Refuge for Masterminds

by Kathleen Baldwin

  I exhale with frustration. “It would make things considerably easier if I were dying.”

  Her eyes narrow disapprovingly.

  “There is only one way around this particular obstacle.” I cross my arms to hold in my turmoil. “I must remain at Stranje House instead of going to London.”

  “That won’t do, Lady Jane.” She lifts her chin. “Stop shilly-shallying and tell me the problem so we can solve it together.”

  I’m tempted. Heavens above, I would dearly love to confide in her. Trouble is, I know Miss Stranje. If I tell her, she’ll make me keep the wretched bargain my parents made. She lectures to us often enough about loyalty, honor, and duty.

  Besides, even thinking about telling her what happened causes me to hang my head. If I tell her the disgraceful truth, she’ll never look at me the same. It’s hard enough to admit to myself the ugly thing my parents did.

  How can I bring myself to tell her? Shall I say …

  Allow me to introduce the real Lady Jane. Here is the truth behind my noble title, my proud heritage, and my aristocratic parents. I am an earl’s daughter, and worth less in this world than a horse at auction.

  It’s the plain, puking truth.

  And I hate it.

  My parents traded me to pay their gambling debts. I was thirteen when they paraded me in a scandalously revealing dress in front of Lord Harston. “Lower your eyes,” my mother warned at the time, as if at that raw age I could triumph over my red-faced embarrassment. “Do your duty. It’s this or we lose everything.”

  Lord Harston had been drinking when they closed the door to his drawing room and left me alone with him. Alone.

  The cad lounged on a couch with a tumbler of whiskey in his hand and allowed his gaze to linger rudely over me. “You’re a passable filly.” He slurred his words and spoke into the crystal cup, swirling the amber liquid. “I s’pose if I must marry, you’ll do as well as any of those other whey-faced debs.” He lifted his glass in a toast. “What say you, Lady Jane? Want to be my wife?”

  I was too angry and shamed to say anything.

  He chuckled to himself. “No, I don’t suppose you would, would you. How old are you? Twelve? Thirteen? Fresh from the nursery, I’ll wager. Still playing with dolls, aren’t you?”

  That much I could answer. I had never played with dolls. “No.”

  A mistake. He gave me his full attention then, and I wondered if he was half as drunk as I’d originally thought. He rubbed his chin. “Tell you what, my girl, let’s flip a coin to decide. What do you say, heads or tails?”

  How dare he ask me to chance my future on the flip of a coin?

  I stood as straight and disapproving as I could in that foolhardy dress. “I do not gamble, sir.”

  “My lord,” he corrected angrily. “I am Lord Harston. Didn’t they even tell you that much?”

  “My mistake. But my answer remains the same, my lord. I don’t approve of gambling.”

  “Oh you don’t, do you?” He laughed mockingly. “You are Camberly’s brat, aren’t you?” He got to his feet and strolled toward me. “You do know your father and mother are famous for betting on everything. Everything. From the color of coat the Prince will wear to dinner, to which racehorse will come in dead last.” Harston wasn’t as ancient as I’d feared he would be, but he was old, at least thirty, and his breath smelled of cigars and whiskey. “There isn’t a hazard table in town they haven’t played at—” He lifted a lock of my hair as if inspecting the color, comparing it to the whiskey in his glass. “And lost.”

  I backed away, tugging my hair out of his fingers. “I’m well aware of my parents’ vices.”

  He chuckled. “I suppose you would be.” He raised his glass to me again. “Thing is, my dear Jane—”

  “Lady Jane.”

  “Yes, well, Lady Jane, your brothers don’t seem to share your scruples, either. The oldest, what’s his name?”

  “Francis,” I answered, searching for something to hit Harston with if he came one inch closer. I noticed a candlestick on a nearby table, and edged in that direction.

  “Aye, that’s the lad. I watched young Francis toss away three hundred quid at piquet last Tuesday. The misbegotten whelp didn’t bat an eye.” Lord Harston tossed back the rest of his drink and slammed the tumbler on the table.

  I reached for the candleholder. He grinned mischievously. “What’s the matter, Lady Jane, afraid of the dark?”

  “No.” I hoped there was enough warning in my voice and eyes. My parents would be furious if I struck him. I didn’t care. I would do what I needed to do to protect myself. Let them beat me for it later. I hated being alone with this dog of a man. I hated him gawping at me. Most of all I hated them for valuing me so cheaply.

  Bartering my future against their debt was mortifying enough, but parading me in front of this stranger like a plucked goose at the butcher shop was more humiliation than I could stomach. I refused to endure one minute more. I gripped Lord Harston’s silver candlestick ready to smash it over his head if he took another step closer.

  I was no fool, not even at thirteen. I knew what he might try to do. I’d overheard my brothers talking enviously about Harston’s exploits with lightskirts and married women. He was an unscrupulous rake. Yet, my parents would saddle me with him for life.

  This paragon of depravity had two virtues my parents coveted above all else. Luck and money. Where Papa and Mama lost at hazard tables, Lord Harston won. If they bet at a cockfight, his rooster lived, and theirs ended up roasting on a spit. If he sat at their card table, he ended the night with a stack of their shillings. It didn’t matter if it was baccarat, whist, or piquet, he may not have won every hand, but he won often enough that they offered him vowels to keep playing. Eventually their IOUs mounted so high that to pay him the money they owed, they would have to sell off the better part of our estate.

  Or make a bargain with the devil.

  The latter suited them best. So they had rushed home from London and ordered the maid to dress me in that indecent frock and stuff cotton wadding into my chemise in certain places. My father, still flushed with gambling fever, inspected the servant’s work. “She’ll do.”

  My governess pleaded with my parents to reconsider. She begged them not to do it, saying I was too young to make such a decision. “Don’t be daft.” My father shoved her aside. “The law says a girl can marry at twelve.” When she dissolved into tears, he ordered her to pack her bags and go. “Find another house to plague. We’ve no money left to pay you with anyway.”

  “We’ve no choice.” My mother explained without looking me in the eyes. She pinched my cheeks and fussed at the maid about pinning up my hair properly. “We owe Lord Harston a king’s ransom.”

  “In that case, how am I to be payment enough?”

  She pinched my arm for mouthing off and whispered heated instructions. “You’re to smile at him, and none of your smart talk. Do you hear me, Jane? Keep a civil tongue in your head.”

  Two hours later, there I stood in Lord Harston’s drawing room armed with a candlestick while obediently keeping my tongue in check.

  “Calm yourself, Lady Jane. I’m not going to steal your virtue today.” Lord Harston grinned at me. “I’ll say this though, you’ve got pluck. I like a girl with pluck. Too skinny by half, but you’ll do for a wife. Not today, mind you, but maybe in three or four years, when I can no longer stave off my nagging relatives, and…” The cur ran his finger down the sensitive curve of my neck. “After you’ve filled out.”

  I flipped the candlestick, so the heavy end was up, and raised it in warning.

  He laughed. “And when you’re a little less frightened of me.” He gently wrested the candlestick from my hand. “And not as eager to bash me over the head with my own silver.”

  “I’m not afraid of you.” I stuck my chin in the air and wished my shaky voice sounded more convincing. If my parents were going to force me to marry this beastly excuse for a man, I needed to establish my ground from t
he start.

  “Yes, you are, Lady Jane. As well you ought to be.” Lord Harston set the candlestick down with a plunk, and strolled back to the couch. He flopped down and sprawled out in a lazy ungentlemanly way. My soon-to-be fiancé lounged back and closed his eyes. With a wave of his hand, he shooed me away. “Now run along, and send your parents in to finish negotiating our deal.”

  Thus, my parents signed promissory marriage agreements with this drunken gambler, bartering me away as if I was nothing more than a goat at a county fair.

  I try very hard not to remember the acidic details of that day. Because when I do, they burn a hole in my heart. I find it difficult not to be furious with my mother and father for spending my freedom so cheaply, for tossing my future away on a throw of the dice and the turn of a card.

  Too late to be furious with them.

  Irony of ironies, my illustrious parents are no longer here to receive my fury. With their debt to Lord Harston settled, they raced back to London, eager to attend Lady Archer’s exclusive evening of dining and gaming.

  Of course, they did. How can I forget their excitement that night?

  The memory makes bile rise in my throat. Free of their debts, the two of them returned home from Lord Harston’s bouncing like jubilant children, toasting their good fortune, poring through their invitations. For them, it was a night for celebration. For me it felt like an early grave. Dressed in their finery, they prepared to leave. I sat at the top of the stairs, still wearing that dreadful dress. Forgotten. They didn’t even wave farewell.

  Later that night our household awoke to loud banging on the door. Apparently, in their giddy haste, my parents’ carriage overturned. Strangers hauled their battered bodies into the house. My father had been killed instantly, but Mama was still alive. The doctor came, but shook his head, warning us she was past help. A few days later, she, too, died.

  And now, here I am …

  Sitting in Miss Stranje’s dormitorium with a contract hanging over my unlucky head. A contract forcing me to fulfill my parents’ obligation and wed an equally contemptible gambler. No, that’s not true, they’re not his equal. Lord Harston is worse than they were. Not only is he a gambler, he’s also a care-for-nothing womanizer.

  What are the odds I will be able to find happiness with him, I wonder?

  A thousand to one? A million to one?

  No chance at all.

  If I were the wagering sort—I’m not, but if I were—I’d bet Alice the maid, Alice the traitor, stands a greater chance at happiness than I do. A joyless laugh catches in my throat and nearly strangles me. I clench the tablecloth until my knuckles bulge white.

  Miss Stranje covers my tight fist with her hand. “I can see that whatever is worrying you is painful.” She’s not the demonstrative sort, so I feel this quiet show of compassion more deeply than its face value. Except, I don’t deserve it, and pull my hand away.

  “Very well. I’ll not press you, Lady Jane, but I will say this.” She stands. “Troubles that lurk in the darkness of our own thoughts often feel gigantic. It’s not until we expose these shadowy monsters to the light, by telling our friends, that they shrivel to a more manageable size. Whatever your problem is, you’ll not be free of it by hiding.”

  She rests her hand on my shoulder. “You may choose to let me help you or not, but you will come with us to London.” Suddenly her hand feels as if it weighs forty stone.

  I bite my trembling lip. “You don’t know what you are sentencing me to.”

  “No, and I can’t, unless you tell me. Let me be clear, Lady Jane, I have plans for you. Grand plans, and none of them include you hiding yourself away here at Stranje House.”

  Grand plans?

  I can’t bring myself to ask her what they are. A more pressing obstacle stands in the way of any plans she might have.

  “If I go to London, your plans will come to naught. You won’t be able to save me.” I glare up at her, powerless to stop a lone tear from leaking out and burning a salty trail down my cheek. “Even if your connections extend all the way to the Prince Regent himself, you cannot keep me from disaster.”

  She pulls her hand from my shoulder, but the terrible weight remains. “Perhaps not, but in my long life I have found we must face the demons that haunt us. Running and hiding merely staves off the inevitable. Lady Jane, you may count on me to give you whatever assistance is within my power to grant, but I cannot help you if you will not trust me.”

  “Trust has nothing to do with it,” I snap.

  She smiles softly and tilts her head, narrowing in on me with birdlike shrewdness. “I believe you’ll discover it does.”

  I shake my head, denying her words, but this burning truth she has spoken singes me.

  She’s right. I don’t trust her.

  I’m a hypocrite. I claim to hold loyalty and trust above all other virtues and yet I don’t trust her. The most trustworthy person I’ve ever met. I nearly scream and an even more agonizing realization scorches through my mind. I don’t trust anyone.

  Not a single living soul.

  I draw in a quick breath and look up, my cheeks blazing with shame, stinging from a heat far worse than any fever. That errant tear sliding down my cheek, now scalds into ash.

  Miss Stranje brushes back a lock of my hair that has straggled across my brow and I risk meeting her gaze.

  “When you’re ready to confide in me,” she says. “I will be ready to listen.” There’s kindness in her face, and tenderness. If I were ever going to trust anyone, it would be her. If only she had been my mother, I wouldn’t be in this fix.

  Except, it’s wrong to think ill of the dead, so I force those thoughts aside. I lower my head, barely able to speak, and mumble, “I’m sorry.” Unsure of what I’m apologizing for, it may be a hundred things, or nothing at all.

  “Rest well, Lady Jane. We leave for London in the morning.”

  Thus, she seals my fate.

  Eleven

  ROAD TO RUIN

  Before sunup the next morning, I climb obediently into the coach and head toward the disaster awaiting me in London. I contemplate running away, but that would most likely end in an even bleaker future than a loveless marriage to a scoundrel. So I choose to face the known evil, rather than hazard the unknown.

  Our caravan of three coaches and a wagon, packed to the gills, bumps up the rutted road to London. From his perch, the coachman curses the fact that it rained last night. I sit inside, praying another storm will blow in and delay this ruinous trip indefinitely.

  Once again, the fates align against me. Morning dawns a rosy pink, with nary a cloud in sight. The sun dries the road and we speed on our way to London. Whenever one wishes a journey to pass quickly, the road is bound to be plagued with detours, mud, and fallen trees. Conversely, when one is galloping toward destruction, the trip seems shorter than it ought, and the road miraculously free of trouble. In our case, there’s not even so much as a pothole to break a wheel spoke.

  I sleep along the way, having lain awake most of the night, mulling over various ways to avoid Lord Harston, and different disguises I might adopt. Not until we hit the cobblestones and cross Westminster Bridge am I jarred from slumber. We are here.

  London.

  St. James’s Square.

  When our coach finally stops, I stare out the window and my mouth falls open. We are in Mayfair! The heart of London’s most elite addresses.

  Never in a thousand years did I dream Miss Stranje could afford a mansion such as this. I’d thought I might be able to hide, to remain outside of Lord Harston’s social circles. This is not the address in which to do that. There will be no anonymity here.

  How in the world did she land us in Mayfair? I’d assumed Miss Stranje would rent modest lodgings on the outskirts of town. Never this, a mansion in the center of everything that is fashionable.

  As if in a bizarre dream, I climb out of the coach and stand on the cobblestones gawking. It’s five stories tall, with a sixth level below stairs.
“Do close your mouth, Lady Jane.” Miss Stranje walks up beside me. “Why are you gaping as if you’ve never seen a townhouse?”

  “Not just any townhouse. This is … how did you…?” My mouth works, but I struggle for a complete sentence, until finally I blurt, “The window tax alone must cost a small fortune.” I shake my head.

  “I suppose we all have our secrets.” She smiles to herself. “Surely, you didn’t expect I would hold a coming-out ball for you young ladies in a rustic cottage up in Islington. I have a reputation to uphold.”

  I continue to stare at the towering facade, and soon realize there is something decidedly off. Unlike the neighboring townhouses, the windows on our house are shuttered tight; and those that aren’t, are draped with black curtains.

  Sera edges in next to me, and gestures at the second story. “Those shutters haven’t been opened for quite some time. Do you see the debris collected on them? This is a house in mourning, and it has been so for a considerable amount of time.”

  “Nonsense.” Miss Stranje sniffs. “Houses can’t mourn. Whatever tragedy may have occurred here, a year is long enough for idleness. I won’t have you spouting superstitious drivel. A house is nothing more than bricks and mortar, a place to hang our hats, a roof over our heads—that’s all there is to it.” She delivers this unwarranted tirade, fluffing out her black skirts like an annoyed raven. “Do you ladies intend to stand here all day? I, for one, would prefer to unpack.”

  She marches up the front steps, and turns to frown at us. “Tess, do please settle those dogs. And for pity’s sake, all of you stop gaping like yokels. You are making an unfavorable impression on the neighbors.” She raps the knocker smartly.

  Indeed, several neighbors are peering discreetly from their windows, and I note the curtains drawing back across the street and next door. Sera whispers, “Something is amiss.”

  I agree. But I can’t admit it aloud. I must remain stalwart for all of us. Miss Stranje is right, we ought to remove ourselves from the street. “Come along, whatever it is we’ll simply have to deal with it.” I loop my arm through hers, and tug her forward. Everyone else follows us inside.