by Liz Carlyle
Bentley’s habits were known to the staff, and a waiter had followed him in with coffee and a freshly ironed copy of the Times. He’d skimmed but a half-dozen pages, however, when the younger men rose and began to drift away.
As he passed Bentley’s chair, Lord Robert leaned across and gave him a hearty slap on the back. “Bad news, Hell-Bent, about old Weyden, ain’t it?” he said cheerfully. “And a dashed dull business, if you ask me. After all, the season’s barely begun.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What?” Lord Robert grinned. “Has Weyden not told you?”
“Told me what?”
“Rob and I saw him in Lufton’s last night,” explained Mercer. “Weyden’s piking off. Taking the family back to Bruges. There’s to be a wedding, he says.”
“Gus getting married?” Bentley snorted. “I doubt that.”
Robert shook his head. “Lord no, not Gus!” he answered. “Weyden’s cousin, some fellow on the continent.”
“A banker,” interjected Mercer. “Swiss, I heard the Earl of Trent say.”
“No, no, it’s some minor Prussian nobleman,” asserted another gentleman. “A nephew of Lady Rannoch’s mother.”
Bentley gave his newspaper an impatient rattle. “Rob, you’re standing in my light,” he said dismissively. “But if you fellows ever decide who is getting married, let me know, and I’ll send the bride a monogrammed soup spoon or some damned thing.”
“Oh, no secret there!” said Lord Mercer glumly. “That’s the bloody point, Rutledge!”
A strange feeling crept over Bentley. “What?” he asked, tossing down his paper.
Robert looked at him quite seriously. “It’s the lovely Miss d’Avillez, Rutledge. Reckon young Trent will be giving away the bride?”
Bentley’s heart stopped. “Miss d’Avillez?” he croaked.
Robert nodded. “We’d heard the chit was all but betrothed to some Essex nobody.”
Mercer laughed a little bitterly. “I had it from Weyden himself last season,” he complained. “A dashed unsporting thing to do, if you ask me—put it about that a lady is engaged if she really isn’t.”
“Ah, well!” sighed Robert. “No one had the ballocks to court her. No wonder she’s leaving town.”
The young men moved as if to depart. Bentley pushed his coffee cup away and shoved back his chair. Good God! This could not be. It could not. She would not dare.
Mercer shot him a strange look. “Well, it doesn’t much matter now, does it?” Bentley heard him say as they left. “They’re to leave at the end of the week.”
For a long, still moment, Bentley just sat, grappling for self-control. How could she? How could Freddie do this? What could she possibly be thinking?
One thing was plain—he had to find her. They had to talk. And quickly, too. In fact, Bentley had left his table and was halfway along the corridor before he realized he was leaving. In the hall, he brushed past Lord Mercer and his stunned companions, then hit the front steps at a run. Behind him, the porter shouted, “Sir, your coat!”
The fellow caught up with him just as he snapped his fingers at a servant who darted off to fetch his horse. Bentley shoved his arms into the coat and began to pace up and down the pavement, the long, heavy hems slapping at his top boots each time he whirled about to retrace his steps. He had to think. Around him, the afternoon traffic clattered up and down Pall Mall, fine carriages and lowly carts equally oblivious to him in his fury. At last, his mount arrived, and Bentley was halfway to Vauxhall before his fury turned to something worse. Panic. And a feeling of having been betrayed.
It made no sense, he told himself. None at all. But why should he care? And yet he did not turn around. Did not once consider the prudence of his actions. And before he had finished thinking things through, he was riding beneath Strath’s clock tower and into the cobblestone courtyard. He swiftly dismounted and passed his reins into the hands of a groom attired in Rannoch’s livery. Two arching staircases curved about either side of a magnificent fountain, then rose up to the classical paladian entrance. He had been here only once, but the house was unforgettable. Bentley went swiftly up the right staircase and dropped the knocker, still uncertain of what he would say.
“Miss d’Avillez,” he blurted to the footman who answered the door.
But Strath was a formal place, in stark contrast to Chatham Lodge. “Miss is not in, sir,” he said with a bow. “Would you care to see Lady Rannoch?”
Bentley felt his anger spike. For an instant, he toyed with the notion. But what would he say to her? “I took your cousin’s virginity, so by rights she’s mine”? No, even in his confused state, Bentley knew better than that. “I’m very sorry, but I must insist. You must tell Miss d’Avillez that I am here.”
The footman smiled faintly. “I am sorry, sir. Miss d’Avillez is not at home.”
“No.” Bentley shook his head. “She has told you to put me off, I am sure. Well, I shan’t have it, do you hear? You will go and tell her that I demand to be seen.”
The footman exhaled impatiently and turned away. He turned back again with a little silver salver and thrust it at Bentley with a look of someone vastly put upon.
It was only then that Bentley realized the depth of his confusion. He hadn’t given the poor devil a card. He hadn’t even bothered to introduce himself. The footman did not know him. And here he was, standing on the doorstep in clothes which hadn’t looked especially grand when he’d put them on eight hours ago and now looked slightly disreputable. Worse, he was demanding to see an unmarried young lady. Freddie probably was out. And he probably looked like the village idiot—if not something a little less pleasant. Moreover, if he left a card now, it would surely tip his hand…
“Sir?” inquired the servant. “Your card?”
Bentley could feel his face flush with heat. “Sorry,” he stammered to the footman. “Seem to have forgot the bloody things. I, er, I shall just go home and fetch ’em.”
And with that, he turned and went back down the stairs again. Behind him, the door closed with a hearty thump, as if to say good riddance. Bentley was humiliated. But, by God, he was not daunted. No, not by any stretch. He got back on his horse and headed toward the river, his mind in a whirl. He had to see Freddie. And he’d little doubt she meant to avoid him. So how? How?
Then, as he went tearing back through Richmond, something finally stirred. There was something…yes, something just beyond his reach. A fragment of memory. A chore. A task. Something examined, then tossed aside out of habit—and anger.
By God, he had it!
Suddenly, Bentley spurred his horse, and the mighty beast sprang as if he’d just been freshly saddled. This time, he went all the way to Westminster Bridge and turned toward the Strand. Late afternoon was settling over London, the sun sinking behind the westerly rooftops. In its wake, the glow of red which should have been visible was muted to a ruddy haze by London’s air. He found the Strand choked, too, and it took him all of ten minutes to go the short distance to his destination. When he reached it, he slapped a bob into the hand of a grubby but cheerful lad who dawdled near an adjacent lamppost.
“I’ve another just like it,” he said, settling a firm hand over the boy’s narrow shoulder. “Hold that horse, and do not stir from this spot.”
He went along the pavement but a few feet, plowing his way through ink-stained clerks and weary shopgirls who were flooding down to Charing Cross and leaving their workaday world behind. He edged his way between two snugly corseted matrons who were brandishing black umbrellas, and finally, he reached the door. Bentley paused just long enough to read its only marking, a discreet brass plaque which was inscribed: Mr. George Jacob Kemble, Purveyor of Elegant Oddities and Fine Folderol.
Good God, he really did not want to do this. But, unable to think of any better idea, he wrenched ruthlessly at the knob and went in with such force that he set a little bell to dancing madly somewhere above his head. A handsome, very elegant young man tripped from be
hind the corner, his hair beautifully pomaded, his feet almost floating toward the door.
“Bonjour, monsieur,” he said, sliding a dubious glance over Bentley’s attire. “How may I help? Gems? Silver? Antique porcelain? We have some really lovely Egyptian pottery recently excavated near Cairo.”
“No, thanks,” Bentley managed.
The clerk lifted his nose another fraction. “Something more traditional, then? We’ve a collection of sixteenth-century Chinese fahua just taken in an estate purchase.”
“Thanks, no,” said Bentley, his attention distracted by the curious little shop. The place was a bit like St. Michael’s, redolent with the mustiness of old things, but here the smell was overlaid with the clean scents of beeswax and vinegar. The floor—at least the parts not covered with Turkish carpets—was polished to a blinding sheen. The glass cases which lined the room glistened. The shop looked, on the whole, like a St. James’s jeweler had bought out the British Museum, for the room was stuffed with curiosities of every sort, much of it secured in showcases but some of it displayed on tabletops or even hanging from the walls and ceiling.
The clerk gave him a condescending smile. “Trés bien!” he said, steepling his fingers. “A cup of oolong whilst you browse?”
“Thank you, no,” said Bentley, returning to the present. “Is Kemble in?”
Suddenly, the velvet curtains behind the counter ripped open. “Just speak of the devil,” said a soft, wicked voice, “and up he jumps!”
It was quite an entrance, Bentley would give him that. “Afternoon, Kemble,” he said to the veritable fashion plate who stood framed in the bottle-green draperies. “A word in private?”
Kemble arched one brow and tapped one perfect fingertip against his lip. “Now what, one must ask oneself, could the infamous Hell-Bent Rutledge possibly want of a simple shopkeeper such as moi?” But, with a strange smile, he relented, pulled the drapery open invitingly, and gestured at the clerk. “Jean-Claude, put the kettle on.”
Bentley blurted out his confession as soon as they were seated near Kemble’s desk. “I need your help.”
“Oh, that I do not doubt,” trilled Kemble. “What is it now, Rutledge? Jewel smuggling? Gun running? A dead body in an alley?”
“Nothing like that,” muttered Bentley, wishing it were something so simple.
Kemble set his head to one side. “You are’t mixed up in that opium business again, are you?” he asked warily.
“Good Lord, Kem! I never knew they’d stashed that opium in my hold and you know it!”
“Then did your brother-in-law send you here?” Kem sniffed. “Really, dear boy, I can’t keep getting mixed up in Max’s politicking and crime detecting and what-not. The police—not to mention all those Reformists—are making some of my business associates quite nervous, you know.”
“Not Max. Not that sort of trouble.” Bentley stared at his boots. “It’s just that I, well, I need to attend a ball.”
With a dramatic flourish, Kemble cupped one hand about his ear. “I do beg your pardon?”
“A ball,” said Bentley more certainly. “I have to go to a ball, Kemble. And I don’t have a valet. But you—why, you know people. So I want you to—to get me rigged out, so to speak. Fixed up. In something, you know, smart.”
At that, Kemble tossed back his head and laughed. “Oh, my God, there’s a woman in this!” he said, rising, then lifting his hands as if to conduct a choir. “Well, up! Up! I owe old Max a favor, Cinderella. So let’s see what we’ve got to work with. I can have Giroux & Chenault in Savile Row stitch you up in a trice, but we’ll want a few measurements.”
Feeling like some great, lumbering ox standing next to Kemble’s svelte figure, Bentley watched as the man swished back and forth, taking inventory. “My God, you’re tall,” he muttered. “Really, what do they feed you Gloucestershire boys? And the cut of that coat—what a nightmare! Have it off at once; Jean-Claude can use it to polish the silver. No, don’t scowl, and give me the waistcoat, too.”
Bentley sighed, and did as instructed because he was desperate.
“While we’re at it, I’ll have Maurice whip you up something for everyday,” muttered Kemble, pawing through his desk drawer and coming up with a box of pins. “You can’t get by on your good looks forever, Rutledge. Eventually, everyone must dress.”
Or undress, thought Bentley sourly.
By the time the uppity Jean-Claude came through the curtains, Bentley was down to his smallclothes. “Ooh, à bon derrière!” murmured the clerk appreciatively as he put down the tea tray.
“Don’t even think about it,” warned Kemble round a mouthful of pins. “This one will only break your heart.”
Bentley narrowed his eyes. “What did he say?”
“He said you’d look good in blue,” muttered Kemble, spitting out the last of his pins. Jean-Claude smiled and began to pour. “And you’re quite trim, Rutledge, underneath that sagging fabric,” continued Kemble, standing back to eye his handiwork—a careful pinning of Bentley’s shirt. “Yes, a tuck here, a tuck there, and I think that rag you’re wearing will at least serve Maurice as a pattern.”
“You mean, he’ll cut it up?” It was Bentley’s favorite, worn soft with age at the collar and elbows.
“Mais oui, into little pieces!” proclaimed Kemble, making a little snip-snip gesture with his fingers. “And I think—yes, I do think blue is your color.”
Bentley shrugged. “I like blue.”
“That is of no consequence.” Kemble smiled at him as if he really were the village idiot. “You’ve put yourself in my hands. So when, pray tell, must my miracle of transformation be ready, Mr. Rutledge?”
“I don’t perfectly recall,” he confessed. “The invitation came weeks ago, and I tossed it aside. But I think it said this Friday.”
“Friday—?” interjected Kemble. “I’m a former valet, not God Almighty. It took him six days to create perfection.”
“Well, you and Maurice have two,” said Bentley. “And I don’t have to be perfect, just presentable. It’s a come-out ball for Rannoch’s chit, Zoë.”
“Rannoch’s daughter?” Kemble’s expression shifted to one of horror. “Oh, my God, are you completely insane?”
Chapter Seven
In which Miss Armstrong speaks her mind—and Then Some.
On the morning of Zoë’s come-out ball, Madame Germaine and her seamstress called at Strath to personally attend the ladies’ final fittings. Frederica gathered with the others in Evie’s sitting room, ready to be poked and prodded. She had not made it through the first volley of gossip, however, before she succumbed to another nasty bout of morning sickness—the fifth straight in as many days.
She darted behind the dressing screen and heaved up her breakfast, but not before she caught the speculative gleam in Madame’s eye. Frederica had been resigned. It was rather obvious whom Madame’s next juicy bit of tittle-tattle would concern. But it wouldn’t much matter, would it? She was to be exiled to Flanders soon.
Eventually, her queasy stomach settled. The fittings were finished, and the seamstress, the dressmaker, and all their speculations were packed up and sent back to London. Winnie shooed Zoë from the room, the latter still in a snit over her demure white dress.
“I wanted ruby red like Freddie!” she fumed. “I hate this silly white! I hate it! No one will notice me.”
“Red is no color for debutantes, Zoë,” scolded Winnie as they stepped into the corridor. “The gentlemen will think you fast. Why can you not behave like Freddie? Last year, she wore only pastels and looked so sweetly virginal—”
Zoë cut her off with a snort of laughter. Winnie’s face burst into color. On a small squeak, she cast Frederica a horrified look and promptly shut the door. Frederica burst into tears and threw herself onto Evie’s brocade sofa.
Evie sat down beside her and brushed the hair back off her forehead. “There, there, Freddie,” she murmured. “Winnie meant only to compliment your good sense.”
; “I can’t think why! Especially when I so obviously haven’t any!”
With a look of chiding affection, Evie opened her arms. On a loud, damp snuffle, Freddie dived into them. “You are just overwrought, love,” Evie murmured into Freddie’s hair. “It is just the babe, you know—both the qualmishness and the tears. Trust me, in another month or so, you’ll be fine.”
But Frederica knew she would never be fine again. Her hand went to her stomach, still as flat as ever. She was glad, deeply glad, for this child. Still, she knew too well that it would be no easy task to raise a child without a father. She had dreamed of something better for her children, something more secure than she had had.
Though her parents had been deeply in love, and Frederica had their letters to prove it, they had died in the midst of war. When at long last it ended, her father’s fellow officers snatched her from what was left of her mother’s homeland and brought her safely to England, to her grandmother, the powerful Countess of Trent. But Lady Trent had sneered, called her a little brown by-blow, and sent her away again. They thought she did not remember. But she did.
They had taken her then, her English saviors, to her father’s elder brother, only to learn that Maxwell Stone was himself five months dead. But his daughter, Evie, little more than a girl, had opened her home and her heart. It should have been enough. But it wasn’t. It never had been, and the knowledge left her feeling guilty and ungracious.
So Frederica had pinned her hopes on romantic love. And her dream lover, she had vowed, would be different. Perfect. Dependable. Secure. And very, very ordinary. She would marry someone who could keep her—and, more importantly, their children—safe. Someone who was wise and well grounded, someone she could love with her whole heart, and who would be worthy of her deepest respect.