“My lord, you cannot… that is... This is most irreg—”
Helen drummed her heels against the side of the trunk.
“No character at all,” Ashton said. “Out on your ear. I’ll save some coin and get shut of that most disgusting exponent of dishonor, a spy under my own roof. I can shave myself. Did it for years.”
“You should apologize, Mr. Chairbug,” Helen said. “Turns ’em up sweet, and you might get a cobbler.”
“Do we understand each other?” Ashton asked.
“Say yes,” Helen chirped. “I don’t think you’ll get a cobbler, though.”
“We understand each other, sir.”
“Delightful. That took only half an hour I shouldn’t have had to waste. Hector, let’s be off. Cherbourne has much to do, even if he isn’t sending hourly missives to people who have no business meddling in my life.”
Helen hopped off the trunk and darted to the door. She’d shown up at Mrs. Bryce’s exactly on time and peppered Ashton with questions the whole way to the Albany. Her opinions were marked, original, and incessant.
And, bless the child, not a one of those opinions came with a “my lord” attached.
“So you’re a nob?” she asked as they made their way down the steps.
“I’m Mr. Ashton Fenwick.”
She gazed up at him. “Mrs. Bryce don’t hold with lying. I’m fair warning you, because I’m your general tote ’em, though you haven’t given me nuffink to tote yet. If I take your coin—and your cobbler—then I should look out for you.”
“You will carry my confidences. My name is Ashton Fenwick. Whatever else I might be is of no moment, and you won’t mention it.”
Helen hopped down the stairs. “Right, guv, and I’m the Queen of the Fairies. Mention that all you please, especially to old Sissy when she gets in a taking about one of her flats.”
Flats were the men who hired prostitutes. That Helen knew of such goings-on wasn’t wrong, because what she grasped she could take steps to protect herself from.
That she needed to protect herself from her sister’s customers was very wrong, indeed.
“Time to introduce you to my horse,” Ashton said. “Then you’re to show me where we can find some supper.”
“I’ve never met a horse before. Met plenty of horses’ arses.”
“So have I.”
“Mrs. Bryce doesn’t like bad language.”
“I do, when it’s done properly. Don’t tell her I said that.”
Helen stopped at the foot of the steps. “Cost you a cobbler.”
Ashton continued out into the early evening sunshine. “No deal. Mrs. Bryce will hear my bad language herself if the situation arises where I’m inspired to express myself colorfully. You will not comment on my behavior before others lest I turn you off without a character.”
“What’s a character?”
“A reference. A written testament to your competence and ability.”
Helen skipped along at his side as he made his way back to the mews, and damned if the child hadn’t the knack of skipping like a boy.
“Can’t use no written character if nobody can read it. Only nobs and reformers can read. Parsons too, but they’re all reformers. Mrs. Bryce can read.”
“Get Mrs. Bryce to teach you to read, Helen. It’s not that difficult once you learn the letters.”
“I know my name. H-E-L-E-N. How many letters are there?”
“Twenty-six.”
“Twenty-two to go. That’s a lot. If you teach me one a day for a fortnight, I’ll still have eight left.”
“You can do sums, but you don’t know your letters?”
“Sums is money, guv. I know all about sums.”
The introduction to Dusty—Destrier in formal company—went well. The horse was a good soul, patient, happy to please, and tolerant of barn cats, reluctant earls, and stable boys who whistled off-key.
“He’s big,” Helen said, brushing a hand down the gelding’s long nose. “He’s big as an elephant.”
“Not quite. I was encouraged to find a more refined mount, but he suits me.” Ewan all but groaned every time Ashton climbed into Dusty’s saddle, but the horse was proof that Ashton hadn’t always been the earl, and thus as precious as a holy relic.
Helen proposed dinner at the Unicorn, based on her scientific comparison of its middens and clientele with those of its competition. Her judgment was vindicated by the fare. Hot, hearty, plentiful, and plain—Ashton’s favorite kind of meal.
He used the dinner hour to acquaint her with the letters d, for Destrier, and b, for Mrs. Bryce, by drawing with his fork in her gravy.
The girl could eat like a horse, but had some manners, probably as a result of Mrs. Bryce’s ceaseless efforts.
“I should take this last bit to Sissy,” Helen said. “She’ll be out and about now. She starts by the theaters in case any of the gents want a go before the performances. They usually do, but there’s more business later.”
Helen’s blasé recitation made Ashton’s dinner sit uneasily in his belly.
“If any of those gents ever make you feel awkward, you tear off. Don’t be nice, don’t smile, don’t ignore the look they’re giving you. Don’t give them any warning you’re getting ready to bolt, Helen. You run like hell and scream bloody murder. Up a drainpipe, down a coal chute, but run.”
Helen licked the last of the butter from her knife. “Sissy says the same thing. I’ve pulled a bunk a time or two. They can’t catch me.”
Not yet, they couldn’t. When Helen was hampered by skirts, they might.
“Here,” Ashton said, holding out a few coins to Helen. “Buy your Sissy some food, and then it’s back to Mrs. Bryce’s with you. A general factotum who’s not at her post isn’t worth her hire.”
Helen looked at the coins in Ashton’s hand, then up at his face, a question in her eyes.
“I’m not looking to become one of your sister’s flats. This is a vale, a little extra coin for starting off your job on the right foot. Keep up the good work, and you might earn a bit more.”
The money was gone, and Ashton hadn’t felt Helen’s fingers touch his palm.
“Good evenin’ to you, guv. I’ll tell Sissy I found the blunt in the street.”
The child apparently never walked. She skipped, ran, strutted, scampered, and fidgeted, much as Ashton had at her age.
He’d been the bastard firstborn, perhaps subject to sterner discipline than the heir, but he’d never had to worry about his safety, not as Helen had to.
He was still pondering that injustice as he neared his temporary lodgings. Pastry Lane was what an Edinburger would call a wynd, more of a courtyard at the end of a covered passage than a proper lane. The houses on either side hung out over the passage, though they didn’t quite meet. No conveyance would fit down Pastry Lane, and little sunshine leaked onto the worn cobbles.
Keeping intruders out would be easy, as would keeping an eye on the neighbors. Mrs. Bryce’s abode opened onto the small courtyard where the lane ended, a space shared with four neighboring houses.
Ashton was across the main thoroughfare one street up from Pastry Lane when he saw a familiar brown cloak and straw hat bobbing along the walkway twenty yards ahead of him.
Mrs. Bryce, apparently returning from the last shopping errand of the day. She carried a parcel under her arm and made her way briskly in the direction of home.
Ashton watched for a moment, appreciating the energy in her stride and the good fortune that had put them in each other’s path. Two weeks of hot porridge, simple meals, and freedom from servants, sycophants, and meddling family would be heaven.
He was about to cross the street and offer the lady his escort when he became aware of another man trailing Mrs. Bryce about thirty feet back. Close enough to keep her in sight, far enough away to avoid detection.
He wore the uniform of the man of business. Plain brown breeches and jacket, slightly worn, no walking stick or other distinguishing accoutrements, no
t even a hat. When Mrs. Bryce stopped to chat with an older woman leading a child by the hand, the man following examined the wares on display at a potter’s shop.
Mrs. Bryce bid the other woman farewell and went on her way, and the man behind resumed walking as well.
Ashton was across the street in long strides and kept on moving until, as if in an effort to overtake Mrs. Bryce, he bumped the package from her grasp.
He stopped, tipped his hat, and picked up the parcel. “You’re being followed,” he said, beaming to all appearances sheepishly. “Let me carry your package, and please accept my escort.”
Those fine gray eyes took a casual inventory of the surroundings. “Thank you, sir. I’m sure there’s no damage.”
Ashton winged his arm, and bless the woman for her common sense, she took it and let him lead her away from Pastry Lane.
Chapter Three
If Matilda believed in one eternal verity, one immutable law of nature that would hold true down through the millennia, it was that Men Were Dreadful. Not all men, not all the time, which meant a woman had to be that much more vigilant to dodge the worst transgressors.
But most men, most of the time, were dreadful. They displayed petty dreadfulness, such as the tenant who was too lazy to carry his dirty dishes downstairs even on his way out for a morning stroll. He made more work for Pippa, the maid, and wasted her time. Was any disrespect quite as purely rotten as wasting a busy person’s time?
A tenant who nipped off to France without paying three months’ rent was more dreadful still and left Matilda to wonder if that tenant would have treated a landlord with the same disregard as a landlady.
No, he would not.
In a league of their own were men who arranged a daughter’s future so she was bound to an ungrateful tyrant, one who held her accountable for matters even the Church agreed were the exclusive province of the Almighty.
Worse yet were the men whose ungovernable urges meant their wives died in childbed, or suffered regular violence for no reason.
Dreadful, dreadful-er, and dreadful-est, as Helen would have said.
Matilda could have fashioned her own version of the circles of hell based on the transgressions which the male gender considered its casual right, simply because that gender had more muscles and less sophisticated procreative apparatus.
She was at a complete loss when Mr. Fenwick appeared at her side, her parcel in his hands, and a warning on his lips. She took his arm, very much against her inclinations. A woman who could work eighteen hours every day and still stay awake through Sunday services most weeks was capable of walking down the street unassisted.
And yet, if Matilda was being followed, she was in Ashton Fenwick’s debt. “Can you describe the person following me?” she asked quietly.
“He’s dressed to blend in,” Mr. Fenwick replied while, to all appearances, wandering along on a pleasant spring evening. “Plain brown clothes, no hat, no gloves. Medium height, medium age, medium everything. The perfect invisible man. Let’s have a cup of coffee, shall we?”
“I don’t care for it.”
“Neither do I.”
Mr. Fenwick was adept at eluding pursuit. One moment, Matilda was walking down the street beside him, the next, she was inside a coffee and pastry shop more genteel than most around Haymarket proper.
“I’ll order for us,” Mr. Fenwick said. “Chocolate for you?”
Matilda loved chocolate, but seldom took the time or spent the coin to indulge. The shop wasn’t crowded, the dinner hour having arrived, but neither was it deserted. Clerks and shopgirls, housewives and older men occupied scattered tables. A young waiter in a bib apron moved about, cleaning up dirty dishes and scrubbing tables.
“Chocolate would be delightful.” The scent of the place was heavenly, full of baking spices, with the aromas of coffee, chocolate, and black tea blending as well.
“That table,” Mr. Fenwick said, passing Matilda her parcel. “The one in the corner, so we can both sit with our backs to a wall.”
Matilda did as he suggested, because his reasoning made sense. She kept an eye on the street beyond the windows and saw, bobbing among the crowd, a bare-headed man of middle years and middle height saunter past, his attire a plain brown.
Mr. Fenwick came to the table and took the seat facing the street, while Matilda faced across the dining area. He set a plate bearing three scones in the middle of the table.
“You bought scones? Cinnamon scones? Fresh cinnamon scones?”
“I’m from the north. We appreciate a fresh scone at any hour.”
Men bearing cinnamon scones were worth tolerating, at least temporarily. Matilda set her hat on the bench beside her and removed her gloves. The waiter brought over butter and jam, and before Matilda had properly buttered her scone, the chocolate arrived.
“If you’re trying to bribe your way into my good graces, it won’t work,” she said. “The attempt is delightful, nonetheless.”
“I’m trying to prevent somebody from following you home,” Mr. Fenwick said, holding his cup of chocolate beneath his nose.
That nose was in proportion to the rest of him and had been broken at least once.
“You needn’t trouble yourself further, Mr. Fenwick. I saw your medium-height, brown-garbed man go by when you placed our order. That was Aloysius Aberfeldy. He’s a man in love, and he frequently follows me.”
Mr. Fenwick set his chocolate down untasted. “Do you enjoy his attentions?”
“Aloysius isn’t in love with me. He’s in love with my house. These scones are marvelous.” Fresh, warm, light as a wish, and dusted with sugar. Matilda promised herself she’d bake a batch on the next rainy day.
“I am quite fond of my horse,” Mr. Fenwick said, sipping his chocolate, “but in love? Surely you indulge in hyperbole.”
Mr. Fenwick’s manners weren’t so much dainty as Continental. He savored his food, tore off one bite of scone at a time, and enjoyed it.
He’d probably be a good kisser, which signified exactly nothing.
“I am indulging in euphemism,” Matilda said, dipping a corner of her scone into her chocolate. “Mr. Aberfeldy covets my house. If he married me, my house would become his house, absent convoluted trusts and vigilant trustees. Even with those in place, my dear husband could have me committed at his whim to one of those very quiet estates with very high walls tucked very far in the country. Then he could do with the house as he saw fit.”
Mr. Fenwick eschewed butter on his scone, for which Helen would have castigated him at length.
“You have a flare for the dramatic, Mrs. Bryce.”
Matilda paused in the middle of what constituted a small orgy, for Mr. Fenwick was humoring her, and that transgression required immediate correction.
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd, sir, that the Almighty, in His perfect wisdom, has given us no commandment against coveting our neighbor’s husband?”
Mr. Fenwick sat straighter. “There’s the one about adultery.”
“Irrelevant,” Matilda replied. “Adultery contemplates a man’s bad behavior again, with a wife not his own, as if the Deity wanted to emphasize a point through repetition of the obvious, perhaps. None of the commandments address the possibility of a woman straying onto some other lady’s preserves. Why do you suppose that is?”
“I’m sure you will enlighten me.”
“I will offer you my theory. Your chocolate is getting cold.”
“While you are warming to your topic. You should have chocolate more often.”
“Perhaps I should. In any case, I think the Creator knew that after a woman has had a glimpse of the wonders of holy matrimony, she will have no inclination to cavort with anybody else’s husband.”
Mr. Fenwick chewed his scone contemplatively. “People remarry.”
“Men remarry so their children have a mother, or their household has an unpaid drudge who’s also required by the church and the law to grant her husband other favors. Women remarry lest they sta
rve or worse.”
Matilda was being honest, but she was also presenting herself as a female about whom no sane male would develop wayward notions. She’d been dewy-eyed and sweet once upon a time.
Fat lot of good that had done her.
Mr. Fenwick’s gaze remained on the foot traffic beyond the windows. He’d eaten one scone, finished off his chocolate, and was apparently waiting for Matilda to finish hers.
She’d love to fault his manners, except she couldn’t. “Say something, Mr. Fenwick.”
“We have something in common,” he said. “The status of wife is much desired in certain circles. Among young ladies, to marry well is considered the accomplishment of a lifetime, though marrying well and marrying happily are not synonymous. You attained the status of wife, though apparently at the cost of your regard for the institution of marriage. So too, with my situation. I have means and influence many long for, and I don’t want them. There he is again.”
Matilda wanted to ask Mr. Fenwick what the devil he meant by those Delphic observations, but she instead focused on the passersby. A bareheaded man in a brown suit strolled past, though he studied the surroundings as if inspecting the marvels of Pompeii rather than a typical London street.
“You’re sure that’s the fellow who was following me?”
“I’m sure. You stopped, he stopped. You moved on, he moved on. He’s passed by here twice while we’ve been eating, as if he can’t figure out where you got off to.”
The luscious scone, the rich chocolate, the pleasure of airing opinions all turned to so much bile in Matilda’s belly.
“That’s not Mr. Aberfeldy. I’ve never seen that man before in my life.”
* * *
Mrs. Bryce of the misanthropic theological theories had become a subdued creature who followed Ashton out the back of the coffee shop and accompanied him through gloomy alleys and side streets into a tiny back garden.
“We have a problem,” she said, surveying her own back door. “This door locks from the inside rather than with a key. Pippa has likely sought her bed, and my key fits only the front door.”
Ashton: Lord of Truth (Lonely Lords Book 13) Page 4