time, he was a good deal cheered. Thunderbolt was a mettlesome creature he rarely rode outside the park, but the horse’s energy suited his mood at the moment, and by the time they reached Adlam House, his cheerful demeanor was entirely restored.

  Heath, answering his knock, said, “I shall ascertain if Lady Adlam is at home, my lord.”

  “I don’t want her ladyship,” Crawley said amiably. “Announce my arrival to Miss Adlam, if you please, and have Lady Adlam’s carriage brought round at once. I daresay Miss Adlam was expecting me to bring my own, but I did not.”

  The butler looked momentarily confused. “There must be some mistake, my lord. The misses Adlam and Master Freddy departed more than half an hour ago in her ladyship’s carriage.”

  Crawley looked at his watch and found that it was past noon. “Good God, I’d no idea so much time had passed. They must have thought I was not coming.”

  “Just so, sir, and Miss Theo, if I may take the liberty of saying so, had grown somewhat impatient.”

  Crawley looked up, suspecting an understatement. Encountering a speaking look in the butler’s eyes, he winced. “I see. I will no doubt find them at Somerset House then.” Hesitating only a moment, he decided he would make
better time on horseback than if he tried to find a hack, but what on earth he would do with Thunderbolt at Somerset House he had no idea. He hoped he might find a lad clever enough to hold him.

  The street in front of Somerset House was crowded, but when he neared the front entrance, he saw that people were moving inside in a steady stream. Finding a lad willing to hold his horse for a shilling, he rushed up the steps, only to encounter a brief delay when he discovered that there was an admission fee. He paid quickly, pushed his way past people, ignoring their indignant objections, and hurried through the first two halls to the room where the medal winners’ works were displayed.

  He did not see Felicia, Theo, or Vyne, but as he pushed his way toward the front, searching the faces of what seemed to be an increasingly mirthful crowd, he suddenly saw Lady Augusta, looking strangely bemused. Certain her nieces would be nearby, he made his way toward her, paying no heed whatever to the paintings on the wall.

  “Lady Augusta, where are Felicia and Theo?”

  She stood with Major Brinksby, and hearing her name, turned toward Crawley but looked at him as though she did not know him.

  Major Brinksby squeezed past her and said, “Still in shock, don’t you know. Never expected such a crazy thing.”

  Not having the least notion what the old bore was talking about this time and having only one purpose in mind, to reach Felicia as soon as possible and explain to her that it was not a lack of reliability that had kept him, Crawley said abruptly and rather loudly, “Where are Miss Adlam and her sister?”

  “Gone,” Brinksby said, spreading his hands. “Left in such haste they forgot the young fellow they brought with them. Oh, not to worry,” he added, seeing Crawley look around. “Lad followed Vyne when he chased after the two young women.”

  “Vyne chased them?”

  “Lord, yes. Funniest thing you ever saw. Younger chit—Theo, isn’t it? She heard all the laughter, took one look at the Vyne entry and threw her hands over her face, then turned and pushed her way through the crowd like a madwoman. Older one took off after her, and Vyne and the lad followed as soon as they saw what was what. Crowd parted like the Red Sea in front of them. Wouldn’t have missed it for a dinner with the king, I can tell you that.”

  “Where’s the damned painting?” Crawley demanded.

  “There.” Major Brinksby, breaking into chuckles again, pointed a long bony finger, and Crawley saw it.

  It was Theo’s portrait—the damaged one—but Vyne had fashioned a cloth head painted to resemble himself and attached it to look as if it had been thrust through the opening in the canvas. The plaque beneath it gave the title of the piece:

  Self-Portrait of the Artist, Meeting Truth

  Crawley stared for a moment before his emotions overcame him. Then he threw back his head and laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks.

  14

  FELICIA, AFTER ENDURING A carriage ride across London with a tearful Theo, no longer felt the least bit like apologizing to Crawley and, in fact, looked forward to murdering him, slowly and painfully, for ignoring her plea for an escort. First Theo wailed that she did not want to talk about Sir Richard, then she sobbed that she had ruined him, was ruined herself, and that in fact not one of her family would be able to show his face in public again. She succumbed finally to inconsolable weeping, deaf to anything Felicia tried to say to her.

  Halfway home, Felicia remembered Freddy but solaced her dismay at forgetting him with a belief that he must have stayed with Lady Augusta and Major Brinksby, and would be perfectly safe with them. Until that moment, she had thought of nothing but catching up with and looking after the distraught Theo.

  More than once in the carriage her thoughts veered back to Crawley, and her anger increased each time she remembered that she had made a simple request of a man who had taken it upon himself for sometime now to give her advice that was neither sought nor desired. But the one time she had asked for help, he had not so much as replied. She knew he must have received her request, for her footman had been told to make certain he was at home before giving up her message to anyone else, and she did not entertain for a moment the notion that a servant of Crawley’s would neglect to pass on her message.

  But Crawley had neither come nor written to say that he would not come, or that he would be delayed. And in light of Theo’s impatience and repeated threats to go on alone, Felicia had felt obliged to go with her without waiting any longer. As it was, they had reached Somerset House to find themselves part of the huge crowd waiting to enter when the doors opened. A good many people passed into the medal winners’ gallery before them, so that Theo had entered to the accompaniment of uproarious laughter and had no doubt believed herself the cause of all the merriment the instant she saw what Sir Richard had done.

  Catching up with her after she had run away, Felicia had tried to soothe her overwrought feelings, but since her own thoughts were more firmly fixed upon Crawley’s failure than upon Sir Richard’s latest perfidy, she knew she was not giving her best efforts to Theo’s needs and was not much surprised, therefore, that when they reached the house, Theo flung herself from the carriage and ran up the steps into the hall.

  Their entrance coincided with Lord Adlam’s emergence from his bookroom, so Felicia entered to see her sister running up the stairs and her father standing at the top of them, staring down at her in consternation.

  When Theo brushed past him, he came partway down the steps and said sharply to Felicia, “What on earth have you done to distress poor Theodosia so?”

  “Felicia,” Lady Adlam called from the drawing-room side of the gallery, “what is wrong with Theo? She just ran past me without so much as a word, and I believe she was crying. You must do something at once. My poor nerves simply will not tolerate this sort of disturbance.”

  “Oh, Miss Adlam, there you are,” Miss Ames said, appearing beside Lady Adlam and leaning over the rail. “Will you come up to Sara Ann, if you please? She is most distressed that both of her brothers will be leaving for school tomorrow, and I simply cannot seem to comfort her.”

  “Felicity,” Lord Adlam said dangerously, “You’ve no time for any of the children’s nonsense just now. I demand that you answer me. What have you done to—”

  “I did nothing, Papa,” Felicia said, striving with all her might to remain calm and think how to attend to each of these small crises. “Mama, I will come up to—”

  Lord Adlam snapped, “You’ll do nothing of the kind! Just because you think you—” He broke off at the sound of a loud banging on the front door. “What the devil?”

  Peters, emerging from the nether regions, ran across the marble floor and pulled open the door.

  Sir Richard Vyne pushed past him into the hall. “Where is she?” he demanded. “I must talk to her at once.”

  A faint shriek and dull thud from above was followed by Miss Ames crying, “Merciful heavens, her ladyship has fainted!”

  Lord Adlam glared at Vyne, then at Felicia before turning on his heel, striding back up the stairs, into his bookroom, and slamming the door behind him.

  Felicia, distractedly gesturing, dismissal at Peters, who still stood wide-eyed by the open door, changed her mind and said, “Peters, find Lady Adlam’s woman and send her up to her ladyship at once. I will attend to Sir Richard.”

  “I don’t need attending to! I want—”

  “But, Miss, I think perhaps you should—”

  “Do as I ask, please,” Felicia said more tartly, wondering as she watched Peters obey her if next the maids would be daring to offer her advice. Turning back to Vyne, she said, “Pray, sir, will you not come into the parlor, where we may be private?”

  “No! Look here, Miss Adlam, I am going to talk to Theo if I have to go upstairs and find her myself. And don’t go thinking you can have your people throw me out of here, because I will only come back again and again until I do talk with her.”

  “I should think you have already said and done enough,” Felicia said grimly. �
��You have made my sister a laughingstock, sir, and I can promise you, she will not forgive you for that.”

  He glared. “Good God, they were not laughing at her! Wouldn’t have even if they’d known her, which not more than a handful of them could have done. They were laughing, as I meant them to laugh, at an artist who had got too full of himself and his own inclinations to pay heed to anyone else’s. ‘Portrait of the Artist’ was my reply to her damnfool apology, my way to tell her I was wrong to finish that portrait as I had begun it, that the truth was that if I had held by my own so-called principles, I should have painted my love of her for all the world to see. That was the real truth, only I was too blind to see it.”

  Felicia said weakly, “I thought you disliked her.”

  “Thought so myself until I realized that what I disliked in her most was simply that she didn’t behave the way young ladies are supposed to behave. Once I realized that was it, I saw how hypocritical I was being. Can scarcely blame Theo for doing what I do myself at every opportunity. Flout the conventions whenever the mood strikes me, don’t I? Once I saw that, I knew I loved her. I’ve got to tell her, Miss Adlam. Saw her run out and just dropped everything to follow her. Lucky thing I’d left my rig with a lad on the Embankment. If I’d had my tiger with me today, I’d have had to wait for him, and in that crowd, heaven alone knows where he’d have gone. As for finding a cab in that crush of people—Well, I’m glad I didn’t have to, that’s all. Will you take me up to her now?” The last question was asked in a more reasonable, even a pleading, tone.

  Felicia wondered if he had found a lad to hold his carriage outside, too, or if he had simply left his horses tied to the area railing again. She sighed and said, “I will take you up to the drawing room, sir, and then I will see what I can do to persuade Theo to come down to talk to you. You must know, however, that I cannot permit you to go to her bedchamber. Nor can I force her to see you if she does not wish to do so.”

  He smiled ruefully. “I know that, and I make no such threat to you, but you need not tell her as much. Let her think me unreasonable and perhaps she will come down.”