by Kate Moore
She was on the point of asking Clive about them when Eversley, standing below the carriage, asked Jane how she felt about the race. A quick glance at Allegra showed that she was occupied with her other suitors. She did not greet Eversley, who hung on the edge of the group, looking on. It was not an overt declaration of indifference, but Jane felt she might take a chance on talking to the shy gentleman.
“How are your dogs?” She turned to him. She had not thought of dogs in years. Dogs in Halab lived on scraps, slunk around the edges of town, and figured in curses and insults hurled between enemies. Eversley’s round, ruddy face had an open, trusting look, as if any unkindness toward dogs might wound his feelings deeply. “Are the new puppies getting on?”
“They are,” he said. “I’ll be looking out for homes for them soon. I think people in general underestimate dogs. My Ajax understands hundreds of words.”
“Words? Do you speak with him then?” Jane had not thought dogs knew words. They knew scents and gestures and tones of voice, but did they recognize words. She smiled at Eversley to encourage him.
A roar went up from the crowd on the ice, and they both turned to see a green van drawn by four bay horses appear through the trees on the other side of the lake. The driver, dressed in a white coat and hat with a dotted neckerchief, waved at the crowd. Two servants in green livery to match the van, clung to the rear, and waved in their turn. Huge lettering on the side of the van proclaimed, MATCHLESS BLACKING.
“Now that’s a rig,” said her companion. “Big as a gypsy’s wagon, and those bays are no lightweights. Prize horseflesh. Hunt’s got some nerve to try this stunt.”
The horses were beautiful, and Jane wondered whether the driver felt any compunction about risking them on the ice. He took obvious pride in his driving skills. For the next several minutes while the crowd buzzed with excitement, he tooled his rig up and down the far bank. He halted his wagon and lifted his white hat aloft with his cane, twirling the hat about on the end of the cane to the crowd’s joy. Then he tossed the reins to one of the two servants, jumped down from the box, and with businesslike energy strode across the Serpentine, looking at the ice. The crowd shouted and cheered. Having crossed, Hunt shook hands with a group of gentlemen. At Jane’s side, Clive drew her attention from Eversley to point out the judges and the man betting against Hunt. Then with another tip of his hat to the crowd, Hunt strode back across the ice. He vaulted up onto the driver’s box, and started his horses in motion, turning them back along the carriageway a distance from the lake. It was all done in high spirits with reckless disregard for any danger. Like Hazelwood, Jane thought.
As the appointed time drew near, the crowd surged forward toward the open space on the ice, packed densely in a dark line along either side of the ice path. The noise subsided to a low rumble as Hunt turned his van around, facing the lake again. Allegra squealed as her favorite of the moment pulled her to her feet, and Jane stood, too. In a moment everyone was standing in the carriages around them.
* * * *
Now that the appointed hour had arrived, Hazelwood tried to judge Hunt’s chances. Ice on the Serpentine was usually no more than a few inches thick and apt to break into hundreds of jagged fragments under the influence of London’s changing weather. It was a testament to the past fortnight of severe cold that with all those bodies on the lake’s surface no cracks had appeared. It occurred to Hazelwood that Hunt had used the gathered spectators to test the ice for him. Had their number and weight caused a collapse, the whole race would have been called off. No wonder Hunt appeared so unconcerned. The Matchless Blacking van with its four horses was a feather compared to the mass of Londoners watching. A prudent man would clear the crowd from the ice, but then a prudent man wouldn’t attempt the thing at all. Hazelwood himself had never been a prudent man.
He swung his gaze back to Jane. Now that the carriage occupants were standing, he shifted his position slightly. Allegra’s ridiculous bonnet was still visible, but Jane, at her side, was just a hint of a blue brim. He moved to keep her in sight. If anyone planned to strike against her, it would likely be when Hunt reached the ice and drew all eyes his way. Hazelwood scanned the carriages around the Walhouse barouche again. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary or alarming. Everyone was standing, all eyes fixed on Hunt’s van. Even Malikov appeared to be absorbed by the spectacle. He might have a wager on the outcome after all.
Hunt halted his horses above the short, steep southern embankment. Their nostrils streamed vapor into the frigid air. The crowd on the ice grew quiet. Hunt’s man blew his horn from the back of the van like the guard on a mail coach. On the north bank the man holding the hundred-guinea purse looked on unmoved by the show. Beside him another gentleman raised a white neckerchief, which fluttered in the stiff breeze. The handkerchief dropped, and Hunt’s horses sprang forward smartly, negotiated the bank, and trotted briskly onto the ice. The crowd cheered. A thousand watching gentlemen lifted their hats in tribute.
Hazelwood shifted his gaze back to Jane. She stood with her companions, intent on the drama below. Then the lifted hats obscured Hazelwood’s view. As he tried for a better angle of vision, a man in a coachman’s greatcoat rolled from under the carriage and scrambled to his feet. As the man trotted off, the carriage lurched down the slope to bump against the horses’ hindquarters. Clive and Jane wobbled on their feet, and Jane grabbed for the side panel. Allegra tumbled backward onto the rear seat with sharp cry. Clive twisted and threw a leg up over the front seat, attempting to crawl forward onto the coachman’s box. Hazelwood swore and sprang forward.
As he ran, a loud roar erupted from the crowd on the ice. The startled horses, with no one at their heads and a heavy vehicle pressing against their hindquarters, sidled and lunged farther down the hill. One of Allegra’s suitors, the one who’d been speaking with Jane, was knocked off his feet by the swinging carriage door. He pushed himself up and stood looking after the moving carriage.
Hazelwood hurtled downhill, sliding on the slick grass, straining to close the distance. He couldn’t see how the coach had been disabled, but the horses with the wagon bumping against their hindquarters, veered sharply to the right, and the vehicle swayed on the uneven ground, its uphill wheels losing contact with the slope. Allegra screamed as the tilt of the vehicle threatened to dump the passengers onto the slope where they might be crushed by the carriage body. Clive clung to the sloping box, unable to loose his hold to grab the reins. Hazelwood sprinted the last few yards and flung himself for the rear of the carriage. He caught the curved iron footman’s handhold, and clung, hanging low, using his boot heels to plow into the frozen grass. His hat tumbled from his head. Over the rim of the rear seat he looked up into Jane’s startled face.
“Hold on,” he advised through clenched teeth. He wanted to make a joke, but none came to mind. When her gaze met his, she stared at him as if she were seeing him, really seeing him, with all his disguises stripped away.
The floundering carriage swung right across the hill, and the wheels hit grass again. The jarring impact rattled his teeth, made his knees bend, and bounced Jane loose. She was airborne, and he felt everything slow down, even his heart as if the pause between beats would go on indefinitely. She landed on the forward seat and righted herself. The seams of his new jacket gave way at the shoulder, but he held on.
He leaned his head around the body of the carriage and saw a clump of bare elms straight ahead and a pair of coachmen running for the horses’ heads. Before the runaways reached the elms, they plunged into a patch of old snow, and the coach came to a shuddering stop. The impact shook Hazelwood loose. He picked himself up and backed away with the exaggerated care of a man in his cups. He would rather his knees did not buckle just now.
The Walhouse coachman checked his horses. Another driver held up the left trace, which had become disconnected from the front axle. Allegra’s admirers converged on the carriage. Allegra sat sobbing under her hat with Clive
’s arm around her heaving shoulders. Jane Fawkener sprang up unnoticed in the throng of concerned gentlemen and looked around methodically, as if her surroundings could offer some explanation of what had happened. It was what he should be doing, but the fellow who’d rolled from under her carriage was long gone, merged in the great crowd of Londoners. Hazelwood stepped behind another vehicle and stood for a moment catching his breath.
He watched Malikov step forward from the crowd and extend a hand up to Jane. “Make room for the ladies to descend, gentlemen,” he said.
Hazelwood took a step forward before he recollected himself. There was no direct link between Malikov and the runaway coach. There was no law that said a man got to keep a fair maiden he’d rescued. He’d learned that as a boy, and Goldsworthy had reminded him of it the previous spring. Thudding footfalls behind him made him turn.
“Sir, are you hurt?” Nate Wilde came to a panting stop at his side. “Sorry, I didn’t move faster.”
Hazelwood shook his head. “Knocked about is all.”
“And muddied, sir.” Wilde grinned. “What happened?”
Hazelwood looked at his ruined boots. “Someone tampered with the carriage.”
Below he could see the huge blacking van roll up the opposite bank of the Serpentine, and Hunt engulfed by the cheering crowd in a hero’s welcome.
Every Husband Hunter must acknowledge that she has rivals. If a gentleman is handsome and possessed of a reasonable estate, or if he is extraordinarily rich and possessed of even modest personal attractions, he will draw his share of female admirers, and more to the point, mothers of daughters will know to a precise degree how to rate his worth as a potential marital partner. The less scrupulous of Husband Hunters and their mothers may stoop to calculations and tactics, which the Husband Hunter disdains to employ. In refusing to use such ploys, the Husband Hunter may fear that she is ceding the advantage to one or more of her rivals. She may, indeed, see a partner for whom she has an inclination, whisked down the set by an enterprising young lady who, seeing him approach, threw herself in the man’s way. She may, at another time, observe her chosen one, ensnared by a bosom, amply displayed.
—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London
Chapter Nineteen
Nate knew Miranda was itching to box his ears or comb his hair with a rake, but he quelled her with a sharp glance. He would give her a chance to pitch into him later. His job was to help Lord Hazelwood solve cases, and he knew better than she did what the viscount needed at the moment.
In the club foyer under the scaffolding, Nate helped Hazelwood shed his muddied greatcoat and boots.
“Oh, Lord Hazelwood, your poor jacket!” Miranda cried.
Hazelwood managed a wan smile. “Will your father be very angry that I’ve ruined his handiwork again?”
Miranda shook her head. She reached up like a seasoned valet to help him. Hazelwood winced at the movement required to shed the jacket. Miranda folded it over her arms. “We’ll have you looking fine again in no time. The mud will brush right out, and if it doesn’t, we’ll see that you have a new coat,” she said.
“Thanks, Miranda.” Hazelwood cast a look up the stairs and then started to climb them with less than his usual jauntiness. Nate followed behind. He knew Hazelwood’s bruises and scrapes would be making themselves known, and Nate wanted to get the viscount some coffee and a hot bath away from Miranda. A hovering sympathetic woman was not what Hazelwood wanted.
In the coffee room, Hazelwood lowered himself gingerly onto his favorite couch. He didn’t stretch out as he usually did, rather he stared unseeing at the table where he’d been studying their copy of the little guidebook. Nate went right to work to produce a steaming cup of coffee and put it in the viscount’s hands.
“What are you thinking, sir?” Nate asked.
“Why didn’t they try to snatch her? Why try to kill her and anyone who happened to be in the way? Unless they meant to attack the Walhouses, too.”
“Looks more accidental that way, sir.”
“True, but it’s definitely an escalation, isn’t it? We have to get her back before they kill somebody.”
“We will, sir.”
“Do you have a plan, Wilde?”
“Kidnap her ourselves, sir?”
“I like the way you think, but I have a different idea. Are you willing to play the footman again?”
“The Walhouse cook took a liking to me, sir. I’m sure I can get back in the house.”
“Good.”
Miranda was waiting for Nate in the shop when he brought Hazelwood’s greatcoat for repairs.
She didn’t look up from her needlework when he came through the curtain in the back of the shop.
“He’s going to be okay. Bruised is all. Nothing broken.”
“Papa says his jacket can’t be saved.”
“I’m sure your father can make him a new one.”
She looked up then, her eyes flashing angrily. “He spent nearly a year wearing soiled, stinking linen and ill-fitting coats, and now when he gets to dress like the gentleman he is, you let him ruin his clothes.”
“If you want to blame anyone, blame yourself. You wanted to see Hunt drive his van over the Serpentine.”
She jumped up off her stool, shaking now. “Like half of London. It’s not my fault. If you could drive, this wouldn’t have happened. You could have taken me to see the race, and Lord Hazelwood would never have been hurt. You’re supposed to be the muscle, aren’t you? Haven’t they hired you to get your thick head broken, while they do the clever work?”
“That’s not exactly the way it is. Besides, you misunderstand Hazelwood, if you think he doesn’t like danger.” He didn’t want to tell her the real reason Hazelwood had dashed down that hillside and flung himself onto that carriage, but he would if she pushed him too far.
“You should have stopped him.”
Nate shook his head. “You can’t stop a man from rushing to the aid of the woman he loves.”
Her head snapped up, her eyes big with awareness of the truth of it. She, too, had seen the viscount’s mad dash to save Jane Fawkener. “He doesn’t love her. She’s just a case, and he would never let a case go wrong.”
“You, Miranda, need to go back to The Husband Hunter’s Guide. You need to read the chapter on getting above yourself. He’s not for you, and the sooner you accept the truth, the better for you.”
“I hate you, Nate Wilde. You just want to put me down. I’m much prettier than Jane Fawkener. And she promised—”
“What?”
“Never mind. She doesn’t know Lord Hazelwood’s worth like I do.”
Nate came right up to her, close enough to feel her breath huffing out in her anger. “Miranda, when did she promise you anything?”
Miranda stuck out her stubborn chin. “I’m not saying anything. She left him, didn’t she? Went to stay with her cousins.”
“That doesn’t change anything. He’d pretty much die for her.”
“No.” She stared at him in horror.
Nate stepped away. “He would. He’s that kind of man, and he’s that in love.”
* * * *
Clive kept himself under rigid control in the Ravenhurst carriage on the journey home. He had his arm around Allegra, who leaned against him, her eyes closed in pain. Jane had helped her remove her ruined hat. He found it difficult to appreciate Malikov’s light tone, and he felt deeply grateful for the glances Pamela gave him, indicating her sympathy. Later they would meet in their usual way. He held on to that thought through the scene of his mother’s distress, the summoning of the doctor, his father’s usual unhelpful confusion and concern for his horses, his younger siblings’ shocked curiosity. He tried, as well, not to resent Jane’s quiet competence.
Malikov waited for him in his mother’s drawing room. “No serious harm done, apparently.”
“I’m beginning to think that you like courting danger, Walhouse.” Malikov spoke from one of the two gilded chaise longues his mother had purchased when she’d redecorated the room. The low, backless sofas with their bold black and gold striped pattern dominated the pale blue room.
“Whatever gives you that impression?”
Malikov dangled his glass from his fingertips over the scroll arm of the sofa. “First the affair with the ripe and delicious Pamela and then your unwillingness to protect yourself from the danger your cousin represents.”
Clive forced himself to laugh as he took a seat opposite the count. “Oh, really? Surely the danger from Ravenhurst is nothing. He will never notice his wife’s affair, or know what to do if he does. And what has Jane Fawkener done? I think she’s trying to learn from Allegra how to snare a husband.”
Malikov shook his head. “You trust the girl not to act against you? Don’t let yourself be fooled.”
Clive shrugged. “Jane? I think you exaggerate her ability to move the English government.”
“She may look meek, but, remember, Walhouse, the girl can destroy your family’s comfort, and your family is most attached to their comforts. Your sister won’t thank you for ruining her chances for an advantageous match.”