Barrett began to lead his cousin off, but she turned back suddenly. “It was very good to see you again, Mr. Hamilton.”
“The pleasure’s mine, Miss Everard. I assure you.” With those few words, he attempted to express all the sincerity he felt. She smiled, briefly, and turned away, leaving him helpless to do anything but watch her walk out of the room, clinging affectionately to the arm of Roger Barrett.
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Chapter twenty-four
OU'VE MET MR. HAMILTON before?” Roger asked Imogen when once they had secured some relative privacy.
Imogen looked up at him, but it took her a moment before she realised he had spoken, and only then did she observe his brow lowered in puzzlement and something like alarm in his eyes.
“Yes,” she answered, uncertain just how much to tell him. Uncertain how much he’d been told already. “I met him while I was away.”
“In Kent?”
“Yes,” she said, and found it difficult to hear or concentrate on the matter at hand while her head spun and her heart pounded in her ears. A quarter of an hour ago, all she could think about was Roger. Now she could hardly think at all.
“Tell me, will you, in what way you spent your time there? Where did you live? What did you do?”
“It can’t matter now, Roger.”
“I want to know. You said you took employment.”
She found she could not look at him as he struggled to hold her gaze.
“Come,” he said. “We can’t talk here.”
He led her out onto the veranda, where he immediately began closing the gallery of doors between themselves and the guests within. He turned to her, folding his arms across his chest.
“Tell me,” he said. “I want to know it all.”
“I ran away. Foolishly. I was recovered and now I am back. Can we not leave it at that?”
“No,” he said, his frustration mounting, and with a gesture of his hand towards the ballroom, and those who occupied it, he added, “I could have received the same answer from any guest here.”
Still she was silent.
“You won’t tell me?”
She would not look at him and so, taking her chin in his hand, he turned her to face him.
“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me you did not go to a small village in Kent and hire yourself out as a servant.”
She remained silent, but in her eyes he could see the answer. He released her.
“Do you have any idea of the danger in which you might have put yourself? Sir Edmund Barry is only a slight improvement over your uncle. And to think of Archer Hamilton making his rounds of the help, and entertaining the idea that you might be next… I can barely stomach it!”
“It wasn’t like that, Roger! He was rarely there. I spoke to him perhaps half a dozen times. No more.”
He examined her face very carefully and did not like what he saw there. “Are you in love with him?” he asked with more breath than voice.
Her face grew very red and he began to fear her answer.
“I was a servant in his house, Roger,” she said almost angrily. “Just how base do you think me?”
“It would not have been base of you,” he ground out. “It would have been base of him. And I have every reason to believe it was. Great day!” He raised a hand to rub at his throbbing temple.
“Roger,” she said, calling him back from his dark thoughts.
He turned to her, and as she smiled repentantly, his anger began to crumble and melt. He let out a heavy sigh. “Have I told you how I’ve missed you?”
“Yes,” she laughed. “Thrice now, to be exact.”
“I don’t think I can say it enough.”
“I’m not sure how much we’ll be able to see of each other,” she said.
“Not much if your aunt has her way. She’s done her part, I imagine, to dissuade you from keeping me company?”
“She says you have prospects. And that I am not to get in the way.”
“She has been hard at work.”
“Is it true?”
“There doesn’t have to be anyone but you, you know.”
Imogen lifted one eyebrow as she looked up at him. “Julia is not discouraging you, I think.”
“She believes my attending you will prove you’ve nothing to be ashamed of. If you had run away…with someone—that’s what they’re saying—then how could I welcome you back so openly?”
“Because we’re family,” she answered softly. “Because we are friends.”
“Because my loving you as I do would make it a mighty difficult thing to do,” he said. “If it were true.”
“Some would call it a convenient match, you and I.”
“Convenient to whom?”
“To you. To Julia.”
His look became dark again. “Is my manner toward you different now than it has ever been?”
“No. You’ve never changed toward me, Roger.”
“And do you believe it will? That it ever can?”
She didn’t answer.
“Will you listen to me? I mean, really listen? I love you. I have always loved you. I can’t stand to see you unhappy. Won’t you let me try to change that?”
Imogen took a deep breath and released it.
She wasn’t stopping him. He could hardly believe it.
“It’s not impossible that we might be happy together. We are at least very good friends. Even my fumbling petitions must seem preferable to remaining where you are. Better, I hope, than running away?” He stopped then, and looked at her very intently. “You broke my heart, Imogen. Do you understand that?”
She didn’t answer just at first. She only looked up at him with those blue eyes of hers. “Think, Roger, of the sacrifice you make.”
“I don’t care about the gossips. You ought to know that well enough.”
“That’s not what I meant. When you realise that I am what I am and cannot be redeemed, when you become bored and turn back to your former ways, what then?”
Roger held her hands in his and, lowering his voice, spoke more seriously than he had ever done before.
“These past seven years, Imogen, have we not been the best of friends? Without you, I cannot account for what I might become. But with you, I might be anything. And if you think, for a moment, that I would lay to waste what we have already, then you don’t know me at all. If I were to hurt you, I would destroy the best part of me.”
She closed her eyes and turned from him.
“Think about it pragmatically,” he said, seeing that a different tack was in order. She never could stand a love speech. “You would be free. The money is yours. I won’t touch it. And if, when you tire of me, you regret the match, then I will release you, as far as it is in my power to do. I don’t believe any better offer can be made you than that. Will you consider what I have said?”
She hesitated for half a minute more. A ripple of something—was it regret?—crossed her brow and then her features became suddenly fixed, perhaps hopeful, at least determined. “Yes, Roger. I’ll consider.”
He squeezed her hand and looked at her earnestly. “I want very much to see you happy. If I can make you so, Imogen, I would make any sacrifice to do it.”
She smiled.
“You will consider?”
“I said I would.”
He kissed her cheek once more and moved away.
“Where are you going?”
“To speak to a gentleman about his penchant for roguery amongst the hired staff.”
“I wish you wouldn’t,” she said, almost desperately and taking a step forward.
But he had opened the door and was through it before she could offer anything further in the way of objection.
* * *
Archer Hamilton, anxiously awaiting his turn to speak with Miss Everard, found himself smartly clapped on the back.
“A word?” Roger said.
With a nod, Archer agreed and the two stole off to search for a vacant room.
“
What in the devil’s name do you think you’re up to?” Roger said, rounding on him the moment their privacy had been secured.
“I’m sorry?”
“Running around after the servants, are you? And my cousin no less!”
“Now hold on there, Barrett. I never chased after anybody. And it was you, if you remember, who suggested I should. It wasn’t even an hour ago that you told me you were disappointed that you were not to have all the ‘sordid details’.”
Roger looked for the moment as though he might strike him.
Archer was unimpressed. “You’re the one who encouraged me to pursue it.”
“And did you?”
“Of course not. Granted, I might have done, had she not made it clear she was not game.”
“Then you gave her cause to do it!”
“Perhaps I did,” he answered flatly. “Can you blame me?”
“Great day! To think on it makes me sick.” He seemed to calm a little then. “A servant?” he asked as though he thought Archer might have the explanation for his cousin’s irrational behaviour.
“To her good fortune, no one truly believed it. But you are right to fear she was not best placed at the Abbey. She was not safe there.”
“From you?”
Archer, in all honesty could not answer this. “I would not have harmed her. My cousin meant to raise her up.”
“Your cousin!”
“She was prepared to hire Miss Shaw— Miss Everard,” he corrected, “as her companion.”
Roger seemed slightly relieved for this. But only slightly.
“Will you tell me what it was she was hiding from? Not from you?”
Roger turned and gave him a warning look.
“I’d like to know she’s better off having returned to family than at the Abbey.”
“She will be, Hamilton,” Barrett said and crossed to the door. “I’ve just put the question to her. And this time she’ll accept me.”
The door closed and Archer was alone, leaving him to wonder if his question had been truly answered. Certainly not to satisfaction.
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Chapter twenty-five
RCHER HAD WATCHED and waited. His patience at last awarded him a sight of her. Too late. She was approached once more, this time by a woman he could only suppose to be the aunt of whom Barrett had spoken. Wrapping a shawl around the younger woman, the elder led her off, downstairs and toward the entrance hall of the Radcliffe townhouse. Her night, it seemed, had ended. And his chance—perhaps his last and only—had passed. Frustrated and disappointed he turned back toward the ballroom. The dancing had just begun, but the sight of so much merry-making repelled him. He turned from the room. The night was still young; he could not leave until Mrs. Barton was ready to go. But certainly he might step out for an hour or two. For air, or…well, anything really, so long as he was away from the noise and the laughter.
On the landing of the staircase, he stopped. Miss Shaw– No that was not right. He must make himself familiar with that other name. Miss Everard. Imogen, was it? She was standing alone in the entrance hall, looking through the sidelights of the door and out onto the lamp-lit streets beyond. But where was the aunt?
Passing the front parlour, the answer was provided him, for there the aunt stood talking, evidently detained. And her companion? None other than Mrs. Barton. Odd that, but he had not the time to consider the significance of it.
He entered the front hall. “Miss Everard.”
She turned and looked at him. If she was uncertain of herself now, it did not show.
“Mr. Hamilton,” she answered evenly—too formally.
Silence then as he thought what he might say. He must say something before the opportunity was once more beyond him. But what did such an occasion call for? And what would it allow?
“I can’t tell you how surprised I am to see you,” he said. “Nor how pleased.”
She made no attempt to reply.
“You have returned to London, then?”
“Yes,” she said.
“You have family here?”
“Yes.”
“You did not tell me.”
“No.”
“You did not trust me?”
Her eyes, fixed on his until that moment, looked away.
“Why not?”
“Mr. Hamilton, please.”
In an effort to appear more at ease than he felt, he began to walk the perimeter of the room. He did not think that he might appear to her a little like an animal on the hunt.
“Tell me,” he said. “I want to know. I think I deserve to know.”
“You believe you deserve an explanation?” she said, her eyes raising to follow him.
Stopping at the door, he looked out onto the street and then back at her. “Don’t I?”
“I’m not sure you do. We are from two different worlds.”
“How can that be?” he said, his arms folded now as he faced her. “We are both here, are we not? Both guests under one roof, equally received.”
“You don’t understand. You can’t.”
“Then help me to do it.” He continued his circle around her as he awaited her answer. It did not come, and at last he looked to her.
“I ran away, Mr. Hamilton. I did not tell you of my family because I had left them. I did not wish to be found.”
“But you were found. And now you are—”
“What am I, Mr. Hamilton? You think me raised now, do you?”
“I was going to say, ‘here.’ You are here. But yes, I don’t see why you should not consider yourself raised if we are now to meet in similar company. Say we are?”
Blankly she stared at him.
“You are not happy to have been found? Your cousin, I think, would regret that very much.”
She flushed and looked away.
“I’m sorry. I had no right to speak—”
“I cannot regret having returned to his friendship. It is one of my rare comforts.”
He had completed his circle now, and having made his round of the room, he turned to face her, his back once more to the hallway beyond. “You once promised to consider me your friend. Is there no comfort to be found in that?”
Again, she did not answer, but neither was her manner quite so certain as it had been a moment before.
“Claire will be very pleased to know you have turned up—and where and how you have.”
A look of sorrow flashed across her face. Or was it regret? “How is she?”
“I’ve not heard from her since the day you left. She has been anxious to find you; that I know. May I write to her and tell her I have seen you?”
“Yes, of course. I’d be most grateful if you would.”
“If there is anything she might do for you… If there is anything I might do…”
“No.”
Her answer, so brusquely offered, pained him. “You are certain?”
“I’m quite certain, Mr. Hamilton, that I have no desire to cause either you or myself any further trouble. My aunt has been detained, but she will return shortly. If we are seen together…”
He watched her for half a moment as she grew increasingly discomposed. Whatever power he may once have had over her, it seemed to have abandoned him completely now. “I don’t typically form friendships just to drop them the moment they become inconvenient.”
“Inconvenient?” she said with a shocked laugh.
“By your terms, Miss Everard. Not by my own.”
“My little adventure has caused me a great deal of harm. People are talking. It will not do to be found here alone with you now.”
Archer turned and took a quick look into the hallway behind him. “Don’t say you wish we had never met, Miss Everard.”
“It would have been better, I think.”
While his heart sank at the words, something in her manner suggested it was not their friendship she regretted, but rather the impossibility of improving the acquaintance now her circumstances had changed. But wh
y should that be? Aside from his uncle’s disapprobation, which did not seem such a great thing now he stood face to face with her, there was really nothing he could see that should come between them.
“To see you now,” he said, “here, of all places... It cannot be coincidence.”
She looked at him askance. “Are you saying it was by design, Mr. Hamilton?”
“No. That’s not what I meant at all. Of course it’s coincidence, but not an insignificant one. Not one I can or will ignore. If you could only know how anxious we’ve been, Claire and I. We feared your circumstances must be deplorable indeed. But to see you now. I cannot tell you what relief it gives me.”
“You are mistaken,” she answered him, once more taking on that determined air. “Nothing has changed. Not really. I no longer serve your uncle. Other than that it is just the same. We are just the same.”
“No.”
“Trust me, Mr. Hamilton.”
“But I don’t. On any other point, Miss Everard, I would gladly stake my honour on your word. But on this single point, I cannot.”
“My word may indeed be worth very little, sir. But if it is on this point alone, you must trust me. I came to the Abbey seeking employment. I told Sir Edmund that I had long lived and worked as a servant. It was both the absolute truth and a bald lie. It is true that I lived under Drake Everard’s roof, but as no paid servant. I lied to Sir Edmund. I lied to you. Drake Everard, banker, private money-lender, was my uncle.”
He had not expected this, though by now, of course, he ought to have connected the names. In his distraction, it had completely escaped him. “Your uncle?”
“Yes. And so, you see, it is quite impossible. I may have been a gentleman’s daughter, but I was raised by a dishonest and unfeeling man. It is wrong of me to speak so, I know. But it is the truth and I owe you that, at least. He was once much respected, but his reputation for being a man of few principles and fewer loyalties was not unduly earned. I witnessed it. It is seared into my soul, never to be forgotten.”
“But he is gone. He can do you no harm now. With the help of your aunts—and your friends, Miss Everard—you might certainly rise above whatever taint Society may have attached to your uncle’s name.”
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