The Viscount's Revenge (The Royal Ambition Series Book 4)

by M C Beaton

  Lord Hawksborough was waiting for her in the hall in a many-caped driving coat and with a curly-brimmed beaver set to a nicety on his black curls.

  “Where are you going?” demanded Susan’s voice from the first landing.

  “I am taking Miss Colby for a drive,” answered Lord Hawksborough.

  “Then I am coming too. Wait for me!” shouted Susan.

  Amanda looked like a child who has found its birthday has been forgotten.

  “Would you rather she did not come?” asked Lord Hawksborough.

  “No,” lied Amanda. “I should like it above all things.”

  Susan was soon back wearing a lumpy pelisse over a high-ruffed morning gown. Her bonnet had such a huge poke that her face was invisible.

  Amanda felt piqued and cross. She had imagined herself cutting a bit of a dash being escorted by the handsome viscount. Now the company of sulky Susan reduced the whole glory of the outing to a schoolgirl expedition.

  Amanda had not slept well, which had soured her temper. Used to the quiet of the countryside, she found herself tossing and turning during the night as her ears were assaulted with the sounds of sleepless London.

  The watchman, whose business was not merely to guard the streets and take charge of the public security, informed Berkeley Square every half-hour of the weather and the time. For the first three hours, Amanda was informed it was a moonlight night and all was well, at half-past three that it was a cloudy morning, and so on until six, when the stentorian voice of the watchman informed her that the sun was up. The rumble of the night coaches had scarcely ceased before the rattle of the morning carts began. Then came the dustman with his bell and his chant of “Dust-ho!”; then came the watchman again; then the porterhouse boy clattering pewter pots; then the milkman, and, among other cries, a shrill piercing voice selling fresh green peas.

  Amanda was further annoyed to find that Susan had every intention of sitting bodkin between herself and Lord Hawksborough.

  “Where are we going?” demanded Susan.

  “All around the town,” replied his lordship cheerfully with a flourish of his whip.

  The light curricle moved off. Amanda tried to steal a look at Lord Hawksborough but found her view obstructed by Susan’s enormous poke bonnet, which hung like a penthouse over her sulky face.

  She decided to enjoy the view and pretend that Susan did not exist.

  The morning’s brief sun had disappeared and the winter’s day was dark.

  Amanda was bewildered by the amount of goods displayed in the shops and by the roar of the town.

  The lower floors of the shops seemed to be made entirely of glass, with many thousands of candles lighting up silverware, engravings, books, clocks, glass, pewter, paintings, gold, precious stones, steelwork, and women’s finery. There were endless coffee rooms and lottery shops. The apothecaries’ windows glowed with giant bottles shining with purple, yellow, verdigris-green, or amber light. The confectioners’ dazzled the eye with their candelabra shining over hanging festoons of Spanish grapes. Pretty shop girls in silk caps and little silk trains moved about among pyramids of cakes and oranges, tarts and pineapples.

  The traffic was immense, the streets crowded with chaises, carriages, and drays. Above the hubbub of thousands of voices sounded chimes from the church towers, postmen’s bells, organs, fiddles, hurdy-gurdies, tambourines, and the cries of the vendors selling hot and cold food at the street corners.

  The very noise made conversation impossible, a fact Amanda would have regretted had not the taciturn Susan been present.

  The viscount then threaded his way around and down to the shabby little ancient streets of Westminster, where they alighted and walked around the Abbey, looking at the sooty walls and crumbling monuments. From there they went to the Tower to see the King’s jewels and the menagerie of wild animals; then to the British Museum beside Bloomsbury Fields to view the Parthenon marbles, recently brought from Athens. Back to the City, and the Royal Exchange with its piazza where foreigners in strange and wonderful costumes haggled with top-hatted Englishmen; and so to the Bank of England, where a private company of financiers was raising a handsome building behind high walls.

  Lord Hawksborough seemed to know everyone everywhere he went. Amanda felt her head would burst trying to retain all the information she heard.

  The only thing to mar the outing was the fact that everyone seemed to treat herself and Susan as schoolgirls his lordship was being gracious enough to entertain.

  Lord Hawksborough treated them both to ices at Gunter’s and then drove them back to Berkeley Square. Susan had hardly said a word during the whole tour.

  When his lordship left the girls in the hall, Amanda followed Susan upstairs.

  “Well, thank goodness that’s over,” said Susan, untying the strings of her poke bonnet.

  “I wonder you bothered to come,” remarked Amanda crossly.

  Susan turned on the half-landing and gave Amanda a bright stare out of her black eyes. “I wanted to make sure Lady Mary’s property was being guarded,” she said with that quick toss of her black hair.

  Amanda went scarlet, thinking of the jewels, thinking that Susan was calling her a thief.

  “I am not in the habit of stealing!” said Amanda hotly.

  “Then make sure you do not steal another woman’s fiancé,” retorted Susan, and stumped off down the corridor before Amanda had time to reply.

  Amanda was furious, and then, as she went into her bedroom, her fury was replaced with a sort of comfortable glow. It was pleasant in a way to be regarded as dangerous where Lord Hawksborough was concerned, if only by his eccentric sister.

  Amanda spent the next few minutes exploring the contents of her room more fully. She found a pristine diary in a drawer in the writing table, and after a moment’s hesitation, sat down, and taking up a brassnibbed pen, began to write about her tour around the sights of London, and then of all her worries about the robbery, and her hopes that Richard would find a way to restore the jewels.

  When she had finished, she looked about for some place to hide the diary where it would not be found by the servants.

  Finally she stood on a chair and put it on the top of the tallboy at the back where it could not be seen by anyone standing at floor level.

  She dusted her hands and climbed down. The house was very silent—silent now that her ears had become accustomed to the noises of the town outside.

  Amanda decided to make her way to the library to see if she could find something to read.

  She had a faint hope she might find Lord Hawksborough there so that perhaps they might talk without the company of angry Susan.

  She was disappointed to find that although Lord Hawksborough was in the library, he was not alone.

  “Come in, Miss Amanda,” called the viscount as she hesitated in the doorway. “I would like you to meet the famous Bow Street Runner, Mr. Townsend. I feel sure he will catch those highwaymen for me.”

  Was it a trick of the light or had Miss Colby gone extremely pale? wondered Lord Hawksborough. But she came forward and dropped a curtsy, sending the Bow Street Runner a green sidelong look from under her lashes.

  Mr. Townsend was a very smart, portly man, “clean as paint,” to use his own expression. He wore a most peculiar costume. He was encased in a light and loud suit, knee breeches and short gaiters, and a white hat of great breadth of brim. In his hand he carried a tiny baton with a gilt crown on the top.

  He acknowledged Amanda’s curtsy with a clumsy bow and then turned to Lord Hawksborough to continue his conversation.

  “So, as I was saying, my lord, I’ll snaffle ’em for you. Wearing wigs, you think? And masks? I’ll snaffle them coves and then get ’em to doff their sham phizzes, and we’ll see who we’ve got for Jack Ketch. Drawing and quartering’s too good for the likes o’ them.”

  “Have… have you any idea who these villains might be?” asked Amanda in a sort of dry whisper.

  “Not yet, my pretty,” said t
he Runner, taking a sip from the glass of wine that Lord Hawksborough had handed him. “And that’s odd,” he went on, “for I thought I knew every kiddy on the High Toby lay. I thinks this is the work o’ some lucky amateurs.

  “Think, begging your lordship’s permission, I’ll take a journey down to that Hember Cross and sniff around.”

  Amanda sat down suddenly.

  “Yes, Miss Colby,” said Mr. Townsend, staring at her from under the sort of combined eaves of his flaxen wig and his large hat, “everyone who’s anyone will tell you Townsend of Bow Street is the best. Two young noblemen came up to me one day near the palace, and one of these here sprigs says to the other, ‘I will introduce you to old Townsend, I know him well. Come here, Townsend!’ says he, with great hauteur, at the same time taking a pinch of snuff. ‘I wish to ascertain a fact; but ’pon my honour, I do not intend to distress your feelings. In the early part of your life were you not a coal heaver?’ ‘Yes, my lord,’ I answers, ‘it is very true,’ says I. ‘But let me tell your lordship, if you had been reared up as a coal heaver, you would have remained a coal heaver up to the present hour.’”

  “Very well, Townsend,” said Lord Hawksborough, ignoring this tale, “you may go to Hember Cross with my blessing.”

  The Runner tossed off the rest of his wine and cast the viscount a sly look. “Very good wine, thank ’ee, my lord. Minds me of when I met the Duke of Clarence in St. James’s Park. I told him, ‘I am just come from your royal brother, who gave me two bottles of the best wine. ‘Well,’ says the duke, ‘come and see me, Townsend, and I promise to give you as good a bottle as my brother York.’”

  The Runner looked hopefully at Lord Hawksborough, who rang the bell. “Hughes,” he said to the butler. “Please see that Mr. Townsend is given a few bottles of burgundy.”

  Much gratified and with many promises to “get the villains,” the Runner took his leave.

  “Come near the fire,” said Lord Hawksborough, looking anxiously at Amanda. “You look cold and frightened. You must not let old Townsend frighten you. He is a great bag of wind. He has a reputation of being successful as a thief-taker, but I sometimes fear he is a bit of an imposter.”

  “Do you hate those highwaymen so very much?” asked Amanda in a low voice.

  “My dear Miss Colby, I simply want legal vengeance. I do not wish to strangle them with my bare hands myself. I want them sentenced at the Old Bailey and then dancing on the end of a rope.”

  Amanda’s hand flew to her throat. “Perhaps they were very hungry and had no money.”

  “Robbing honest citizens is a crime, Miss Amanda. Let us talk of more pleasant things. Did you enjoy your journey around the sights of London?”

  “Oh, yes. Thank you,” said Amanda, determined to banish her fears for the moment.

  “I hope to be able to entertain you a little this week, Miss Amanda, before I take my leave. Do sit down.”

  “Take your leave?” echoed Amanda faintly. “Where? Why?”

  “I have certain business to conduct for the government of a delicate nature which involves travelling abroad.”

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “A month or two. Do not look so stricken. You feel abandoned by your brother and now by me. But you will find my mother’s bark is worse than her bite and she will set herself to entertain you royally. She has agreed to your allowance. As for Susan…” He frowned for a moment, turning his wineglass in his long fingers. “I am worried about Susan. She is a difficult child. She misses our father very much. He died when she was ten years old. Perhaps you might make an effort, Miss Colby, to find why she is so… er… prickly. You will do that for me?”

  He smiled at her, a blinding smile, and Amanda felt she would do anything for him.

  “I shall miss you,” she said, her gold-tipped lashes veiling her eyes.

  “Will you?” he teased. “How much, I wonder. Desperately? Passionately?”

  “My lord—”

  “I know, I should not speak so. I am an old bachelor and about to be an old married man.”

  “When? When will you be married?”

  “I do not know, my elf. This year.”

  “You must be very much in love,” said Amanda shyly.

  There was a silence and she looked up at him quickly. His eyes were hooded. He sat very still, looking at the dregs of his wine.

  “I admire and respect Lady Mary,” he said at last.

  “Is that enough?”

  “You are impertinent, Miss Colby.”

  “I am sorry, my lord. I do not know much of the world. Perhaps I read too many romances. I had always hoped to marry for love.”

  “Then you may be one of the lucky ones.” He sighed. “I had dinner with Lord Byron at Kinnaird’s. He is to marry Miss Millbanke next month, you know, but I do not think the attachment is very romantic. Not what one would expect of a poet anyway. Kean was there—the famous actor. He is a marvellous raconteur.

  “He told us that at Stroud in Gloucestershire, in one single night’s performance, he acted Shylock, danced on the tightrope, sang a song called ‘The Storm,’ sparred with Mendoza, and acted Three-Fingered Jack. He said that one other night he forgot his part, and recited Milton’s Allegro instead, without the audience appearing to notice the difference. Then he gave us imitations of Incledon, Kemble, Sinclair, and Master Betty, which were very fine. He said he could only act his part properly when acting with a pretty woman. I thought Byron would be encouraged to betray some warmth of feeling and talk about his love, but he never mentioned Miss Millbanke’s name to us once.”

  “Is there such a thing as love?” asked Amanda boldly. “Or is it only in poems and books?”

  “I think I am just becoming aware that such a thing might exist,” he said with a wicked glint in his eye.

  “Of course,” said Amanda nervously. “Lady Mary is a very beautiful woman.”

  “And she is not here. But you are.”

  “My lord, you are flirting again. And let me tell you that your sister accompanied us today in order, as she put it, ‘to protect Lady Mary’s property.’”

  “The devil she did!”

  “I was very flattered,” said Amanda primly. “I am not in the way of being considered a femme fatale.”

  “You will be,” he said dryly. “I do not often behave so badly. If you set up in my respectable bosom this compulsion to flirt, I shudder to think of the effect you will have on less staid men.”

  “You do not look staid. You look… devilish.”

  “I preferred your earlier compliments, Miss Colby. I study my legs in the looking glass every day now and am become as vain of them as Mr. Romeo Coates is of his.”

  Amanda suddenly felt painfully shy. “Where is your mother, Mrs. Fitzgerald?” she asked.

  “About the town with your aunt, making calls.”

  “And what do you do this evening, my lord?”

  “I shall go to Watier’s and gamble with the Pinks of the Ton. Why did you turn so pale when you saw Mr. Townsend?” he asked abruptly.

  Oh, the jewels, thought Amanda wretchedly. Always the jewels! Oh, that she and Richard had never done such a thing. She hesitated, deciding at last to tell him the truth and throw herself on his mercy, deciding that she could not bear this great burden of guilt any longer.

  “I think it was because he smells of the gallows,” said the viscount, answering for her. “You must not be so softhearted, Miss Amanda. Such low villains are not worth your pity.”

  “What if… if they came to you and confessed?”

  “They would need to be tried by court of law.”

  “Even if they were truly repentant?”

  “This is hypothetical. Any men who will rob defenceless women and old servants do not know the words remorse or pity.”

  “Oh,” said Amanda dismally, her courage failing her.

  “Do not look so sad. You think these low creatures are like yourself, with human feelings of compassion and conscience.

>   “Let me assure you, they are lower than animals! Now, to more pleasant things. I shall have a chance to dance with you once more. We have been invited to a ball at the Bartons’ on Friday. Lord and Lady Barton are young and amusing. We have told them of your presence and you are now included in the invitation. Susan will no doubt find you something to wear. Most of society has gone to the country, but it will be a good opportunity for you and Susan to become accustomed to the ways of the world. And I have further intelligence to make your green eyes shine.”