Kissing her once more, Everett pulled from her. He hugged her against him, their skin moist with sweat.
“That was … the greatest moment of my life,” she whispered into his musky shoulder. Her body still rippled with satisfaction.
“For me too, darling. I never knew it could be like this. I never before—”
“Shhh, do not say anymore.” She didn’t want comparison with Miriam, or to think about the consequences.
* * * *
Bettina gazed out the window as the early morning city sprang to life. Wagons and sledges rumbled along the street below. Peddlers shouted their wares, rang bells, and pushed heavily laden carts. The services they offered varied from second-hand clothing to knife grinding and the coalman to fuel your fire. Women called out in singsong voices, announcing hot spiced ginger drinks, new brooms and rug beaters. They shivered in threadbare shawls in the thick mist that swirled in off the water.
The sharpest noise came from the commotion on the wharves as men cursed when they loaded and unloaded barges. The brash tones of the fishmongers spewed over the Billingsgate fish market, where fishing boats brought their catch. Bettina saw the activity there, the area crowded with decrepit sheds and low booths.
As she sipped tea, clad in her dressing gown, Bettina couldn’t stop thinking about the previous night’s erotic pleasure. Though to preserve some propriety, she’d snuck back into her chamber before Oleba came down.
“Good morning.” Everett stepped up behind her and kissed the nape of her neck. He smelled fresh from his shave and a splash of his spicy cologne.
“You had better stop that, sir, or we will be right back in the bedroom.” She laughed and hopped up from her chair.
He squeezed her to him, lifting her off her feet, burying his face in her hair. “That’s a tempting idea. If I didn’t have business to wrap up downstairs.”
“Sit, please. I will fix you tea and toast.” But she didn’t get far without a long, passionate kiss. She felt flowing and supple, like a scarf draped around him. “You will never make it to the office. And I do not mind if you never leave here.”
That evening the two of them supped at the Lamb and Flag Inn in Covent Garden. The smell of mutton and smoke filled the air in the dimly lit room.
After two glasses of Madeira, Bettina thought of this shadow that lurked over them, preventing their smooth transition into matrimony. “Everett … why did you wed Miriam in the first place?”
“Are you trying to spoil my night?” He flashed a crooked smile and reached across the table to clasp her hand. “I never felt about her the way I feel about you, if that’s what worries you.”
“Then why did you marry? I would like to know, to understand your past. I shared the truth about my background with you, have I not?”
Everett sat back with a long-suffering sigh, though he still held her hand. “Our families had known each other for years. My mother thought Miriam and I would suit one another. She was very pretty. With pressure from both mothers, we fell into the agreement that someday we’d marry.
“When I returned from my travels after university, I decided it was time to settle down, and there were our mothers eager to plan a wedding. I hadn’t spent much time around Miriam since before university, but she seemed bright and accomplished. We married here in London. I wanted to live in Cornwall, on the family estate I’d inherit. It was the perfect place to raise children.” He stared down at their entwined fingers. “Miriam was bored and unhappy from the beginning. Her brightness was all on the surface. She loathed reading, embroidery, and gardening was beneath her. She’d only feigned those interests. Then she insisted I buy her a pianoforte. But after I did, she hardly bothered with it. Turned out she was more interested in the suave music teacher making his rounds of bored wives.”
Bettina remembered his adverse reaction when she’d asked him if he played.
“Her only true passion was the reflection in her looking glass and the number of men who fawned over her at London soirees. But my father’s health was failing. So I put aside my regrets over this creature I married to help him run his business and the estate. Barely two years later … my father died.” He shifted in the chair. “Mother was devastated. My parents had such a close, loving relationship—the marriage I’d hoped for. Mother couldn’t bear to stay, so fled to her sister’s in the Scillies, leaving everything to Clare and I—”
“You mentioned that before. What are Scillies?” Bettina wanted to interrupt. His stricken expression, even in the dim candlelight, upset her.
“They’re islands off the Cornish coast. Once we were alone at Bronnmargh, our misery intensified. The marriage was a sham with no foundation of love. Miriam seemed to lack any genuine capacity for affection.” Everett spoke in clipped tones, seemingly anxious to expel this information as if it were a poison inside him. “The estate began to fall apart—I sold off much of the land. My marriage was in ruins, but divorces were difficult, expensive. I threw myself into my work. I stayed away, longer and longer. I’m not proud of my behavior, my putting off the inevitable. Then she took up with Hollis, and … well, I told you what happened.”
“That was so horrid for you, all of it. I am sorry to bring it up.” Bettina pulled his hand to her face and kissed it. “I hope my love wipes away these memories.”
The lines on Everett’s forehead relaxed and he smiled. “I have faith that it can.”
“Is your mother still alive on these islands? You rarely talk of her,” Bettina said after the waiter cleared away the dishes. The candlelight flickered over the low beams above.
“I guess I’ve been bitter about too many things, even my mother. If she had stayed it would have made things easier … with Clare, and Frederick.”
“Did you ever think of sending Frederick to live with her?”
“No, I accepted responsibility to watch over the boy.” Everett released her hand, but placed his in a suggestive manner on her knee beneath the table. “You’re so full of questions tonight, my dear. Let’s—”
“Wait, I have one more.” Bettina gave him a sheepish look, but wanted to clear the air. “Why did you and Miriam never have children?”
Everett raised an eyebrow. He removed his hand. “If you must know, it seemed that Miriam couldn’t have children. Not that it bothered her in the least. Though I’ve always wanted a family, Miriam would not have been a caring mother.”
“All right, my curiosity is satisfied. We do not need to speak any more of it.” Bettina thought of the possibility she might have a base born child since she’d tossed her moral upbringing aside. She also realized her reputation was damaged just by living in the same apartment with Everett, no matter if they’d slept together or not.
She slid her glass across the table. He poured her more wine.
“When I met you, I never imagined things would turn out like this.” Everett drank from his own glass. His gaze softened. “But it has been a year full of surprises.”
Bettina sipped the rich beverage, then ran a finger over the glass rim. “What did you think of me that first time in your library?”
“Hmmm … I noticed you had striking eyes and beautiful hair. Quite pretty, in your plain little dress. You carried yourself well. Not like the common stock of women I was used to seeing out there. And you certainly had no qualms about speaking your mind.” His voice brimmed with amusement.
“I never realized you noticed me … in such a significant way.”
“It was difficult not to.” He smiled. “What did you think of me, dare I ask?”
“Now that is more complicated. I thought you handsome, but oh so aloof. Very … mysterious.” She laughed. “Not friendly to me … a cautious man.”
“And dangerous perhaps, after the rumors you heard?” He chuckled. “I suppose I was most of those things. Now I’m just a man in love, probably for the first time at just over thirty.”
Bettina reached over and touched his face. “I will make you forget your past.” Just as she had
to forget her heritage because of the revolution.
Everett kissed her fingertips. “Let’s return to the apartment. We can discuss the details under the covers.”
When they walked upstairs on Thames Street, kissing fervently as they went, Bettina saw a note slipped half under the apartment door. She picked it up and handed it to Everett.
He opened it. His jaw stiffened. “It’s from my informant, Pete. He’s located Hollis.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“I insist on accompanying you to meet this man, Pete.” Bettina settled her straw hat on her head and pulled on her cloak.
“I’d rather you didn’t. It isn’t in a decent part of town. If I had planned to take you, I’d have requested another place.” Everett’s tone softened at her third declaration of her intentions. “I did set up an interview with one of the French aristocrats here in London, to see if there’s any word on your mother. We’ll go and see him tomorrow. Why don’t you rest?”
“There is no point in resting. I have spent the entire day waiting.” She grasped his arm, then caressed it. “I am not a delicate orchid. I want to be involved in your plans. This is important to me, too.”
Everett shook his head with a frustrated sigh, and finally nodded. He held out his arm and they left the apartment, hurried down the stairs and walked out into the night.
“Pete’s not what you might expect.” Everett’s breath steamed into the cold air as he helped her into the coach. It lurched forward and they rattled past the ancient fortress of the Tower. “He’s very coarse and inelegant in appearance. But an associate of mine recommended him because, as he put it, Pete is the ‘eyes and ears of the seamier parts of London’. He’s been invaluable to me. I had him scouting for Miriam too, but there’s no trace of her in town. I believe Hollis knows the truth. Even he couldn’t be so stupid as to try to extort money on someone’s behalf when that someone might come forth, refute him and snatch the money for herself.”
The coach trundled past sheds and dilapidated buildings that clung to the waterfront. A few lanterns and oil streetlights shone little brightness on the docks at Wapping.
The driver halted before a tavern, the Town of Ramsgate, near the Wapping Old Stairs alley that led to the river. The stink of the Thames surrounded them the moment they stepped from the coach. A link boy had followed, and he dangled a lantern on a pole to light their way to the door. Everett gave him some coins and pushed open the weather-beaten portal.
Smoke and loud voices drifted out.
Bettina’s nose crinkled at the stench of bodies. Several sailors and dock workers glared when they edged through the benches. “He’s over there,” Everett pointed.
A squat man stood and motioned them to a table. As Bettina approached, she agreed with Everett’s forewarning. Pete reminded her of an old pirate, with a patch over one eye and a missing front tooth. His wide face was littered with scars. Gaspar’s toad-like visage flashed in her mind like a douse of icy water. She sat across from him with Everett on a bench. Her fingers touched the sticky surface and she curled them to a fist.
“Sorry you had to bring the missus here, Mr. Camborne. But I’m here to meet up with a crony.” Pete spoke in a gravelly voice. “I found Hollis, as I said. He’s at a boarding house in St. Giles, run by Sally O’Brien—a nasty Irish widow to be sure.” He rubbed his dirty fingernails over a stained coat, frayed around the collar. “I has people watching for me, and he ain’t moved from there since last eve.”
“Splendid. Can you hire a few men, take me there, and we’ll force him out?” Everett had to raise his voice to be heard over the ruckus around them. He kept a wary eye on the other patrons.
Many of the men leered at her and Bettina stiffened inside her cloak. Her experience at the inn steeled her for such discomfort.
A small wheel on the wall behind Pete rattled as a little dog walked inside. This movement rotated a spit over the flames in a large stone fireplace where a joint of meat roasted.
A potboy thrust in a stick and poked the dog. The animal yelped, running faster. Bettina started and glowered at the boy.
“St. Giles is … a peculiar place to be sure. It won’t be so simple to walk in and snatch him.” Pete picked at one of his blackened nails. “We has to be underhanded so Hollis don’t cry for help, pullin’ every blackguard in the rookeries down our throats.”
“What do you suggest?” Everett drummed his fingers on the splintered table top, moist with beer and rum. Bettina coughed in the smoke from the clay pipes that dangled between the lips of cursing men.
“We can go in, but a scheme to draw him away from the parish is best. I has a few ideas, an’ you might have some. This Hollis seems to have spread money around, making close friends, if you get my meaning?”
Everett grimaced. “I don’t know where he could’ve gotten any mo—”
The front door banged open. A naval officer entered, followed by three sailors in baggy trousers. The people in the room shifted in agitation; men ducked under tables, into other rooms, or scuttled out the back. One of the sailors had a club and they fanned out around the taproom. Bettina reared back on the bench and clutched Everett’s arm.
“It’s the press-gang,” Pete said in an undertone. “I’s too old for ’em now, won’t bother with me. But you better take the lady outta here, might get rough.”
“That’s wise. I’ll try to come up with an idea and contact you tomorrow, Pete.” Everett rose and handed him two crowns. He hurried Bettina out the tavern’s rear door, leaving Pete to his waterfront indigence.
“What was that about? What is a press-gang?” Bettina asked as they rushed through a pitch-black alley, brushing their shoulders against damp stone.
“In England we have a … unique way of hiring crews for the ships. Roving groups like those gentlemen, called press-gangs, scour the taverns and inns, kidnapping able-bodied men and impressing them onto ships for long voyages.” Everett hesitated at the alley’s end and scanned the street. “It’s brutal, but no one stops it because it’s the only sure way to recruit. Most people don’t care for the harsh life of a sailor.”
“That is brutal.” She shivered in the fog that hazed out the only working streetlamp. “You should send them after Hollis. It sounds fitting for your brother-in-law. What do we do now to capture him?”
“I agree it’s fitting.” Everett helped her into the coach and the hired driver urged the horses forward. Men’s shouts came through the tavern’s front door. “Well, let’s put our heads together and dream up a plan to draw the cur from his cave.”
They picked up a shepherd’s pie, salad, and ale at a cook shop and carried it upstairs.
“Everett, when you received those letters demanding money, was there a place discussed for you to meet and arrange this?” Bettina spread out the meal on a low table before the parlor fire. Everett tossed on more coal.
“I was directed to leave a package of money at this chandler shop on the outskirts of St. Giles. Hollis didn’t even bother to pretend there was a solicitor’s office, or try any legal haggling. More of his insane, blatant greed.” Everett took a bite of pie and chewed slowly. “Pete has staked out the shop, but never saw Hollis go near it.”
“Why do you not drop off a letter there, telling Hollis you will meet with him?” Bettina tasted the overcooked beef and onions. She swished a swallow of the weak ale in her mouth, then stretched her hands toward the fire. “No, you should address it to the phony solicitor.”
“I’ve been thinking of doing just that. Contacting this Mister Jones—very original—just to ask more questions pertaining to the matter.” Everett took a drink of ale and sighed. “Details about Miriam.”
“Yes, say you want to discuss a financial settlement for Miriam Camborne. Hollis may have someone working there who keeps in touch or checks the shop in case anything is left.” Bettina rubbed the back of her neck, a weariness creeping over her.
“And if Hollis is desperate enough, he’ll send someone to pose as this so
licitor. Then I’ll see what kind of person I’m dealing with.” Everett ate the last bite of pie. “I could insist on meeting with Hollis through him. Of course, then I’d have to admit that I know my brother-in-law is behind all this, supposedly in league with my estranged wife.”
“Tell him you are pretty certain, and promise to settle money on Hollis and Miriam if Miriam agrees to a divorce, because you want them both out of your life.” Bettina stood and brushed the crumbs from the table, tossing them into the fireplace. “But Hollis has to meet with you face-to-face.”
Everett chuckled. “You have a devious mind for a nobleman’s daughter.”
“And the meeting must be away from this St. Giles, with Pete and others close by.” She raised her arms and stretched like a cat, and saw his gaze turn desirous. “Then you will have him and force his confession, if he has one.”
Everett stood and pulled her toward him. “If he’s foolish enough to fall for it.”
* * * *
The next morning, Bettina flipped through the paper as the coach squeezed through the London streets. “According to Le Courrier de Londres, many émigrés have settled in the Soho district, a place with a French flare because it was settled by Huguenots in the previous century.”
“I know the area. We’ll visit there as well.” Everett rested is arm over her shoulders.
“There is a bookshop there called Dulau on Wardour Street, where émigrés trade gossip and inquire about relatives.” Her excitement rising, she gripped the pages with a crackle. The coach bumped into a neighborhood of elegant, cream-colored townhomes.
“My sources say the émigré nobility settled here in Marylebone, also originally populated by Huguenots.” Everett had the coach driver stop. They stepped out into crisp chilly air. Bettina’s stomach tangled in knots as he escorted her into one of the homes to speak to a displaced aristocrat.
Betrayed Countess (Books We Love Historical Romance) Page 27