by Kate Moore
“She won’t thank me for a broken neck.”
“There you exaggerate the danger. The barouche rolled down a little slope. The ladies were jostled a bit. You have driven faster and more dangerously yourself.”
“Nevertheless, leave Allegra out of this.”
It seemed to Clive that he waited a long time for Malikov’s reply.
“Happily, if you will let me deal with your cousin. You’ve no attachment there, have you?”
“None.” Clive liked Jane well enough. If she didn’t stand in the way of the Walhouse family fortune, he would have nothing against her.
“You go to the Langford ball, don’t you?” Malikov asked.
“Yes, if Allegra recovers.”
“She will. Make sure your cousin goes to the ball, and leave the rest to me.”
Clive could not have heard properly. “My cousin is scheduled for an investiture ceremony with the king. The authorities will miss her.”
“Who? The king? He’ll never notice one less trinket to hand out. Chartwell? When has Chartwell done more than a lot of hand-wringing?”
Clive studied his near-empty glass, a thin amber veil of drink covered the bottom. He didn’t like Malikov’s attitude, but Clive had worked under Chartwell long enough to know the muddle his office made of most affairs. He could let his cousin go to whatever fate Malikov had in mind for her, or he could see his family slip back into their old situation. His sister would lose all chance of a decent match. His mother would have to give up her parties. His father could no longer have his dogs and horses. And he would have to give up Pamela.
He considered his family’s capacity for such sacrifice and found it wanting. He knew from the state of his own heart, that giving up one’s comforts and even worse, one’s claims on the notice of the world, was not to be borne.
Clive looked up from the liquid in his glass to meet Malikov’s gaze. His mother’s beautiful drawing room surrounded them. Her taste, her care had furnished the house as the house of a gentleman should be furnished. Jane Fawkener was nobody. She was nothing to any of them, a cousin from nowhere, with nothing to offer in exchange for such losses. She was lucky to have lived so long considering the risks her own father took. Really, Fawkener was the one who had endangered her by taking her abroad and doing the work that he did.
Clive stood and strolled back to the sideboard where the drinks tray had been left. “We will be at the ball with Jane.”
Malikov was on his feet in an instant and at Clive’s side, clapping him on the shoulder in that friendly, avuncular way of his, like a slightly older, wiser friend. “You’ve made the smart decision, you know. You must not imagine that anyone will mistreat the girl. I simply do what I must to improve things in St. Petersburg. Ah, to go home with some useful information, to return to my family.” Malikov set his own empty glass next to Clive’s.
And just like that, Clive knew Malikov was lying, that there was no lost career in St. Petersburg, no faithful sweetheart at home for whom Malikov worked, only a desire to work his will on others.
“You’ll see the fair Pamela tonight?” Malikov asked.
“Yes.” Clive swallowed the bad taste in his mouth. He was doing what was necessary for his family. Once their future was secure, he would end his association with Malikov for good.
* * * *
Jane stayed with Allegra until the soothing draught given to her by the family doctor sent her off to sleep. Then she stayed on in a plump armchair in Allegra’s room as the early dark of a winter’s day settled over London. It was the least she could do after she had involved her cousin in danger. Allegra might be shallow and vain and sometimes annoying, but none of those character flaws deserved a death sentence. It was a hard truth, but a truth nonetheless, that in removing herself from Hazelwood’s care, Jane had brought the danger that followed her into her cousins’ household.
She needed time to reflect on what had happened, away from anyone else. She did not want to meet her cousin Clive until she’d had a chance to sort through the jumbled images in her mind. She suspected that he would minimize the danger. The brief wild ride could not have lasted two minutes from the first lurch of the carriage under her feet to its collision with a mound of snow. At first the image of Hazelwood’s face over the back of the carriage persisted in her mind, so sharp and clear that other details of those perilous moments were obscure. But it was those other moments that she needed to recall in order to understand what had truly happened.
In the Ravenhurst carriage that brought them home, Clive had been strangely silent about the accident, while his friend Count Malikov teased him about having a team of such high-spirited animals that they wanted to join the race on the ice. Jane had heard enough of the talk around her after the barouche came to a stop to know that someone had tampered with it. Hazelwood’s presence confirmed her sense that the runaway carriage had been no accident. He had been watching, anticipating danger, and he’d acted when it came. She wanted to talk with him about it, but by misunderstanding him earlier, she had made seeing him again nearly impossible.
And yet, for those few mad moments when he’d had nowhere else to look, no joke to make, no disguise for the naked expression in his eyes, he was not a spy but a man who didn’t want to lose her. She mattered to him. It was not, after all, about his job, about the information she possessed, about the friends of England along her father’s route across the East, or about what she might know of Russian plans for the region. In that moment, it was about the lost connection between them, about wanting her to go on in the world even without him. That look had held her there in the wildly tilting coach more than her grip on the side panel. Then she’d been jolted loose, and when she’d landed, he’d been gone. She had looked, carefully, as her father had taught her to look at a scene, breaking the vast panorama of the park into discreet sections, but Hazelwood had vanished in the crowd.
Really, if she’d found him, she likely would have leaped from the carriage and whacked him over the head with whatever weapon came to hand. What had he been thinking to fall in love with her and to make her glad for his love?
The jolting carriage ride had reversed her understanding of where the danger lay. To protect her precious guidebook from Hazelwood, she’d accepted her cousins’ hospitality, and, now, she needed to figure out how to protect her cousins as well from the people who wanted her father’s information.
A low moan came from Allegra, and Jane left the chair.
“Is my hat ruined?” Allegra stirred, then sank back against her pillows.
Jane went to her cousin’s side with a glass of water. “Your hat can be saved. How’s your head?”
“Terrible.” Allegra’s eyes closed in her ashen face. “It’s dark in here.”
“Are you ready for a candle? The doctor warned against too much light.”
“Where’s Mama?”
“She’s dressing for the evening.” Lady Strayde had told Jane that she felt the importance of keeping her evening engagements, that way she could reassure people that Allegra had taken no serious hurt. Jane lit a candle on the mantel and brought it to the bedside table.
Allegra blinked and held a hand up over her eyes. “So, you’re here with me?”
“I am. Water?”
“Yes. Please.” Allegra’s voice was a croak. She accepted the glass Jane offered, and with a shaking hand, brought it to her lips. She took a sip and nearly let the glass slip from her grasp. Jane caught it, and Allegra’s hand fell back against the coverlet.
“How long am I going to feel like this? I can’t miss the Langford ball.”
“The doctor said you are to rest. He’s left a draught for the headache, and he wants to know what else you’re feeling.”
Allegra’s hand plucked at the coverlet. “It’s unfair. Caroline DeVere will go to that ball. She’ll dance with my beaux. She’ll make everyone forget me, as if
I’d never existed.”
Jane took her seat in the armchair again. “You’ll just have to be a sensation when you return, like Sleeping Beauty, after her long nap.”
“But everyone will talk about what a stupid, pitiful girl I am to fall and miss the Radical Race.”
“By the time you return, there will be something quite different to talk about.”
“How can you be so sure? You know nothing about London.”
“Haven’t you been trying to teach me? And I’ve been reading my Husband Hunter’s Guide to London.”
“You’re joking. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“You have your mother to advise you. I have none.”
“So how did you come upon this guide?”
“It was given to me when I arrived by someone who realized I’d need sound advice.”
“What does it say?”
“That rest is essential for the young woman who wants to shine at a ball.”
A knock on the door made Allegra turn. “Yes? Who’s there?”
Clive answered, and Allegra invited him in. “Does everyone think I’m a stupid fool for getting knocked down?”
“I haven’t heard from everyone yet.” Clive crossed the room, but stood in the shadows beyond the soft candle beams. He spoke gently, but he wore a grim expression. “Your admirers’ flowery tributes and notes will arrive soon.”
“Everyone will just forget me.”
Clive shook his head. “I hope you still want to attend the Langford ball?”
“Oh yes. I must. It’s the first real ball of the year.”
“Then we must see that you recover.” Clive glanced at Jane. “Jane, you’ll stay with us until the ball?”
“Of course.”
One of the more serious errors of perception the Husband Hunter must avoid is the failure to distinguish between the general and the particular in the attentions of a gentleman. A young woman may be drawn to a man who shows kindness to her. She is grateful for his attention when seeing her overlooked, he draws her into a conversation, or seeing her fatigued, he procures her a chair or a place in a carriage, or seeing her slighted by other partners, he restores her to dignity by soliciting her hand for a set. Such a man deserves the Husband Hunter’s careful attention. She will want to note whether he is as kind in general and thoughtful of other ladies, no matter their age or condition in life, as he has been to her. If he is, if she discovers that his disposition is to be kind to all women, she will then have to exercise the most dispassionate judgment to determine whether there is in his kindness to her any element of particular interest. And here, the Husband Hunter may err from wanting it to be so.
—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London
Chapter Twenty
On the third day after the accident, when Dr. Lions declared Allegra recovered enough to join the family for a meal, and when the stream of messages and floral tributes had dwindled to a trickle, Jane helped Allegra descend the two flights of stairs from her bedroom to the breakfast room. It still troubled Allegra to look down, and her peach silk wrapper trailing long pale green ribbons brushed the floor, so she clung to Jane’s arm and the banister.
In the breakfast room, the family sat around the table with the exception of Clive. Four golden heads lifted and turned to Allegra and Jane when they entered. Phoebe at the foot of the table cast a critical eye over Allegra, and raised a brow indicating that Annabel should move her seat.
“Papa, do I have to give up my seat for her if she’s better?” Annabel demanded. Teddy winked at her over the top of his newspaper, but nodded his head toward the lower seat.
“Does your head still hurt?” Philip demanded at a headache-inducing volume.
Allegra winced, but took Annabel’s seat, arranging her silk and lace and accepting a shawl from Jane. Jane offered to fill a plate for her from the sideboard.
“Just toast and jam, please, Jane.”
Annabel and Philip questioned Allegra as Jane stood at the sideboard, sensing something different and wondering what it was. The same platters of eggs, bacon, toast, and ham lined the sideboard. She handed Allegra the plate of toast and jam, and turned back, reaching to pour herself some coffee when she realized that the coffee had changed. The smell was rich and earthy with a lingering hint of caramel, brought out from the roasting. Even in the large English cup, even without the distinctive crema of coffee in Halab, the taste was unmistakable.
Hazelwood. The association was instant. Briefly she imagined him on the other side of the breakfast room door, holding his flannel-wrapped flask.
“Jane,” Allegra said, “are you going to eat?”
All the golden heads were turned her way, reminding her of not being one of them. “Of course, I was just enjoying the coffee.”
“Oh,” said Phoebe, “The coffee is different? Allegra, dear, don’t slump. Hold your head up.”
Annabel spoke up from her seat next to Jane. “It’s the new footman. He’s Nick or Nate or something. He’s taught cook his way.”
Phoebe cast her youngest daughter a sharp glance of disapproval for consorting with the servants.
Jane dropped her gaze to her cup. Whoever the new footman was, there could only be one explanation for his being there. Hazelwood had sent him. In the three days she’d spent with Allegra since the accident, there had been no further attempt to harm her cousins or herself, but that did not mean that the danger had ended. And Hazelwood apparently didn’t think so either. He’d managed to place someone he trusted in the household. The coffee was a message. The trick would be for Jane to find this new footman and speak to him privately.
She looked up from her coffee to find Phoebe studying Allegra. “I don’t like your color, dear. We have to restore some bloom to your cheeks.”
Philip glanced up from his eggs. “You look like a trout belly, Al,” he told her.
Allegra stopped tearing her toast apart and glared at him.
Bolton, the butler, who had been looking on, went to answer a knock at the breakfast room door.
In the opening stood a footman, who announced that a gift had arrived for Miss Walhouse. Annabel leaned toward Jane and whispered, “That’s him. That’s the new footman.” Jane caught just a glimpse, enough to know the young man had prominent ears and white, white teeth. She would have to think of some way to excuse herself from the group to speak with him.
Allegra lifted her head at the promise of a gift. “May I see, Papa?” she asked.
“Just the thing to put color in your cheeks, girl,” said Teddy from behind his newspaper. He nodded to Bolton.
“What can it be?” Allegra wondered.
“Who is it from? Do we know, Bolton?” asked Phoebe.
“I believe we’re about to discover, my lady,” Bolton replied. He opened the door to another knock, and there stood, Eversley, wearing an expression of hope and earnest longing, and holding a large red box tied with an enormous black velvet bow.
“Oh, it’s you.” Allegra’s face fell.
Her father grinned and put aside his paper. He left his seat and held out his hand to the newcomer. “Eversley, my boy, come in. Brought a gift for my girl, have you?”
“Yes, sir.” The young man’s face colored brightly. He tucked the box under his left arm as he extended his right hand to greet his host. The box tilted and emitted a sound like mice in the woodwork. “I thought of just the right thing for Miss Walhouse, sir. Annabel put me on to it.”
Allegra shot Annabel a hard look, but Annabel was beaming at Eversley and bouncing in her seat. Jane thought there could not be two people who understood Allegra less.
“Let’s get to it, then,” said Teddy. “You can see how done in Allegra is. Needs a bit of cheering up. Three days in the house and all.”
“Papa!” Allegra protested.
Eversley looked at Allegra sitting a
t the table and seemed to doubt the wisdom of his gift briefly.
“I’ll open it, if she won’t,” Annabel offered.
“Annabel, hush,” said Phoebe.
Annabel turned to her sister. “Allegra, push your chair back, so Eversley can put the box in your lap.”
Allegra looked momentarily helpless as if shifting in her chair were impossible, but Jane stood and offered her arm, and with a little maneuvering, the chair was scooted back, and Allegra received the box onto her lap.
She looked up in immediate surprise. “It’s warm.”
The box wobbled on her knees, and Allegra pulled the bow loose. The box lid popped open without her touch.
A black-muzzled puppy with floppy gray ears sprang from the box, thin tail wagging, and planted large gray puppy paws on Allegra’s chest. Allegra looked at Eversley in horror. Annabel bounced in her seat. Philip let out a snort of laughter.
The puppy gave Allegra’s chin a lick, sank his sharp, white teeth into the lace of her wrapper and tore. She shrieked and let go of the box. The lace in the puppy’s jaws gave, and puppy and box tumbled to the floor. The puppy trotted off with his lace prize between his teeth and settled on the carpet in a corner of the room, growling and tugging at the lace anchored between his paws.
Eversley watched the pup with obvious pride, ignoring Allegra. “He’s eight weeks old out of Hector and Countess, the pick of the litter, and he’s got the perfect disposition to be a lady’s dog.”
“Mama, he’s torn my lace,” Allegra wailed, pressing her damaged wrapper to her chest.
“Just a bit of puppy teething. He’ll get over that in no time.” Eversley tried to pat Allegra on the shoulder, but she cringed.
The puppy trotted around the room, snarling over his prize, until he came to the sideboard, where he dropped the lace and stood up with his legs, his nose sniffing the breakfast above him.
“One of your mastiffs, eh, Eversley?” Teddy left his seat to watch the dog. “He’s a fine specimen, top of the line, pet,” he told Allegra.