by Laura Parker
When at the end of an hour her dry and refreshed things were brought to her, she was almost as grateful for the excuse to leave the Mirza’s company as she had been to accept it. Without the visit she would not yet know what had become of Devlyn or know that her hopes and dreams were once and for all at an end. Whatever reason he had given for leaving the country, she knew the real one. There was nothing to do after all but carry on with her new plan. Once she held Jamie again, even the pain of Devlyn’s loss would be bearable.
As she stepped up into the Mirza’s carriage for the ride home, she found herself agreeing with the ambassador’s assessment of England as a frigid and gloomy place in which she would never again be truly warm.
“They await your return in the front salon,” Bersham said as Japonica entered the townhouse.
“I am too weary just now to deal with the Abbott sisters. Tell them I shall be present at dinner, where they may plague me to their hearts’ content.”
“They are not alone,” Bersham suggested in a tone that caused Japonica to halt with her first foot on the main stairs. “Mr. Simmons is with them.”
“The solicitor?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“They’ve thought of some new stratagem with which to confound me,” she murmured. “Very well.”
She entered the salon without delay, deciding that it was better to march straight into the enemy ranks.
“Good evening, Hyacinthe. Laurel. Mr. Simmons,” she greeted the three people who sat for that instant frozen like statues about the tea table. “If this is another attempt to rout me by ambush I fear you find me extremely out of temper. Come quickly to the point, if you must, before I show you all the door.”
Hyacinthe shot to her feet and moved forward, a look of terrible anxiety on her long face. To Japonica’s surprise, she was even wringing her hands. “I—we have something to tell you. Laurel has done something—horrid!”
It is an interesting thing, Japonica mused absently, to discover that distress in Hyacinthe’s strong features was an almost unbearably pitiful sight.
“I did not know about it. I would have stopped Laurel. Despite our—my previous enmity, I beg you believe me, I would have stopped her.”
“I doubt that,” Japonica said with some asperity. “What am I accused of now? Frittering away the household budget on diamond tiaras?”
Hyacinthe glanced back over her shoulder before continuing. “We have reason to believe—that is, Laurel had reason to believe. That is, she stole one of your letters ….”
“Bismallah!” Japonica’s sudden ejaculation of emotion backed Hyacinthe up two steps.
“Allow me.” Mr. Simmons approached, blushing, whereas Hyacinthe seemed dipped in ashes. “If you would be kind enough to come and sit and hear me out, Lady Abbott.”
“You shan’t be here long enough for me to take my ease.” Japonica’s gaze moved past him to where Laurel sat like a plump Medusa, awaiting her to turn to stone. The girl had no idea that she had had enough shocks this day to inure her against any more spiteful manipulation.
“So then,” Mr. Simmons began again, “If you will indulge me, my lady. Miss Laurel Abbott has bade me make certain inquires of a most delicate nature.” He reddened to a degree that would seem to be painful. “If your ladyship would like to seat herself? No? Then I will of necessity press on. The subject of which is a child—a son, if your ladyship will allow the distinction—who is purported to be living in Portugal …” His obsequious tone died before Japonica’s withering stare.
“You made inquiries. I see.” Japonica’s gaze moved from the solicitor to Hyacinthe.
“Do you have a son?” Hyacinthe whispered.
“Yes.” Japonica smiled, amazed by how easy it was to at last tell that truth.
“I knew it!” Laurel rushed up to stand before her, spite and vulgar delight swelling her almost pretty face to an ugly proportion. “You mean to disinherit us. That’s your evil plan!”
“If that were so, I should have brought Jamie with me to London in the beginning. But I have no wish to disinherit anyone.”
“I do not believe you! I do not!” Laurel was shouting now, spittle flying from her lips. “I knew from the beginning that you intended us harm. I knew it!”
She swung round on the two other people present. “Did I not tell both of you that she had come to steal Father’s legacy from us? If her bastard is allowed to inherit, we will lose everything, even Croesus Hall!”
“You are hysterical!” Japonica said with dampening contempt, but Hyacinthe and Mr. Simmons were staring at her in such appalled affront that she knew she had lost every inch of dignified ground she had gained these last weeks.
“I won’t allow it! I won’t!” Choking on her rage, Laurel sprang at Japonica, who swung quickly out of her path. A moment later, Laurel was past her and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” Japonica called out alarmed for the first time.
“None of your business. You can’t stop me!” Laurel called defiantly.
For one desperate second Japonica thought about calling for footmen to overtake Laurel and lock her in her room. Before the thought was complete she knew it would be futile. In a few hours or days the events of the afternoon would be all over London.
“I will go and try to reason with her,” Mr. Simmons said and, bowing quickly, rushed from the room.
“I hope he is successful,” Hyacinthe said in a voice that seemed to be starched with anger.
“He will not be,” Japonica answered.
Soon the gossip mills would pick up scraps of whispers and mix them with conjecture, speculation, and envious devising to grind out delicious, titillating scandal meat. Whether she liked it or not she was about to be the most notorious woman in London.
“What shall we do?’ Hyacinthe questioned in a hushed tone that implied that for the first time in her life she was at a loss.
Japonica smiled slightly. “We shall do what a great portion of London is about to do. Go home for Christmas.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Japonica sat on a stone bench from which she had swept a dusting of snow. It was so cold that the flakes did not dampen the stone. After a moment she rested her elbows on her knees and balanced her chin on her fists and stared out across the lawn of Croesus Hall.
She had never spent a quieter or sadder Christmas, not even in the first year after the death of her father. This, the third day of Christmas, had dawned with the promise of being much the same as the previous two.
It was not for lack of trying on her part. Guided by Bersham’s advice she had seen to it that the mantels and urns and main stairway of Croesus Hall were adorned with the traditional English cuttings of wax-leaf holly with cheerful red berries, boughs of ivy, branches of bay, and cuttings of evergreens. Mistletoe decked doorways and swung in swags above the arches. Thick creamy tapers lit from a special candle brought home from church on Christmas Eve flickered in the breeze of the passageways against the ancient injunction that no fire be allowed to burn out between Christmas and the New Year lest ill-luck befall all those beneath the roof. The infusion of green fragrance turned the house from what once seemed a dusty dank pile of stones into a wondrous green oasis. Yet, on this morning, she preferred the brisk chill of the out-of-doors. She hoped the clear cold would whisk from her mind the dull thickness that matched her mood. Nothing else so far had worked.
Mummers had descended upon the Hall the night before, having heard that Croesus Hall was full to brimming with food and drink for the season. The unbidden guests danced and sang and performed a rude drama about a pair of waggish lovers caught in the machinations of Napoleon and Nelson and saved, preposterously, by St. George. That had made her laugh in spite of herself. Yet as the Wassail bowl was being ladled out afterwards she could not for an instant shake the foreboding that disaster lay as close as the ticking of the next minute on the clock.
Though no one directly me
ntioned it, all those who gathered beneath her roof each night were keenly aware of the conspicuous absence of Croesus Hall’s rightful holder, Lord Devlyn Sinclair.
Japonica shuddered and closed her eyes as a sudden breeze disturbed the already fallen snow and swirled it up about her so that flakes flew and resettled in her hair and on her eyelashes. Devlyn was gone for good. In all the unhappiness and uncertainty that seemed to lie in the days ahead, she could be grateful for that one fact. She would be spared facing him when he learned, as he eventually would, of the son she had sought to hide from him. By then she would be far, far away.
A very subdued Laurel had appeared the evening before Christmas Eve in the company of Mr. Simmons, who hied right back to London to be with his lady wife for the holidays. Laurel had said not a word about where she had been or with whom she had spoken but had gone to her room and remained there until Christmas morning. She had accompanied her sisters to breakfast and then sat wide-eyed when her gift from Japonica was unwrapped to reveal the floral bonnet she had once admired in Madame Soti’s window. Quite surprising everyone, she had bolted from the room in tears.
After breakfast, six very solemn Abbott ladies attended Christmas Day services. The pews had been trimmed with sprigs of holly and yew tied with bright red ribbons to turn the church into a miniature forest. The only flurry of excitement came when Alyssum stood up in the Shrewsbury pew to lead the congregation in song. Her clear light soprano soared above the congregation’s chorus like a flute. The effect she had upon the vicar was apparent to the entire congregation. He had stared at her as though she were the joy of Christmas morning incarnate.
At dinner that night to which the vicar had been invited, Japonica doubted he or Alyssum heard a single word other than the ones they spoke to one another. There, perhaps, she realized with a dull kind of satisfaction, was a match that would be accomplished without adhering to the codified behavior of London’s haute ton.
Japonica blinked away tears of melting snow. Once she had foolishly wished for adventure. Certainly she had had her fill this year. The happiness and grief, sadness and joy were so bound up together that she doubted she would ever be able to extract one from the other. Yet all that was behind her.
The heaviness in her heart today came in part from the fact she had heard nothing from Aggie since she sent the letter and bank draft ordering her to bring Jamie to London. Perhaps the winter weather had delayed Aggie’s reply. Once the first of her nurse’s letters caught up with her, they had come in the post almost daily. The last, those waiting for her at Croesus Hall upon her return, were dated before her own post should have arrived in Lisbon. If she received no reply by the New Year, she would simply sail for Lisbon on her own.
It occurred to her only the evening before that she was not entirely unhappy about her imminent ejection from London’s polite society. Though she had not wanted to admit it, even to herself, her fear of society’s rejection was based in pride and her own desire to be part of it. From the moment she tried on that gown in Madame Soti’s she had begun to want for herself things that she had never before considered important. But the ways of society exacted a heavy toll. The pitfalls were many and sometimes arbitrary, and she was too independent to long keep from committing one faux pas or another.
So then, she did not need society’s stamp to return to her home in Bushire and resume the life she had been living before her fateful visit to Baghdad. The truth about scandal was that it only held sway in the fear of exposure. Once uncovered by Laurel, even the news of Jamie’s birth no longer daunted her. Her old neighbors would talk and wonder and conjecture about her return with a babe in her arms. But who among them would dare question her openly about Jamie’s parentage? None! And in time, something or someone else’s misfortune would become fresh gossip to titillate and entertain. She was a skilled herbalist whose knowledge could be put to use in trade. She was not afraid to roll up her sleeves and rejoin the mercantile marketplace that had once been her family’s life.
And Jamie need not lack, as she had not, for being born a commoner. She need not squander the considerable funds her father had left her. By the time Jamie was grown, he would have a thriving business to inherit. It was not a coronet but she had never really wanted that for him. She would be enough family for him, she and Aggie. If only they would arrive in England!
She was aware of a traveling coach passing in the distance long before she realized that it was coming directly toward Croesus Hall. In fact, not until she heard the blast of the postillion’s horn, used to alert a household to an arriving coach, did she fully understand that she was about to have visitors.
She bolted to her feet, hoping against reason that this was Aggie bringing Jamie to her. But she quickly saw that the conveyance was not a mail coach or even a regular highway coach. The bright colors of the coach’s compartment and its contrasting undercarriage were plainly on view as the coach made the final turn onto the drive. This was a private coach bearing on its door panels the shield of nobility. Still she hurried across the lawn to meet it as it rocked to a stop before the main entrance.
She scarcely had time to catch her breath before the postillion opened the coach door. The lady who stepped down from the interior wore an emerald green gown overlaid with a long silk cloak of scarlet superfine lined with fur. Her traveling bonnet was made of green and scarlet velours and sported two enormous white egret feathers.
“Lady Simms,” Japonica greeted with an expression that was not entirely delighted. “This is a surprise.”
“No more for you than I.” Lady Simms looked up at the facade of Croesus Hall. “Gad! This Gothic pile never changes. Each time I visit, I expect Cromwell and his troops to descend upon me from the entry to lop off my head. You will need to brighten it up, Lady Abbott. I know the very architect, a protegé of Adam. I don’t imagine Devlyn sees himself living here year around but you will find the adjustments the fellow suggests ever so accommodating to female sensibilities.”
Japonica let the lady’s chatter roll over her head until her guest came to take a breath where she could insert, “I regret to inform you, Lady Simms, but Lord Sinclair is not in residence at present. He is away in France.”
“In France? But that is preposterous. Did I not but yesterday evening receive a letter in his own hand asking me to come this very day to meet him at Croesus Hall? Indeed, I did. But you look pale, child. Whatever is wrong?”
“Nothing,” Japonica said faintly. “It is only that I had not been informed to expect so illustrious a guest.” Devlyn was back? And coming here? “Are you certain he is expected today?”
Lady Simms turned a supercilious gaze on her hostess. “I may sport feathers in my bonnet but that does not make me a goose!” Immediately she relented with a sweet smile. “I should be quite put out too, were I in your place and had not been informed of the arrival of guests. But here I am and we will make the best of it. I should be quite vexed with Dev myself had his missive not given me excuse to take leave of my husband’s relatives. They are Scots. They come in lots of a dozen, don’t you know. And a madder band of drunken gambling revelers you never met. Night and day, they make no end to it! Fatigue plagues me constantly.”
“Allow me to extend to you the hospitality of Croesus Hall,” Japonica said wearily for it seemed, in any case, Lady Simms had come to stay.
“Spiced wine would be nice,” Lady Simms commented as she climbed the stairs and entered the house. “Or a nice glass of sherry with biscuits. Did I say the Scots drink nothing but that noxious brew they make themselves and call whiskey! One becomes quite foxed without a pleasurable sip to be had at any point of consumption. I don’t know but that the abundance of the distilled brew doesn’t account for their decided lack of humor. Ah, this is better.” She breezed from the entry into the main salon where a fire blazed. At the far end, the Shrewsbury sisters sat playing a quiet game of cards. “Ah, the Shrewsbury Menagerie,” she mouthed in distaste.
The gi
rls rose at once, resting their cards on the tabletop.
“Lady Simms, what a pleasant surprise,” Hyacinthe intoned in an exact reflection of Japonica’s own greeting. “Permit me to reacquaint you with my sisters.” As she called each of their names, the girls dipped a curtsey and smiled and murmured appropriate greetings in well-modulated tones.
When they were done, Lady Simms turned to Japonica with raised brows and an arrested expression. “I am astonished. There must beat the heart of a Tartar behind your sweet facade. I made a bet with Leigh that you would be under the hatches with these harridans long before now.” She reached for her lorgnette, dangling by a ribbon from her gown, and flicked it up to inspect each of the girls separately. As she did so she mouthed softly, “Quite remarkable! Exceptional! Astonishing!” When she was done, she turned to Japonica. “To a one, they seem in every way presentable.”
“Thank you, Lady Simms.” A week ago those words of confirmation of her achievement would have made Japonica warm with pride. Now they only echoed with the hollowness of a victory that could never be enjoyed. Devlyn was coming to Croesus Hall!
“Did Lord Sinclair say when we should expect him?”
“I never attempt to know precisely when the dear boy will show up.” Her gaze flicked over Japonica’s dress. “You would do well to change into something more cheerful, I dare say. An English gentleman likes to believe his household waits upon nothing so much as the hour of his return.”
“Then England must be filled with disappointed gentlemen,” Japonica said with some asperity. She turned to her stepdaughters. “Hyacinthe, ring for sherry and biscuits. Alyssum, show Lady Simms to a comfortable chair. Peony, find her a lap robe to dispel the chill of her journey.” She allowed her gaze to pass unchecked over Laurel, who hung back with eyes downcast. “Now if you will excuse me, I will change into something …” she glanced at Lady Simms’s stylish gown, “more appropriate for entertaining our guest.”