A grunt was the most polite response John could make. The room was stifling, with the single window firmly shut and the sunlight streaming through the panes of glass. He felt rather like an ant in the sun, wriggling under a magnifying glass.
“Is it too much to ask to close the drapes?”
“Draft, is there?” Wickson asked sympathetically as he rushed to the window to yank the heavy curtains closed. “There you are.” He wrinkled his nose as he glanced around. “Bit dark, ain’t it?”
John almost bit his tongue through in his effort to moderate his response. After all, Wickson, despite his faults, was a good friend; a childhood friend, in fact. He’d do anything he could to help an acquaintance—few were as loyal or kind—John reminded himself. Wickson would give you his last coin, if he had one.
John took a deep breath. “Would you be so kind as to remove this bandage?”
“Bandage? Can’t—Moreton wouldn’t like it.”
“Then don’t tell him,” John advised. “Just the one on my arm. Before my hand turns entirely blue.”
“Oh, well, yes.” Wickson pulled out a pocketknife and managed to get the tight wrappings off John’s arm with only a few shallow mishaps that were hardly noticeable when John pulled his sleeve down and tucked his arm under the sheet.
“There you are.” Wickson yanked the quilt up to cover a blossoming stain on the sheet covering John’s left arm.
“Is there anything to eat? Drink?” John asked at last as he struggled briefly with Wickson to push the quilt back down. Drops of sweat itched as they slipped along his side.
Wickson finally relinquished control of the cover and stepped away from the bed, shaking his head.
Letting out a long breath, John firmly folded the quilt back and tilted his head back, closing his eyes. A soft draft slowly dried the dampness clinging to his skin, leaving behind a lovely, restful coolness.
“Eat? Shouldn’t think so. Never is anything. I’m off to Boodle’s, you know,” Wickson said as he stepped toward the door.
John studied him and in a silky voice asked, “I’ll go with you, shall I?”
“Excellent, excellent! Then we might stagger off to Tattersalls to see what sort of crowbait they’re trying to push off onto the green lads new to London.” Wickson grinned as he rubbed his hands together. It took a full minute before his smile faltered. He dropped his arms and frowned at John. “Oh. Well. Can’t do it, old chap. Moreton would never allow it. Don’t want to disappoint you, but you just can’t do it.”
If it wasn’t utterly improper for a young lady to visit the quarters of a bachelor gentleman, or any man’s for that matter, he would have sent word to Lady Victoria. One word. Or perhaps three. Your help required. He closed his eyes, bringing her patrician, intelligent face to mind. He could almost feel her cool hand upon his brow and see the glow of her beautiful gray eyes as she held a spoonful of soothing beef broth to his lips.
“Archer! I say, Archer!”
He opened his eyes to find Wickson leaning over the footrail of his bed, his pudgy fingers an inch away from grabbing John’s toe and jiggling it.
“I’ll send something back for you, shall I?” Wickson picked up John’s jacket and patted it to locate the purse again.
Much as John knew his friend meant well, and would leave their apartment in the firm belief that he would send a basket of food to him, John knew perfectly well that Wickson was just as likely to get distracted by an impromptu horse race or other sporting event and lose the entire contents of the purse.
Once again, his thoughts turned wistfully to Lady Victoria. If only… “That Dibble woman—she has a daughter, does she not? Find out if she’s willing to do a few small errands for me.”
“Mrs. Dibble?” Wickson’s brows wrinkled. His bulbous nose twitched and sniffed as John’s coat fell back onto a chair, heavy purse forgotten.
“Yes. Mrs. Dibble.”
“Drat it all—I was going to Boodle’s. Absolutely famished.”
“Then send a boy to fetch Mrs. Dibble, and you’re free to go to Boodle’s and stay as long as you like.”
Wickson’s grin returned. He straightened the set of his jacket. “There you are, then. Knew I’d think of something. Very well, I’m off.”
“Send a boy to fetch Mrs. Dibble!” John yelled at Wickson’s retreating back.
Sweating, dry-mouthed, and feeling beset upon by the very devil himself, John lay back and closed his eyes. The quilt, sheet, and pillows were searing hot and sopping wet. He raised an arm to wrench his pillow off the bed, but the movement caused such an agonizing jolt of pain on his right side that he gave up.
He must have lost consciousness for a while because when he opened his eyes again, Mrs. Dibble was bustling into the room.
“Ah, Mr. Archer. Awake, are we?” she asked, wiping her rough, reddened hands on her dingy gray apron. “Our lovely Mr. Wickson said you wasn’t up to snuff, and I suppose he didn’t lie for here you lay, like one of them knights carved on the top of a tomb. Don’t suppose Heaven has long to wait before St. Peter himself is making the introductions all around, but I’ll make you as comfortable as I can ‘til then.”
“Thank you so much,” John murmured through dry lips. “You are certainly a comfort, Mrs. Dibble.”
“Well, Lord knows I do my poor best. Always have.”
“No matter how poor your best might be,” he muttered. He grinned. “I’m sure you are too busy, Mrs. Dibble, to bother, and I wouldn’t want to trouble you. I understand, however, that you have a daughter who might be interested in some work.”
“Work? My Nancy?” Her shaggy brows rose toward the cap she wore over the thick twist of salt-and-pepper hair crowning her round head.
“I had understood that she was, er, unemployed at the moment.”
Mrs. Dibble nodded. “You might say that. Yes, you just might.”
“Would she be willing to run a few errands for me? Just for a day or two, until I am not so, um, tired.”
“Why, is that all, sir? A few days?”
“I should think so.”
A crafty look sparkled in Mrs. Dibble’s dark eyes. “You know, doing for two gentlemen is hard work, and I’m not as young as I used to be. Well-to-do gentlemen like Mr. Wickson and yourself might be expected to have a maid-of-all-work, as well as a regular woman.”
“Some might harbor such expectations.”
“And I don’t know that I could ask my Nancy to dedicate herself to nursing a bachelor gentleman such as yourself for only a day or two of work. Puts her at a disadvantage, don’t it? Seeing as how it’s only a day. Interrupts her finding a more permanent position, don’t it?”
John sighed. “Hand me that jacket, please.”
“Jacket?” Mrs. Dibble frowned and clasped her hands together at her waist as if to physically restrain herself from responding in any way to John’s request.
“The black jacket. Please.” He waited, his gaze fixed on the garment draped over the seat of a ladder-backed chair.
After casting a suspicious glance at him, Mrs. Dibble sniffed and picked up the jacket. She shook it out and then walked over to the bed, stopping a good yard away. “Here you are, sir.” She leaned over to lay the jacket on the edge of the bed next to him.
“Thank you, Mrs. Dibble.” His left hand patted the jacket until he found the pocket with his purse inside. Sweating and white-lipped, he fumbled with the recalcitrant leather pouch until he removed it from the garment’s pocket. He spilled a few coins into Mrs. Dibble’s hand. “Give your daughter these. She is to purchase some food and drink and bring them to me. Is that understood?”
Mrs. Dibble eyed the coins in her palm and prodded them with one knobby finger. “Very well, sir.” She studied him with a marginally softer gleam in her dark eyes. “We’ll take care of you, the two of us. I expect you could use a decent cup of tea while you wait. That crafty devil, Moreton, most likely left you dry as a bone—he does like his blood, don’t he? He’d take every drop you had,
smiling all the time. Never you mind. My Nancy will fetch you a nice can of small ale. That, and a bowl of hot broth will do, I should think.”
“There’s enough there for a loaf of bread and a decent roasted fowl,” John said. He was not going to survive if everyone insisted on treating him like an elderly invalid with no teeth. His stomach rumbled.
“That Moreton won’t have it—”
“Then don’t give it to him.” He was repeating himself, something John disliked doing.
Mrs. Dibble slipped the coins into her own purse and grinned at him as she moved toward the door. “What? And have that old leech claim we murdered you with our own hands? No, you’ll do as we say is best for you—”
“And I’ll be dead by nightfall.”
“If St. Peter wants you, he shall have you, sir, and there’s no gainsaying that. But we’ll do the best we can to ease you on your way.” She granted him a gap-toothed smile and shut the door softly.
“I have no doubt about that,” John muttered, plucking at the edge of the sheet.
He glanced at the thin line of brightness filtering past the edge of his curtains. The quality of the light suggested that it was barely midday. He contemplated the relative merits of sleeping versus getting out of bed to stumble down to the kitchens in the basement to see what could possibly be retrieved in the way of drink and food. Surely, a loaf of stale bread would not be too much to ask. Even the prisoners on London’s hulks got that much.
He tried to swallow, but his throat was so parched he couldn’t even manage that. His lips burned.
Eyelids fluttering, he finally gave in again and sank into welcomed oblivion.
Chapter Ten
Lady Victoria splashed cold water over her face again. Despite every trick Rose suggested to remove the puffy redness encircling her eyes, nothing seemed to work. Her complexion remained splotchy, and her eyes revealed all too plainly that she’d spent the last few nights crying into her pillow.
No news about Mr. Archer’s fate had reached her. Even Miss Urick had lost interest, shrugging when Victoria asked her.
Unfortunately, her other sources of news were more limited. The other ladies she knew didn’t know Mr. Archer, and it would be a week or more before any death notice appeared in the newspapers, so there would be no immediate help there.
She hated the weakness her weeping exposed, particularly when her parents questioned her. Nightmares, she’d told them. Anything else was impossible. Mentioning Mr. Archer would invariably bring up the subject of the marriage list, and she didn’t want to think about that.
Patting her face dry, she stared out her window at the lovely streaks of blue, rose, and peach painting the sky as the sun slipped below the rooftops. A few puffy streaks of dark gray spiraled upward from chimneys, as maids started evening fires to warm the occupants while they prepared for their evening’s entertainments. Despite the faint chill in her bedchamber, Victoria had declined a fire, hoping the coolness of the air would fade the tearstains on her face.
Tonight was Sir Arnold’s supper, and as unbelievable as it seemed, her parents had assured her that all four of the men on the marriage list were to attend. The affair would provide Victoria with the perfect opportunity to compare one to the other and come to a decision. In fact, her parents had already made an appointment with her for tomorrow morning at ten. They wanted her answer so that her father’s lawyers could draw up the final marriage contract.
Nonetheless, she doubted a decision would be as easy as her parents believed. She didn’t even know if Mr. Archer remained alive. A sharp sob caught in the back of her throat at the thought that he might already be resting in his coffin, awaiting burial. She coughed and finished wiping the water from her cheeks before her maid could remark on her unsettled state.
A bit of rice powder covered some of the splotches, although it left her cheeks deathly pale, and her eyes rimmed with dark red. She sighed as Rose pinned the last curl into place, the tip of the maid’s tongue peeping out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrated on perfecting Victoria’s sophisticated, upswept hairstyle.
At least there was one bright spot. If Lord Taggert and his sister were at Sir Arnold’s supper party, it most likely meant that Mr. Archer was still alive. Otherwise, Lord Taggert would have been engaged in packing hastily for his proposed trip to Vienna to visit his cousins.
Staring one last time at her reflection in the mirror, Victoria’s shoulders slumped. Another thought sobered her. Perhaps Mr. Archer had succumbed to his wounds and no one cared sufficiently to stir up a scandal or demand justice. By killing him, Lord Taggert might have proved, once and for all, that Mr. Archer was a nobody, a man unworthy of notice or concern.
Blinking and swallowing back an intense sense of loss, of nearly overwhelming loneliness, she accepted her evening gloves, reticule, and fan from Rose. When she cast one last glance at the mirror, her sadness was so complete that she felt numb. The silver threads woven into the muslin fabric of her gown glinted softly in the last, pale amber evening light. The Van Dyke points gracing the neckline and hems of her sleeves and the intertwined vines of silver embroidery on the bodice looked beautiful in the soft light. Her mother and she had worked hard on that embroidery, muttering more than once when they had to snip and pick out an errant stitch and redo it. Even the hem ended in Van Dyke edging below a thick band of embroidered embellishment.
Despite her somber, tear-streaked face, the dress flattered her, although it failed to lift her mood. She might just as well have worn rags. With a sigh, she fixed a smile on her face, left her room, and joined her parents, waiting for her in the main hallway. Her mother gave her a searching glance, a worried frown carving a V between her brows, but she didn’t make any comments.
Breathing more easily with relief, Victoria climbed into their old-fashioned carriage after her parents.
“Sir Arnold, Colonel Lord Parmar, Lord Taggert, and Mr. Fitton will all be present.” Her father folded his hands over the silver knob of his cane, holding the stick upright between his knees. “Best opportunity you’ll have, my girl, to see them all in one place and make a decision.” He sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a gusty sigh. “Be glad to get the business done with and you settled at last. Can’t remember your brother having such a time of it, but he’s always been a decisive devil—bit like myself. He no sooner set eyes on Lady Hannah than he decided to approach her father. Married her two months later.” He studied Victoria. “I suppose you take after your mother.”
Beside him, her mother gave her an exasperated smile that barely curved her mouth. She shook her head and shrugged.
When her father sank into such a pompous mood, there was little anyone could do except allow him to talk until he wound down, rather like permitting the monotonous chirping of a wind-up mechanical bird to continue until the spring uncoiled.
While he rambled on, both ladies focused on the windows, watching the last of the deep blue evening light fade. A few lamplighters were already lumbering down the walkways, reaching up with long, curving poles to light the street lamps.
The journey wasn’t long, just a few blocks at most, but the coach kept their shoes and the delicate hems of their dresses clean.
When they were a block away from Sir Arnold’s townhouse, Lady Longmoor caught her daughter’s gaze. “Your friend, Miss Urick, should be there, my dear, as well as several other young ladies, so you should enjoy yourself.” She smiled and leaned forward to pat Victoria’s clasped hands. “That gown turned out remarkably well; I’m so pleased you wore it.”
Though the cloak she wore hid her gown, Victoria glanced down. Perhaps the other guests would only notice the silver-shot gown and not her red-rimmed eyes. With so many other younger ladies present, fortune might smile on her tonight after all, she thought wryly. Her splotchy complexion and maturity might convince the men that the fresher, and certainly happier, young ladies were more to their taste.
Some of the heaviness crushing her chest eased. She smiled
at her mother.
“I believe even that Mr. Wickson, who so interested you before, may be there,” her mother said.
“Wickson?” her father frowned thoughtfully and tapped the tip of his cane against the wooden floor. “Wickson? Is he on the list?”
“No, dear,” her mother said. “However, his family is respectable and quite well off, I believe.”
“Wickson? The son of George Wickson? Blithering idiot at Oxford—can’t imagine he’s changed much in the intervening years. Stout enough in a fight, however, and a decent friend. Not a bad sort. If this Wickson of yours is anything like his father…” His words drifted off, and he shrugged. “Well, of course he’d be easy enough for an intelligent girl to manage. If she wished to.” His eyes studied her from beneath lowered brows. “Hadn’t thought you’d be the managing sort, but you women will go your own way, I suppose. Your mother will advise you on the best course. I won’t interfere. My only advice is to listen to her—a sensible woman, your mother.” Chuckling, he gently elbowed Lady Longmoor.
Smiling, she leaned over to give him a light kiss on the cheek. “Yes. After all, you always take my advice, don’t you, dear?”
The carriage rocked and jerked to a halt before her father could respond to his wife’s sally, much to Victoria’s relief. While part of her was pleased to see her parents enjoying one another’s company, a greater part of her wished they would do so behind closed doors. She shifted uncomfortably as a footman came to open the door and let down the narrow steps.
Inside, the butler relieved them of their outer garments and escorted them up the staircase to the drawing room on the first floor. Victoria followed her parents, trying to ignore the fluttering sensation in her stomach. If Mr. Wickson were there, she might be able to discover how severely Mr. Archer had been wounded. Or if he had succumbed to his injuries.
The large drawing room they entered had a bow window framed with forest green brocade curtains at one end, overlooking the street below. Several comfortable sitting areas, arranged like islands atop oriental carpets in rich shades of green, cream, gold and brown, broke up the wide expanse of the wooden floor, and a pair of Grecian urns graced half-columns on either side of the doorway.
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