The Footman (The Masqueraders Book 1)

by S. M. LaViolette

  Iain flailed and punched, landing one or two good hits to the other boy’s head and neck before kneeing him in the groin, an action he knew to be all too effective. He scooted back toward the rear wall of the hut, leaving the boy curled up on his side.

  Fielding slid down the wall not far away, his chest heaving like a bellows as Iain crawled crablike until he was beside him.

  “Thanks for saving me yet again.”

  John ignored him, his eyes fastened on the now silent group across the room.

  “They’re coming for me tonight,” Iain whispered. “You can go with me. My uncle will help you.”

  The boy’s bitter laughter spilled out of him like a dead, bloated body floating to the surface of a deep, dark lake.

  “What?” Iain asked, stunned by the other boy’s ill-tempered reaction to an offer of freedom.

  “The only place I’m going is Norfolk Island.”

  Even Iain—bumpkin that he was—had heard of the infamous penal colony. “You’re being transported?”

  “Aye, on the morrow, as yer luck would have it.” He gave Iain something that passed for a grin. “I doubt you’d have lasted another day without me,” he added.

  Iain already knew he wouldn’t have lasted five minutes.

  “Come with me tonight, John. We’ll talk the guard into it by promising him more money from my uncle. Surely the guard won’t care if two go rather than one if it means more coin in his pocket?”

  John snorted. “Tain’t the guard puttin’ me on the boat. My life ain’t worth a bucket o’ warm piss after getting’ on the bad side o’ Fast Eddie. Leavin’ this miserable shitebox of an island is the only chance I ’ave left.”

  “Fast Eddie?”

  “Aye, Fast Eddie. ’E runs it all—from gin t’ whores.”

  “What happened?”

  “Never you mind. Just keep yer mind on getting out o’ ’ere tonight.” He turned away to indicate the discussion was over.

  Iain stared at his harsh profile in the dim light, trying to think of something to make him change his mind. Transportation? What a horrible thought—to leave everything and everyone you knew and head to a dangerous new land alone. It had been bad enough to leave Scotland after his mam died, even though he knew his Uncle Lonny was waiting for him in London. How would it be to go half-way around the world to some strange place where nobody knew you?

  His eyes began to tighten and water just like they always did when any thought of his mam passed through his mind. It would be the end of him in this cell if he started blubbering; John Fielding would probably beat Iain himself if he broke down. He swallowed down the tears and drew on the anger that came after the pain. His mother would still be alive and Iain wouldn’t even be in this godforsaken city if not for The MacLeod kicking them both off their land. Thoughts of the Highland lord made Iain boil and gave him strength.

  “You angered him, Iain. But he’s your real father,” Mam had reminded him as she lay dying in a filthy room in Edinburgh. “You can always go back to him if you need help. Him or your Uncle Lonnie.”

  Iain had chosen his uncle over the bloody bastard who would get a child on one of his housemaids and then marry her off to one of his tenant farmers. Not that John Vale had been anything but kind to his adopted son, treating Iain as though he’d been his own blood.

  Iain squeezed his eyes shut on the old pain, turning his thoughts back to the boy who’d saved him so many times these past few days.

  Transportation.

  Bloody hell. What a nightmare that would be. He massaged the back of his aching neck. Thankfully Iain would never have to face such a thing, not with his Uncle Lonny looking out for him.

  Chapter Four

  Village of Trentham

  1817

  “You’re doing very well, my lady,” Doctor Venable murmured, stopping behind Elinor’s shoulder to watch while she carefully stitched the jagged wound shut. “That is the perfect tension,” he added, a slight puff of breath warm against her temple.

  Elinor lifted the needle and pulled the thread slowly taut. “I learned with the Carruthers boy that this is far more challenging when the patient is alive,” she said dryly.

  The usually staid doctor chuckled before coming to a halt across the table on which the lamb’s body lay.

  “Yes, a live patient tends to add a certain degree of urgency. Now, make sure that last stitch is tight, but not so tight as to score the skin. Recall that living flesh swells after trauma.” He handed her a dainty pair of embroidery scissors before she needed to ask for them.

  Elinor cut the thread and leaned closer to examine her work.

  “It’s not bad,” she declared, looking up from the unfortunate lamb and meeting the doctor’s velvet brown eyes.

  His shapely mouth twitched into a slight smile. “It’s certainly better than any of my first dozen attempts.”

  “No doubt it’s all my years of needlework showing.” Elinor lowered her hands into the basin of hot water Doctor Venable’s servant had brought into the room a few minutes before. The doctor was adamant about the frequent washing of hands and Elinor was eager to comply with what others might consider a rather obsessive attitude on the matter.

  “I hear we have a rather important visitor in the area,” Venable remarked as he covered the lamb’s body with a heavy canvas sheet. It had begun to stink and this would be the last time they would use it for their purposes.

  The doctor’s comment surprised Elinor as they rarely discussed anything other than medicine. She picked up a clean strip of rough cotton and dried her hands as she looked up at his attractive face. “You can only mean Mr. Stephen Worth. Have you met him?”

  “I’ve not had that pleasure, although I’ve seen him several times from afar. He was inspecting Jason Beck’s farm with Lord Trentham when I paid a call on Beck’s youngest child.” Venable lifted the lamb’s body onto a small cart, which would be picked up later by the village renderer who would make use of the small animal. The lamb had suffered an unfortunate run-in with a neighbor’s bull. Elinor had practiced her skills on any number of creatures, most of them dead.

  “I understand Worth is an American banker of considerable repute,” the doctor continued.

  “Yes, he’s associated with Siddons. I believe he’s the scion of the family which started it, although I’m not quite clear on the relationship between him and the bank’s founder, Jeremiah Siddons.”

  “I recall reading of Siddons’s death last year. Apparently, his bank was involved in a rather large undertaking involving coal mining in Yorkshire. I understand the project ground to a halt after he died. Is Mr. Worth here to resume the project?”

  “As to that, I could not say.” Elinor paused to consider what she knew and how much she should admit to knowing. No doubt Charles was not behaving with any circumspection; why should she maintain silence on the subject? Besides, the doctor was one of her closest associates—maybe even a friend. “I believe Lord Trentham has lured him here with the hope of selling him Blackfriars.”

  Venable nodded as if he was not surprised but said nothing.

  Elinor was accustomed to the doctor’s unwillingness to use more words than were absolutely necessary. His laconic nature was even more pronounced when it came to his own person and past.

  Elinor took a seat at the low table that served as her desk during their lessons.

  “I completed the anatomical representations you assigned last week,” she said, removing a sheaf of foolscap from her medical portfolio and handing it to him.

  She studied the doctor while he studied the drawings. He leaned beside the glass-fronted cabinet that covered one wall, his tall, powerful body graceful in his well-made but worn garments. She’d seen him wearing his shirtsleeves and breeches last fall, at a harvest picnic where he’d helped the farmers. Women had swooned.

  Not for the first time did Elinor wonder about her mysterious tutor. It was obvious from his speech and bearing that he was a gentleman but she could discern noth
ing from his accent as to what part of the country he called home.

  She’d known him for five years and had surreptitiously studied medicine under him for more than three. And still she knew nothing about him other than he’d attended medical school in Edinburgh and moved to Trentham from Manchester. And that he was pulse-poundingly handsome in a tortured, brooding sort of way. His dark eyes, pale skin, and unruly thatch of pitch-colored hair were the stuff of gothic romance novels.

  Elinor admitted to more than a little curiosity as to where Doctor Venable had been spending a week each month since this past January. She wished she knew him well enough to ask what he did on his week-long absences. But she kept her questions to herself; she’d hardly like it if he went poking about in her secrets.

  “These are very good, Lady Trentham,” he murmured, his black lashes lush against his cheeks as his eyes moved over the pages. Elinor realized how odd their formality was. They’d studied together for many hours and discussed—even argued—over hundreds of matters. She’d assisted him with operations, some of which had lasted hours and left them both exhausted, sweaty, and less than civil. And still they were as formal as they’d been the first time they’d met. The same night her husband had become bedbound.

  He looked up from the drawings. “I believe you are ready to move to the digestive process next.”

  Elinor placed a hand over her heart. “Has a woman ever heard sweeter words?” She was pleased when he returned her smile. She genuinely liked him, but his reserve was an insurmountable wall. Whatever it was he protected, he protected it from her as well as the rest of the world.

  “What will you do if Lord Trentham sells Blackfriars?” he asked.

  Elinor leaned back in the old cane chair, astonished by the unprecedented personal question. “I suppose I will find a smaller house and go on much as I do now.”

  The silence stretched between them, broken only by the sounds of Venable’s servant moving around in the next room and the insistent cooing of a morning dove in a tree outside the surgery window.

  “You could marry me.”

  Elinor’s jaw sagged.

  Venable threw back his head and laughed, an action which astounded her almost as much as his proposal. Had she ever seen him give such a genuine laugh before? It took ten years from his age and made him even more attractive.

  “That is hardly a flattering response, Lady Trentham.”

  Elinor’s face reddened and she closed her mouth. “I apologize for what was probably a singularly unattractive expression, doctor.”

  “Not unattractive, merely speaking. Please forgive my impertinent suggestion, if you cannot actually forget it.” He turned to his already neat desktop and began straightening the few items on top of it.

  Elinor reached out and laid one of her hands over his. He froze. His hands were strong and elegant with long, graceful fingers but the skin was chapped and red—like hers. They were the hands of a gentleman who worked. He looked up but did not remove his hand, his dark eyes impenetrable.

  “You are not impertinent, doctor, but kind. You wish to help me, to save me. I’m honored by your offer to sacrifice your person—” She held up a hand when he opened his mouth to deny it. “Please, do not say it would not be a sacrifice. A man like you could secure any woman he wished for a wife. You cannot be in a hurry to marry an impoverished gentlewoman well-past her prime. While I appreciate your offer, I cannot, in good conscience, accept it.” She smiled to soften her rather bald words. “At least not yet. Perhaps I will be begging you to repeat your offer if Charles really does sell the Dower House from beneath me.” She shrugged. “That time has not yet come. What you can do for me is continue my tuition. Who else would spend the time you do on a mere female?”

  “It is an honor to instruct you, Lady Trentham. You are more naturally talented in the field of medicine than most of my colleagues. It would also be an honor to offer you whatever protection and security a marriage might afford should you ever need it. Marriage to you would pose no hardship, I assure you.” His black brows were drawn down into emphatic slashes, making his normally impassive face commanding and unbearably handsome. Something hot flared in his dark eyes and she swallowed, flushing at this unexpected demonstration of admiration. She hurriedly looked away and removed her hand from his. He almost managed to convince her that he spoke the truth. Not that it mattered. She would never marry again, even to a man as kind as Doctor Venable.

  She gathered up her possessions. “Shall I work on diagrams forty-seven through fifty for next time?”

  “Yes, of course.” He glanced down at the medical text he had studied from as a student and now used to instruct Elinor. “I also want you to take a look at the discussions regarding esophageal functions.” He flipped several pages, his tone once again cool and businesslike. “Let me direct your attention to a section in Appendix B which you might find helpful.”

  ∞∞∞

  The sky was an ominous shade of gray by the time Elinor left Doctor Venable’s.

  “Are you sure I cannot run you home in the gig, my lady?” he asked for the third time.

  “That will not be necessary. I shall see you on Monday, doctor.” Elinor hurried away before he could offer again. She enjoyed the short walk from town to the Dower House as it gave her time to think over the day’s lesson before she reached home and the inevitable questions and concerns Beth would greet her with at the doorway.

  She’d only gone a few hundred yards down the quiet lane when the trees off to the left rustled and a horse and rider emerged. Elinor immediately recognized broad shoulders and a flash of flaming red hair beneath a tall black hat. She stopped, foolishly hoping Mr. Stephen Worth would continue on his way without noticing her. Instead, he turned toward her as if she’d called out his name.

  “Ah, Lady Trentham.” He lifted his hat.

  Elinor cursed inwardly. To say she found the handsome American an unwelcome distraction was an understatement. But what else could she do—run away? Pretend she hadn’t seen him?

  She pasted a welcoming smile on her face and resumed walking. “Good afternoon, Mr. Worth. You are out inspecting the countryside? Perhaps considering additional business investments?” Elinor could have bitten off her tongue at her waspish tone.

  Worth smiled. “I’m always considering investments, my lady.” He swung down from his horse, a magnificent russet-colored beast whose coat was remarkably similar to his master’s hair.

  “You are on your way home. May I accompany you?” Piercing green eyes bored down into hers and her breathing quickened, as though his intense stare had incinerated the air between them. Did he always burn so very brightly? It must be fatiguing—to those around him, if not him.

  Well, she could hardly say ‘no,’ could she?

  “Thank you, I should like that,” she lied.

  He held out his hand for her basket. “I shall carry that for you.”

  Elinor wanted to argue but, again, could not think of a good reason to refuse. She handed him the basket and they resumed walking; her limp was more pronounced than ever.

  “You have been shopping in Trentham, my lady?”

  “I have been visiting.”

  “Bestowing bounty on the neighborhood’s needy-but-deserving residents?” His expression was all that was amiable but the barb in his words was impossible to miss. No doubt he’d heard of her small charitable endeavors and thought her yet another useless aristocrat who delivered calf’s foot jelly and improving religious pamphlets to the earl’s neglected farmers.

  Two could play at that game.

  “I hear you’ve been busy inspecting the local tenantry as well, Mr. Worth.”

  “I make no secret of how I spend my time, Lady Trentham.” His taunting smile told her he’d heard otherwise about her.

  Elinor sighed. Charles and his big mouth, no doubt. What had her repulsive relative told the charming Mr. Worth about her relationship with Doctor Venable? She gave a mental shrug. Why did she care what he knew o
r thought?

  “When will you be leaving us, Mr. Worth?” It was a question that had more than one toe over the line of rudeness.

  “That depends on you, Lady Trentham.”

  Elinor stopped walking. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Lord Trentham is planning an entertainment to introduce me to the neighborhood.”

  “How kind of him,” Elinor said, not bothering to restrain her impatience. “But I’m afraid I don’t understand what that has to do with me?”

  “I’ve told him I will only postpone returning to London if you agree to honor me with at least one dance.”

  Elinor laughed before she could stop it. “What rubbish.”

  He grinned down at her. The man had dimples and he was brandishing them quite shamelessly. Elinor quickly looked away.

  “Not rubbish at all, my lady. And I’ve accomplished part of my object.”

  “Oh, what part is that?” She resumed walking.

  “I made you laugh.”

  Elinor shook her head at his foolish banter. How long had it been since anyone had flirted with her? Decades, if ever.

  “And that was your intention, was it? To make me laugh?” Elinor didn’t bother to hide her skepticism.

  “Well, I wanted to see what you looked like when you smiled. The laugh was merely an added bonus.”

  Her face flamed in the coolness of the day. Was the man so bored he had decided to inflict his considerable charm, his dimples, on an aging cripple?

  “You are truly wasted here in the country, Mr. Worth. Your gallantries would be far more appreciated in London. Indeed, you would be greatly appreciated in London.”

  And I would be considering esophageal anatomy rather than pondering the felicitous combination of musculature necessary to produce such devastating dimples.

  “Are you saying you don’t appreciate my gallantries, Lady Trentham?” He’d sheathed his dimples and was frowning down at her with mock severity.