by Kerryn Reid
Lewis scrambled to escape. Pain stung his arm as Jack’s thrust poked through his shirt and skin. He slipped, almost fell, but saved it, parrying Jack’s next attempt from one knee.
“Put up, put up!” Monsieur Fortier rushed forward to separate their blades with his own.
“Back off,” Lewis snarled. He was finished taking the sneers, the taunts, the sarcasm. He drove Jack across the floor, every muscle working to fulfill his objective. Time to teach Jack a lesson.
Jack retreated, stumbled, managed an awkward parry. His sweat ran freely, into his eyes, sticking his hair to his forehead.
Men scattered out of their path as he drove Jack to the edge of the cleared ring and beyond until Jack hit the wall, dropping his blade to save his footing. A quick touch to the heart with his foil, and then Lewis pinned him with a forearm across the chest.
He shoved his face into Jack’s. “The button came off. You didn’t notice?”
Jack’s eyes widened. He gave Lewis a sudden shove and pushed away from the wall. Shouldering his way through the silent men surrounding them, he strode across the room to the changing benches. He jammed his feet into his boots, snatched up his coat and hat, and charged out the door onto Bond Street.
Not long ago—maybe five minutes—Lewis would have followed to make sure he was all right.
Not now. No more throttling his own feelings because Jack was drunk. Or weak. Or drowning in London’s hurry-scurry entertainments. Or whatever the hell was wrong with him.
Lewis sat still until Monsieur Fortier approached, all but prostrating himself in apology. “Milles pardons, monsieur! I am in horror that I did not see…”
Lewis wanted none of it. He wiped his face and pulled on his boots, stood up and shrugged himself into his coat. Then he picked up his hat and turned to go.
Monsieur Fortier delayed him with a touch. “Vous êtes bien, monsieur?”
Lewis avoided whatever concern or dismay might show in the man’s expression. “It’s only a scratch. Merci.” He crammed his hat onto his head and shoved through the door, out onto Piccadilly where he could be alone amidst the multitude.
Before he’d gone ten yards, someone fell in beside him.
“What the hell was that about?” Sir John’s face was red, his brows drawn together in anger. Sir John never cursed.
Lewis stopped walking. “Good lord. Were you there?”
A nudge from Sir John set him in motion again on the busy pavement. “What possessed him to do such a thing?”
“Haven’t a notion, sir.” Lewis forced a smile for the benefit of those passing by. Just an ordinary conversation. One he wished he was not having.
“Come, Lewis! What’s the matter with my son? You know him better than anyone.”
Lewis shook his head. “Maybe I used to. I hardly recognize him anymore.”
“What is going on, besides staying out all night and drinking?”
Drinking a great deal, and then drinking some more. Horrid stuff, out of dirty glasses, shared around the table.
“Is he gambling, Lewis?”
“Oh no.” Jack was bored by cards, which was just as well. He didn’t have the patience to make a success of it. “Horses and cockfights, that’s all.” And cockroach races, and whether Creech could knock over the nightwatchman’s box without getting caught, and who would be the first to drink himself under the table. Mostly it was Lewis, which Jack found hilarious.
They crossed Albemarle Street and kept going. “Why would he ignore the first rule of fencing etiquette? Had you done something to anger him? It’s easy enough to do nowadays.”
Lewis shrugged. “He says I’m imposing my conscience on him.”
Sir John stopped and laid a hand on his arm. “Jack might not appreciate your efforts, lad, but I do.” He was short of breath, his face sheened with perspiration. He looked older than Lewis remembered. “I’m heading home. Where are you off to?”
“Honestly, sir, I wasn’t paying attention.” Lewis had stormed out of Angelo’s with no goal. He just needed to walk. He had dragged Sir John blocks out of his way. Across the street, the Green Park reservoir lay like old pewter, gray and sullen like the rest of London.
Lewis raised a hand for a passing hackney and helped Sir John into it.
“You’re not coming?”
“I’ll be along soon,” Lewis replied. He couldn’t possibly sit still, not yet.
Chapter 11
There was no sign of Jack when Lewis returned to Brook Street. Nor did he appear for dinner.
Lady Wedbury took Cassie to a ball, and Lewis sat in the library with Sir John. They said little as they read, but Sir John seemed as restless as Lewis himself, puffing air out between his lips every few minutes as he often did when anxious or unhappy.
Lewis gave up on his book and went upstairs to change. Lindale had designated the grimy tavern that would be tonight’s meeting place. Wherever Jack had whiled away the rest of the day, no doubt he would show up there. Best to resolve the discord between them as soon as could be, whether that meant reconciliation or estrangement. Twenty-two years of friendship to be destroyed by three months in London? It didn’t seem possible.
He found everyone he expected at the tavern, except Jack. After drinking a few rounds for appearances’ sake, he went home.
But for a lamp in the hall where Robert sat reading, the house was dark. Lewis said goodnight and carried a candle up to his room, using it to light the lamp that stood on his writing table.
A letter lay there, neatly centered. It had been opened…
It wasn’t even for him.
Miss Wedbury, Brook Street. Pretty handwriting, smooth and unhurried, feminine. Why would Cassie give him her mail to read?
He unfolded the single sheet.
Anna Spain, Bristol, 21 June.
For a moment, he stared at her name. He ran his thumb over it… Yes, he’d read it right.
Should he read it? Cassie clearly thought so.
Thus far he had failed utterly in his attempt to forget Miss Spain, and this wouldn’t help. But his eyes already scanned the page while his brain still pondered the wisdom of it.
What the hell would it matter? He’d never see her again. Even Cassie need never know whether or not he read the blasted thing.
Dear Miss Wedbury—
I must be the most ill-mannered person of your acquaintance. To leave London in such a harum-scarum way was unforgivable. I could not even find an opportunity to deliver my thanks or farewells to you or your parents, or certain other members of your household to whom they were most definitely owed. Then, to send this letter without a frank, so that your father must bear the cost, places me still further outside the bounds of common courtesy.
Nevertheless, I could not allow you to think I do not appreciate your kindness in befriending me, and bringing your most treasured intimates to do the same. I might be tempted to beg your continued acquaintance, though it be at a distance—but there are circumstances that make such familiarity impossible. This letter is both an absolute necessity and an intolerable impertinence, at one and the same time. Yet I hope I may count on you to pass along my apologies to those most concerned, and my best wishes for your happiness and his. I will always hold close to my heart the kindness you both have shown me.
Yours,
Anna Spain
It was singularly unilluminating. It said nothing of import, nothing to tell him why Cassie would want him to read it. Anna never mentioned him at all.
Lewis tossed the letter onto the table. He’d return it to Cassie in the morning.
He removed his shoes and hung his coat over the chair. Then he tugged the knot out of his cravat and inhaled deeply.
The breath caught in his throat, that letter staring up at him. Damn it! He flipped it over, blank, blind, and silent.
He yanked his shirt up and off. As his head emerged, the first thing he saw was that white square against the dark wood.
He read it through a second time. Those bits
she’d emphasized…
Certain other members of your household—that must be him, for it applied to no one else. She damn well did owe him an apology.
Most treasured intimates? Well, that could mean the family, and Captain Fuller, but must certainly include him as well.
And those most concerned—hard to see who else that could be. Your happiness and his sounded like a betrothal wish. For Cassie and the captain? Whatever the future might bring, there was no betrothal yet. And followed as it was by the kindness you both have shown me—Fuller had only done Cassie’s bidding. It was Lewis who had stuck his neck out, made a laughingstock of himself, drawn Gideon’s mockery, spent his evenings at balls and rout parties when he could have been somewhere more to his liking.
Lewis squashed the paper into a ball and tossed it onto the table. It skittered off the edge. He left it where it lay.
God damn it. If he hadn’t read it, he could have thought himself bewitched by a deceitful, unfeeling chit, believing himself well rid of her. What the hell were these mysterious circumstances? Why couldn’t she just enumerate them, for God’s sake? Now he had to worry about her and wonder if she was, after all, the sweet, sensitive girl he’d first thought her to be.
Bristol, June 22
What a bumblebroth she’d made of things. She should never have sent that letter—far better to simply disappear. If they saw through the careful language it had taken five drafts to construct, they might wonder. And if they wondered, they might say something to Gideon.
As far as she knew, Gideon had told no one of their…indiscretion. But who knew what he would do if they confronted him. To take such a risk…
Pfft. What risk? They’d probably forgotten all about her by now, or worse, bid her good riddance. She’d caused them so much trouble. Lewis was such a dear, and she had no currency except lies with which to repay her debt.
The truth had gotten her nowhere with Mr. Wexcombe. Mama had been determined to push the match forward, revealing nothing. All through the journey home she had talked of it, when she was not treating Anna to stony silence.
The notion was unthinkable! To begin a marriage with deceit, branding herself untrustworthy from the start… How could she ever expect forgiveness, whether her husband was Lewis Aubrey or Mr. Wexcombe? She could not.
Almost the moment she arrived in Bristol, she’d sent Mr. Wexcombe a request to visit her the next evening, when her parents would not be home. He came, but only to condemn her. He’d already had the news from Papa.
It was a blow to lose his good opinion. He had always treated her with kindness, even with respect. She had no wish to be his wife, but as Mama had scolded a hundred times, beggars can’t be choosers. His acceptance would have guarded her from the scorn that would surely descend like a blanket of thorns.
Having proved where his loyalties lay, Papa left for London on business. Such a relief to see him go; the whole household surely felt the same. Since learning of Anna’s “wanton, filthy depravity,” his rants had resounded throughout the house. Only the lowest of the servants, whom he never saw, had escaped his tongue-lashings. He’d sent his valet packing and threatened poor Putnam with the same. Two other servants had left in disgust. So much turmoil, and it was all her fault.
The evening of his return, Papa summoned Anna to his office. She heard Mama’s voice as she approached the door, the words indistinct.
Her father’s caustic reply was disturbingly clear. “You’re such a simpleton. The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree. She’s a strumpet just like you, just as eager to spread her legs. I hoped I had crushed it out of her, but I should have known better.”
Anna’s breath stuck in her throat. A footman stood at the foot of the stairs. If she backed away or showed her face, that would confirm whatever part of it he had heard.
There was no escape, no time to unravel her father’s words.
She knocked and walked in.
Her parents faced each other across Papa’s big oak desk. Their hostility raced toward her like something tangible. Mama’s features stood out sharp and hard. When she turned her head, Anna shivered.
Papa turned too, his dark skin ruddy with passion, the veins in his neck and temples swollen. Sweat prickled beneath Anna’s arms.
Was he her papa? He’d said—
“Well, Anna, it seems nobody wants you.” Except for the ugly curl of his lips, he didn’t move, merely stared through her as though she were part of the door behind her. “And who can blame them? You’re just a draggle-tail, like all the rest of your sex. A man can find a dozen of those between one street corner and the next.”
Anna pressed her palms against the wood, cool and solid. She rubbed her fingers back and forth across the grain, a tiny movement to remind her this was real. Not some novel, nor a nightmare.
“Until we decide what’s to be done with you, you are banished to your room. You are no longer a part of this family. You will see no one, except the maid who brings your meals—and your mother.” The word bit hard, with a venomous glare across the desk. Mama did not flinch.
He stormed toward Anna with two quick strides and a flap of his arms. “What are you waiting for, you jade? Get out.”
Anna slipped through the door and closed it behind her, listening for the click of the latch. It seemed important, some sort of demarcation. Which made no sense—she’d never belonged here. Given what she’d overheard, perhaps she had good reason to feel that way.
It was no small matter. If true, it altered her history, the very way she thought about herself. Yet it would explain so much, from the shade of her skin to her romantic nature.
She could not blame Mama—far from it! To spend one’s life with a man like Papa…
On the other hand, perhaps he had been different before Mama did whatever she did. Perhaps he had loved his wife. How sad for him, if that were the case. To be obliged to raise another man’s child…
She couldn’t imagine it. But exile would give her plenty of time to try.
Chapter 12
London
After reading Miss Spain’s letter, Lewis sat up until nearly daybreak, listening for Jack’s footsteps and drawing pictures. Miss Spain in the bow window in Clifford Street, reciting Wordsworth at the soiree, walking with Cassie in Green Park.
He would have to go to Bristol. What were those damned, unnamed circumstances? And which girl was Miss Anna Spain?
He nodded off over his paper, awoke sufficiently to crawl between the sheets, and dreamed the rest of the night. He and Anna waltzed alone through an empty, candle-lit room. He pulled her close and kissed her lips. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers twining through his hair. Somehow he’d lost his cravat, his coat and shirt. The pressure of her breasts against his bare chest made it hard to breathe. He ran his hands down her back and over her hips. She wore nothing but a silky something, a shift or nightrail. It slid easily as he pulled it up, intent on finding the skin underneath. She opened her mouth to say something—
“Mr. Lewis, sir?”
No. She wouldn’t say that.
He opened his eyes. Someone stood by the bed, a hand on his shoulder.
“Robert?” Lewis came awake with a jerk and sat up too fast. His head swam. To be discovered by the footman in the midst of… Well, there was nothing he could do about it.
“So sorry, sir,” Robert said. “Sir John wishes to see you when you’re ready. And this came for you early this morning.”
Lewis lifted his head from the comforting cradle of his hands. This was a note suspended six inches from his face. Jack. He’d actually forgotten.
His blood surged upward toward his brain, where it belonged. He snatched the paper from Robert’s hold. “Has Jack not come home?”
“No, sir.”
The writing was not Jack’s impatient scrawl but a lady’s hand on fine vellum:
Please come at your earliest convenience. I hope you can talk Mr. Wedbury into going home. Otherwise I must resort to rougher tactic
s.
J. Squires
“What’s the time?”
“Not yet nine,” Robert replied, moving in silhouette past the too-bright window. “Is it Master Jack? I trust he’s all right?”
“The sooner I get there, the sooner I’ll know.”
Twenty minutes later, Lewis entered the library, where Sir John and Lady Wedbury waited. From the looks of things, they’d had no more sleep than he.
At least he had news, of a sort. “Good morning,” he said, striding across the room to take the chair Sir John indicated. The windows were open, but as far as Lewis could tell, only the sounds and smells from the street made their way inside. The room felt stifling. June in Yorkshire was never stifling.
“Not much good about it that I can see,” Sir John grumbled.
“You’ve had no word, then?”
“None,” said Lady Wedbury. “No word, no sighting, nothing. Certainly no apology, to you or to us.” Her voice sounded scratchy. “He had better be ill, or dead. Because I have such a scold building up inside, I might explode. That boy has never seen the likes of it.”
“I know, ma’am.” Lewis easily resisted a momentary urge to laugh. “I received a note this morning—”
“From Jack?” Jack’s mother erupted from her seat. “Is he all right?”
Lewis shook his head. Such a to-do over a night with his mistress. From which Lewis must retrieve him. For Miss Squires, and for his parents’ sake. “Not from Jack, but I know where he is. I’m heading out now to fetch him home.”
“We’ll come with you.”
“No!” He could just see himself escorting Jack’s parents to a prostitute’s lodgings. Lady Wedbury crossed her arms and glared at him.
He softened his tone. “No, ma’am, it’s no place you can go. Nor you, Sir John. We’ll be home soon.” He hoped. “And I suggest you refrain from jumping on him the moment we walk in the door.”
From Covent Garden it was a short walk to the address Miss Squires had given him on Maiden Lane. There was Munday’s Coffee-house—he’d been to their cider cellar more than a few times, with Lindale and the others. And there was the tailor’s shop she’d mentioned.