Lady in Green

by Barbara Metzger

  Gard shook his head. “I have no idea to what you are referring, my lord.”

  “Well, here’s the bite with no bark on it. Word is that you’re not much between the sheets, that you’ll try anything to stir up a little interest. Bessie didn’t do the trick, but she got paid anyway.”

  Gard was wondering if it was too late to book passage on the next ship bound for the Orient. What with the long journey, exploration of hidden temple sites and vast unknown regions, he might be gone for ten or twelve years. Which was about how long it would be before he’d dare show his face again in London.

  “My lord?”

  “Oh, yes, sorry. Woolgathering. You say I gave Bessie this bracelet?”

  “No, your housekeeper actually handed it to Bessie, she said. You aren’t going to give us some folderol about your servants having expensive gewgaws to distribute to doxies without your approval, are you?”

  His housekeeper, Miss Avery’s servant, most likely had access to a king’s ransom in jewels. The she-witch was using Annalise’s wealth to buy off his paramours!

  He picked up the bracelet from the cluttered desk and pretended to study it once more. “Oh, that bracelet. I left it with the housekeeper for safekeeping because I had no use for it, I thought. It’s too vulgar for my usual birds of paradise. They prefer diamonds or rubies, it seems,” he said with a wink. “I won it in a game of cards, don’t you know. And I, ah, did not fail Bessie. I failed to keep the appointment. My staff must have felt she deserved recompense for her time—I always insist they be courteous and generous to my particulars—and this was the only thing of value around. You must not believe everything you hear, you know, especially a man in your position.”

  “Indeed, indeed.” Lord Ffolke was nearly convinced. This story tallied much better with the handsome devil seated at ease in front of him than did the idle chitchat of a bunch of old windbags at White’s. “Then you won’t mind telling us from whom you won the bracelet?”

  “Only if you’ll tell me what this is all about.” So Lord Ffolke told him how Sir Vernon Thompson had put up rewards for information leading to the recovery of his stepdaughter, an escaped Bedlamite. She took the family jewels and raided the household account, not that Sir Vernon was looking to press robbery charges against the girl or anything. She was too addled to know right from wrong. Sir Vernon merely wanted her back, where the family could look after her. He was also willing to overlook any irregularities in the jewelry’s arrival at Bow Street, in exchange for information.

  “Is Sir Vernon in town, then? I don’t seek the reward, of course, I just wish to see the unfortunate girl taken care of. I’ll go talk to him myself, and give him what assistance I can.”

  “Kind of you, my lord. Sir Vernon arrived in the City today. I already had my secretary visit him at the Clarendon, where he keeps rooms. I wish we had more to report, to relieve his worries. Now, if you’ll just give us the name of the gentleman you played cards with, we’ll be on our way with the investigation. You did give your word, my lord.”

  “So I did. Unfortunately I am not positive who actually put the bit of frippery on the table in the first place. Too much to drink, don’t you know. Of course you do, if you heard all the other rumors. In fact, just between us, that’s how most of the tittle-tattle started.” He leaned closer, so only the magistrate could hear. “I was entertaining a regular dasher, a lady of the ton, a widow, don’t you know. But I had overindulged, and fell asleep before I could, ah, entertain her properly. In a fit of pique she gave out that I was, shall we say, as responsive as the warming brick she had to put in her bed.”

  The magistrate slapped his knee again and Gard sat back, satisfied he’d done the possible to scotch some of the rumors, the important ones. Let this doddery fool think he was drunk; Gard realized now he’d been drugged!

  He went on with his testimony. The sooner he got this over, the sooner he could knock a few heads together. “I think I won it the night I sat in for a round with Repton and his crowd. Eccles, Hastings, Jelcoe, I believe. I don’t usually gamble with those Captain Sharps, but there you have it. Drink makes a man do strange things.”

  *

  Before going to the Clarendon, Lord Gardiner stopped off home to place one of his dueling pistols in his greatcoat pocket, to exchange his cane for a sword stick, and to slide a thin stiletto inside his topboot. And to accept a folded note from his silent valet.

  “What’s this, Ingraham? I’m in a hurry.”

  “My resignation, my lord.”

  Gard ripped the thing up unopened. “Balderdash. You cannot leave now. Who else can make sure I am bang up to the nines for my wedding in a day or two?”

  Gard left as soon as Ingraham regained consciousness.

  *

  Sir Vernon and Barnaby Coombes were having dinner in one of the private parlors. Lord Gardiner invited himself to join them.

  “I believe you have lost something of value,” he commented as he selected a slice of beef.

  Sir Vernon chewed his own meat slowly, gesturing the already red-faced Barnaby to remain in his seat. Thompson noted the earl had not removed his greatcoat, nor handed his cane to the footman. It paid to be observant about these things, he had learned in many years of gulling the pigeons, just as it paid to listen carefully to the blockhead oafs he’d sent in search of Annalise. One of the fools even managed to recall a description of Lord’ Gardiner’s housekeeper. Tallish she was, with a pointy chin and a wart, and all her hair pulled under a cap. Oh, yes, the man had added under Sir Vernon’s patient questioning, she’d been wearing green-tinted spectacles, the same spectacles his dear stepdaughter had worn when he last saw her. The baronet did not know about the woman in the park—Barny had kept his word to Annalise so far—but he knew all about Lord Gardiner’s housekeeper. He just hadn’t had time to get her away from the house yet. The earl was no greenhead flat, though, nor doltish footman.

  “Did you come for the reward, my lord?” he asked, playing his cards as close to his chest as the earl. “Are you below hatches at Gardiner House, then? Odd, that’s one rumor I haven’t heard.”

  Gard helped himself to a scallop of veal. “Not at all. Just wanted to find out how the recovery of the heiress was going.”

  Barnaby sputtered until he recalled the earl’s punishing right. He subsided, gulping down his ale. Sir Vernon sipped from his glass more slowly. “I believe I shall have happy tidings shortly.”

  “Yes, I believe you shall. I am henceforth taking over the search for Miss Avery, and responsibility for her welfare.” The earl put down his fork and stood to his considerable height, the capes on his greatcoat making him loom even larger over the others seated at the table. He was no longer the amiable dinner companion; he was a bird of prey. “Understand this, both of you. You have nothing more to do with the, lady. You”—he addressed Barny, who was eyeing the distance to the door—“shall not talk to her, threaten her, or make any effort to see her. If you are thinking you can kidnap her and elope to the border, think again. You’ll be dead before you reach Gretna Green. Do you understand?”

  Barny understood he hadn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of getting Leesie’s dowry now, not with this handsome, well-heeled, and titled bastard sticking his aristocratic nose in. He finished his ale and nodded.

  “And you, sirrah,” the earl ground out, turning to Thompson, whose eyes were narrowed in anger, “will agree with my terms.”

  “What, give that innocent child into your keeping? No one would deny my right to keep her from such a dissolute libertine.”

  “I deny your right. You are no better than a pimp, selling her to this mawworm. And if you think to declare her insane so you can lock that innocent child away forever, I’ll make sure Parliament takes up the debate.” When the other would have spoken, he went on, staring at Sir Vernon with deadly intent. “I have the means and I have the influence to get what I want. You’ll have to meet me on the dueling field if you choose to get in my way. Miss Avery shall be free
to live her own life if you hope to live yours.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “I have decided to accept the earl’s carte blanche,” Annalise quietly announced to the Tuthills before dinner, in case Lord Gardiner arrived that night to discuss the arrangements with them. “I cannot keep hiding and running, feeling threatened all the time. Nor can I marry Barny, feeling as I do.” She went upstairs to her room.

  Without making a sound, Henny took the pot off the stove—lamb stew, Rob’s favorite—and threw the entire contents out the back door to the hogs. The fact that the hogs were in the backyard of her cottage in Worcester made no never-mind.

  A bit later Rob sat picking cold chicken from his teeth with his knife. “So Missy falls from grace and I go hungry,” he complained to the replete and somnolent dog Clyde at his feet in the stable, to which he’d been banished. “’Is nibs gives the chickie a slip on the shoulder and I get to sleep in the barn. Seems to me the gov’nor has a lot to answer for when he shows up.”

  * * *

  Ross was at home, thinking about going to Laurel Street that evening. From what he knew of the baronet, Sir Vernon was not one to throw in his hand until all the cards had been played, including those dealt from the bottom. If Thompson was going to make a move, it would have to be soon, before Gard finalized his arrangements. This was contingent, of course, on Miss Avery’s stepfather knowing her whereabouts.

  Gard decided that Bloomsbury was his own best chance at finding the elusive female. Either she was on the premises or he could persuade Annie to divulge her location, after he convinced the housekeeper of the girl’s danger. Annie owed him something, by Jupiter, after making micefeet of both his social life and his social standing.

  In any case, he could not call on Miss Avery in all his dirt, stinking of horse and needing a shave, so he called for a bath. Trying not to fret, telling himself that Clarence was looking after her and so were the Tuthills and Annie, he paced the floor while waiting for the cans of hot water. Ingraham was humming contentedly in the dressing room as he laid out the attire he deemed appropriate for a visit to the future Lady Gardiner: black satin evening knee smalls, sparkling white linen, white brocaded waistcoat, and midnight-blue swallowtails that would take himself and a footman to fit over his lordship’s broad shoulders.

  The man’s cheerful humming was grating on Gard’s already sensitive nerves. Impatiently he picked up his sketch pad and thumbed through it to the end. Could she really be as beautiful as he remembered? If the picture from Richmond was accurate, she was even more so.

  Idly he flipped back through the pages until his fingers paused at the drawing of Annie playing the pianoforte. Nice hands. Then he turned the page to stare at the other likeness of the housekeeper, the one that depicted the ugly cap, the flat chest…and the pointy chin, the mole to the right of her mouth. He ripped the page out of the book and held it next to the last portrait, the one where he’d worked so hard to position Miss Avery’s beauty mark correctly, to the right of her mouth.

  Annalise. Annie Lee. An ass of an earl. His bellow of rage caused the footman to spill the two cans of hot water he carried.

  Hot water be damned. Ross plunked himself down in the cold. Not even that cooled his blood. “The hell with clothes,” he told the dismayed valet, pulling on his buckskins again, grabbing the frilled dress shirt from Ingraham’s arms and buttoning it any which way. If not for the frail old man trembling in consternation, Gard would have dispensed with a neckcloth altogether. He snatched up a starched length of muslin and tied it in a rough knot. “À la Jack Ketch,” he snarled at poor Ingraham as he stuffed the dueling pistol in his waistband and dragged on an old hunting jacket.

  “Shall…shall I have your carriage brought round, my lord?”

  “No, I’ll walk. By the time I get there, maybe I’ll be rational enough that they won’t add strangler to my list of sins.” And if Sir Vernon got to her first, Gard raged, the baronet would merely be saving him the effort.

  Ingraham was searching in the trash for his letter of resignation.

  *

  Clarence was across the street, watching out for the Lady in Green. Of course he was. Any looby could have figured it out. Any looby but a moonstruck rakehell. How could he not have seen? All those inconsistencies, all those coincidences! He waved Clarence off, telling the man that he’d look after her. Ha! He hadn’t looked after her when she was right under his nose! The earl wanted to bang his head against the lamppost for being such a noddy. Instead, he banged Tuthill against the stable door a few times for being a lying, cheating, scheming snake. He desisted when he felt the tip of Tuthill’s knife pressed dangerously close to his inseam.

  Tuthill spit to the side but did not move the blade. “I told her lack of sex’d make a man violent.” He pressed the knife a little harder. “Lack of these might cure the problem. Works on horses all right.” Gard released his hold on the smaller man’s shoulders, cautiously stepping back out of range. “Insolent bastard.”

  “Arrogant lecher.”

  They traded insults like boys in a schoolyard until Rob turned his head to spit, taking care to avoid Clyde. As he turned back, a pistol fired, the ball taking his knife right out of his hand. “Just an accident,” he called out to the shouted queries, and “Damn good shot,” to the earl. Then he went on. “Way I see it, my sticker’s gone but your rattler’s empty. What do you want to do now?”

  “I want to go inside, and I am bigger, stronger, and younger.”

  Rob nodded. “You might get in, or you might not. Either way, you won’t get out to see the dawn. I got so many crimes in my dish, killin’ a nob won’t make the noose any tighter.”

  “I’ll bet you do, you old horse thief. Lucky for you I’m not a violent man.”

  “Too bad for you I am. And you might be bigger ’n all that, but I know more dirty tricks.”

  “I’ll bet you do,” Gard said again, losing patience with the stable hand, if that’s what he was. “So are you going to try to stop me or not?”

  “Depends on what you’re lookin’ for in there.” Rob jerked his head toward the house.

  “Revenge, mostly.”

  “Can’t argue with that. Figure you’ve got a right. What else, though?”

  Gard snarled, angry at the thought of an earl seeking permission to go courting from a thatchgallows horse groomer. “What are you, her father or something, that I have to declare my intentions?”

  “Someone’s got to, looks like.”

  “Oh, stubble it already. Enough. I am still a gentleman.”

  Tuthill was satisfied with that, enough to curl up in his makeshift bed in an empty stall with Clyde for company. He wished the earl luck.

  *

  Ross went around to the front door and knocked. Annie opened the door and curtsied, then looked beyond the earl for his companion.

  “No, Annie, I have no lady friend with me tonight, but I am sure your diabolical mind had something planned for our entertainment. What was it to be, poisoned toadstools? Leaking roof? Rocks in the mattress?”

  Drat, she wished she’d thought of half of those! All she had were some overfed mice that wouldn’t scare a grasshopper. Then she realized he was standing in the parlor, legs spread apart, arms crossed across his chest, scowling fiercely from under lowered brows like some seafaring brigand. “Are…are you very angry, my lord?”

  “Angry? No, I wouldn’t call it anger. Mind-numbing blood rage is more like it, Annie. You know, when all you can see is red in front of your eyes and smoke starts pouring from your ears and you—”

  He had no hat or gloves for her to take, but he did have a pistol tucked in his waistband. Annie started backing toward the door. Gard stepped that way, blocking her retreat.

  “I have another idea for this evening, since you have frightened away all of my other interests.” His voice was low, measured, implacable. “I thought you might provide the night’s entertainment.”

  Annie glanced toward the pianoforte and licked h
er dry lips. “I don’t think I could—”

  “Oh, no, Annie, music wasn’t at all what I had in mind.” He took a step toward her, close enough for her to see the twitching of his jaw muscles. She backed up until her legs hit the sofa. When she couldn’t go any farther without putting herself in an even more disadvantageous position, Annalise crossed her own arms over her own chest. She refused to be intimidated, she told herself, trying desperately to keep her knees from knocking together so loudly that he must hear them. She raised her chin defiantly. “I do not want to—”

  “No. Tonight we do what I want. What I’ve been wanting to do since the day I met you.” He put his strong hands on her shoulders, dislodging the shoulder pad that made her look deformed. Then he moved his fingers closer to her throat.

  “My lord?” Her voice was at least an octave higher than normal.

  “What, Annie, frightened? Just as those women were frightened by what they saw? Just as I was frightened, thinking I could never—”

  “What…what are you going to do, my lord?”

  “This,” he declared, pulling the green-tinted spectacles off her nose and throwing them into the hearth, where they shattered with a tinkle of glass. The fear in her eyes sent a twinge of remorse through Gard, but only a twinge. This was ugly Annie, sharp-tongued Annie, Annie the trickster, who had made his life hell. “And this.” He grabbed that awful cap off her head, releasing the silver curls, but he did not stop there. While one hand stayed fastened to her shoulder in an iron grip, the other used the muslin fabric to scrub her face. He did not even try to be gentle as he rid her of the disfiguring mole and the yellowish powder. “And this,” he moaned, pulling her into his arms at last. She was brave and beautiful Annie, clever Annie, Annalise, who was his. “Oh, God, I have waited so long to—” Holding her in his arms was not the unalloyed delight he was expecting. In fact, it felt somewhat like embracing a boy, he imagined. He jumped back as if scalded. “Damn and blast, whatever you’ve done to your body, undo it!”