Damsel in Distress?

Home > Other > Damsel in Distress? > Page 10
Damsel in Distress? Page 10

by Kristina O'Grady


  “Thank you.” He got to his feet and his voice returned to how it was when he arrived. “Here ye be, then.” He withdrew a large purse from the inside pocket of his coat and dropped it into her hands. “I’ll see ye get more.”

  Veronica stood there, looking at the bag full of money lying in her hands long after he left the house. It was a long time before she could bring herself to climb the stairs and get back into bed.

  Chapter 26

  Later that afternoon Harriet was in her room preparing for Cressandra’s dear friend Arabella’s musical. No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t Arabella’s musical but her mother’s. Oh this was getting confusing. Her mother wasn’t playing in the musical, but hosting it. Harriet’s brain hurt from trying to sort it out in her head. Nevertheless, she was going to a musical tonight when all she really wanted to do was sleep.

  It was luckily she and Cressandra were the same size and her new-found friend had lent her enough gowns that she didn’t need to purchase any for herself. Not that Philip hadn’t offered to pay for her to have a whole new wardrobe; he had insisted actually, but she couldn’t bring herself to be any more beholden to him. He had already saved her life, which was a big enough debt to repay without adding monetary items to the tally.

  Rebecca came from her wardrobe holding two dresses for her to choose from. The green one immediately caught her eye, with its rich tones. It was dark emerald green and each fold of the fabric showed a different shade of the material.

  “Thank you, Rebecca, I think the green one is lovely.” Harriet smiled at her and reached for the gown.

  Rebecca handed her the dress and turned to replace the other back into the wardrobe.

  “Wait.” Harriet caught a glimpse of the other gown that Rebecca held against her chest. It was a brilliant cobalt blue. “Wow,” she whispered. “It’s absolutely gorgeous. Can I wear that one instead, Rebecca please?”

  The young maid laughed, “Of course you may, my lady, it is your dress after all. You will look stunning in it.” The girl ducked her head with a shy smile. “Sorry my lady, I speak out of turn.”

  “Oh Rebecca, you can tell me any time that I look stunning!” Harriet grasped the girl’s hands once she had laid the dress on the bed and waited for her to raise her eyes. “I may not be like other ladies about this house. Please know you can always speak your mind to me. Especially about fashion. I wouldn’t want to go out looking less than wonderful.”

  Rebecca’s eyes widened and she gave a quick nod before turning back to her work. Harriet sighed and allowed herself to be helped into the dress. She stood in front of the mirror while Rebecca lowered the dress over her head. It was a wonder as to how the girl reached high enough to get it over her head. Harriet turned her head and spotted her maid standing atop a box. Well, that explains it.

  This time Rebecca wove little blue flowers through her hair, managing to complement the colour of her dress. The door opened the exact moment Rebecca slid the last flower into her hair. “Aren’t you ready yet, dear? We shan’t be late. Come Harriet, Charles has the carriage waiting.”

  With a quick thank you to her maid, Harriet grabbed her wrap and hurried out the door after Cressandra and into the waiting carriage.

  ***

  She sat in the back, Cressandra having abandoned her as soon as they walked into the room. Harriet didn’t mind. The rest of the people there pretended she wasn’t in the room. She supposed it was due to her destroying Mrs Barrett’s dress last night. She only wished she could be spending the night at home, snuggled up at home with a good book. But, Cressandra insisted the best way to avoid the scandal was to jump headfirst into the fray.

  Lady Bingham spotted her not long after she sat down and came to join her.

  “It’s so nice to see you again, Miss Harriet. Have you recovered from last night?” Lady Bingham was a petite lady with jet black hair gathered up in a most peculiar knot on the top of her head. “My husband, Jasper said he saw you this afternoon at Philip’s. Oh do forgive my familiarity, but I just can’t get used to using their titles. Is it alright if I call you Harriet?”

  “Of course you may, my lady, Miss Harriet sounds funny to my ears.”

  Lady Bingham cocked her head to the side and gave her a strange look. “Does it?” She leaned in close to Harriet and lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “ I am glad we have met, I hope we will be friends now. I believe we may have much in common.” Lady Bingham’s eyes sparkled, almost as if she held a secret, before she laughed and said, “Oh look, there is Miss Penderson, I must go speak with her, but do remember Harriet, you will always be welcome in my home.”

  Lady Bingham disappeared into the crowd of women and the spattering of men leaving Harriet gaping after her. She longed to chase her through the room and ask her all the questions now zooming around her head, but if Lady Bingham was off to see Miss Penderson, Harriet had no desire to reacquaint herself with that particular lady. She’d just have call on Lady Bingham tomorrow.

  Harriet turned her attention away from her surprising conversation with Lady Bingham and shifted in her seat to watch the audience move about the room, enjoying each other’s company before the recital commenced. She smiled to herself as she watched elegant elderly ladies totter around together, clutching teacups and biscuits in their hands. One lady in particular captured her attention. She watched unashamedly as the lady greeted each and every one of the attendants, receiving them as if she was the queen. A curt nod to the ones she obviously didn’t deem worthy enough of her time and warmly embracing those whom she did. Harriet smiled as the lady used her cane more for a weapon than a walking aid, thumping it down incredibly close to toes that were standing nearer than they should.

  As the musical was about to start the lady made her way over to where Harriet was sitting. Harriet sat as straight and still as she could, not wanting to draw any attention to herself.

  “Who are you?” The old lady didn’t bother exchanging niceties when she’d settled into the seat next to Harriet.

  Harriet opened her mouth, but nothing came out. The lady looked oddly familiar.

  “Cat got your tongue, has it? Harrumph.” The old lady continued to watch Harriet even as a young lady took the stage. “Well, are you going to tell me who you are?”

  She decided that honesty was probably the best policy at this moment. “My name’s Harriet. I’m staying with Lord Eaglestone and his sister Lady Cressandra.”

  “Ah, I thought you were the one. Great gumption you have for showing your face today. By all accounts you should be thrown out of society forever. I was there, but somehow missed your performance.” The lady looked Harriet directly in the eyes. “Not many women would dare to do what you did and then show up as though nothing was wrong.” She shook her head in wonder. “Genius.” She smiled somewhat wickedly. “They won’t know what to do with you.”

  The lady heaved herself out of the seat and patted Harriet on the hand before stalking off to the front row, not caring that she caused the young lady at the pianoforte to miss three notes.

  At the end of the recital, Harriet noticed there was a general warming to her compared to when she had arrived. And although no one was willing to come up to her and start a conversation, they at least no longer pretended that she didn’t exist.

  “The Duchess of Kensington took a shine to you tonight,” Cressandra commented on their way home in the carriage. “I heard her talking about your gumption or some such thing. How did you manage to acquire her support?”

  Harriet continued to look out the window and dreamt about the book lying on the armrest of the settee in the library. “I don’t really know,” she replied.

  Chapter 27

  The carriage pulled to a stop in front of number 7 Park Street. Cressandra stepped down first, with Harriet close behind. Cressandra stopped to talk with Charles once they had entered the foyer and Harriet made her way down the hallway to the library, pulling her gloves off along the way.

  Just inside the library
she dropped her gloves on the small side table resting just inside the door. She stopped in mid-step when she heard them fall to the floor instead of landing where she anticipated. Harriet stared at her gloves lying in a heap on the plush carpet. She was so intent on getting to her book, it took her a moment to register there was something wrong. The table was on its side. After living here for some weeks Harriet knew that Mrs Johnson would never allow anything to be in disarray, let alone knocked over.

  She slowly turned and looked around the rest of the room, searching for anything else that may be out of place. There was nothing as obvious as the table, but something wasn’t right. Then she spotted it. Her book. It was missing.

  “Cressandra?” she called over her shoulder as she walked further into the room, looking for anything else not quite right. “Cressandra,” she called again.

  No answer. Perhaps Cressandra had already taken herself up to bed. Harriet went back to the doorway to see if she could find her.

  The person she did see in the corridor was not her friend.

  The person she saw was a great hulking man with a big bushy beard and wild hair.

  ***

  He’d managed to find an empty room. Philip squinted at the bottle on the table before him. The bottle swam in and out of focus. He reached his hand out to stop it from moving around the table. He managed to grasp it around the neck without tipping it over and brought it to his lips. He had long forgone the glass. What was the point? No matter how often he refilled it, it didn’t seem to stay anything but empty. Now the bottle was empty as well. The last drop rolled onto his tongue.

  Damn that woman anyway. He couldn’t get the feel of her lips off his. The alcohol did nothing to numb that sensation. If anything, he could feel her all the nearer. The alcohol fuelled his imagination and he could now smell her in the room with him and on his clothes. He lifted his head off his chest –he hadn’t realised it had fallen – and looked around the room. If she was in here, he couldn’t see her. The world around him swayed and rolled and stubbornly remained out of focus. He grasped the arm of the chair he was sitting in tightly to stop it from tossing him onto the floor.

  Noises from below startled his head back off his chest again. He lost the grip on his chair and tumbled out of it. The noises abruptly stopped. Philip struggled to clear the alcoholic fog from his mind. There was something niggling in the far reaches of his thoughts, something important. Something that made him struggle to his feet and make his way to the door.

  Low voices reached his ears. He propped himself against the wall in the hallway and strained to make out what they were saying.

  “They’re not here.”

  “I heard the servants talking. One of them said they went out for the evening.”

  A growl emitted from someone’s lips.

  “It’ll give us a chance to search for the packet.”

  “Keep your voice down, we don’t want those servants you were talking about hearing you.”

  The packet. Suddenly everything zoomed into pin-point focus. The alcohol evaporated from his system and he was able to think more clearly than he ever had before. He didn’t know what was going on, but he did know that there was someone in his house looking for Harriet and the package she came with.

  But where was Harriet? He had told her to stay in the house, hadn’t he? No, now that he thought about it, he realised he hadn’t said any such thing. He prayed that by some miracle she had gone out tonight.

  Philip crept down the servants’ stairs, carefully avoiding the loose floorboards along the way. He was almost at the bottom when he heard her scream. The blood stopped in his veins at the sound.

  No longer caring if he woke the dead, he careened the rest of the way down the steps, leaping the last two and skidding across the floor. Two men he recognised from the park stood at the end of the hallway in front of Harriet’s room. They stopped in mid-conversation when he appeared.

  “There he is!” one of them shouted. The men advanced on him, slowly, as though they had all the time in the world.

  Harriet screamed again and Philip realised the time he had was limited. He needed to get to her and get her to safety. He shifted to the balls of his feet. He would make this quick.

  “We been looking for you, Lord Eaglestone.” The leader smiled mockingly. “Lucky that lady in this morning’s paper told us exactly where to find you. Our luck you’re at home too.” He cocked his ear to the sounds coming from the main floor. “Sounds as though our Princess is here too, doesn’t it? Harry will take care of her.”

  “Princess?” He wasn’t expecting that.

  “That’s what we like to call her. Now,” both men took a step closer, “why don’t you make things easy on yourself and tell us where the packet is?”

  “What packet?” Philip wasn’t telling them anything.

  The men exchanged looks. “We’re not as stupid as you look, Eaglestone. Where is the packet?” The leader spoke again, this time while he was cracking his knuckles.

  Philip waited until the other man took two more menacing steps towards him before he stepped back with one foot and braced himself. The fist he drove up into the man’s jaw was clearly unexpected. He hadn’t been going to The Turks sporting club since he was at Eton, for nothing. He felt bone crunch upon the impact and he hoped he’d broken the man’s jaw.

  The man crumpled to the ground but before he could relish the victory the second man rushed at him, tackling him about the knees. They both went down in a heap. Philip didn’t waste time on finesse, instead opting to throw punches wildly, connecting with soft paunchy stomach and hard head alike. They rolled across the hallway, close to the staircase which led to the entrance of the house.

  The man had a hold of Philip’s neck from behind. Oxygen was having trouble getting to his brain and stars started to appear in his vision. With one last heave, Philip managed to get onto his hands and knees. He bucked the man forward over the top of his shoulders and down the stairs he went. Philip crouched on all fours at the top and watched the man somersault to the bottom. It was a few moments before he was able to suck in enough air to make it to his feet. The man he had first hit was starting to stir.

  He cast one last look at the man before he stumbled down the stairs to search for Harriet.

  ***

  The man in front of Harriet smiled. His great mouth was full of great white teeth. She imagined this was what it would look like to stare at the mouth of a shark. A scream escaped from her lips and startled her enough to make her take a step back.

  The man’s smile slid from his face and he took a step towards her. “I’m not gonna hurt ya,” he said. Concern crinkled his brow.

  “Stay away from me! I know who you are!” Harriet couldn’t control the volume of her voice. She sounded shrill to her own ears. She backed away with each step he took towards her, essentially trapping herself in the library.

  He reached out a hand to stop her going further and she screamed again when he caught her sleeve. “Let me go!”

  “Quiet! I’m not going to hurt ya.” His barked order stilled her and for some unexplained reason she believed him. “Now listen, I only have time to say it once.” He waited for her to nod. “There are two more men here with me. They are upstairs searching for a packet you arrived here with. I must have that packet before they get it. Do you know where it is?”

  Harriet shook her head. Although she knew who had it, she didn’t know where it was.

  “Are ye sure? If the men upstairs find it, it’s all over.”

  “It’s not upstairs,” she managed to say.

  “Is it down here?” He cast a look about the room as though he expected it to leap off one of the shelves for him.

  Again she shook her head.

  “Do you know what is in it?”

  Harriet looked into the man’s eyes and thought there was something in them that was familiar. “I don’t remember,” she said.

  “Ye don’t remember? How could ye forget?” he asked disbel
ievingly.

  “I was kicked in the head!” He was making her angry now.

  “I suppose that would do it.” The man before her smirked.

  They both turned towards the door. There was a commotion on the stairs. The man released her abruptly. “I got to go.” He retreated to the doorway.

  “Wait,” she called. “What’s your name?”

  “They know me as Harry, but you can call me Rupert.”

  He slipped out the door and was gone. Moments later Philip skidded into the room, looking around for the danger.

  “Where is he? Where is the third one?”

  Before she could even open her mouth to answer, Charles appeared at the door. “My Lord? There seems to be some unwanted visitors in the house tonight.”

  “Yes, Charles,” Philip panted, clearly out of breath, “I was aware of that. Take the footmen and round them up, will you?”

  “Very good, sir.” Charles bowed low and left the room.

  “Harriet,” Philip breathed. “Are you all right?” He stepped closer.

  She nodded. “Yes,” she said. Her legs were wobbly and she had to sit down. She made her way over to the settee and collapsed into it.

  “I need to go and help. But before I go, I need to know where the third man is.”

  “He’s gone.” The pounding in her chest was quieting down and she could breathe easier now. “He didn’t want to hurt me. He didn’t hurt me,” she said.

  Philip physically relaxed somewhat. A small smile turned up one side of his lips. “I’ll be right back. Lock the door.” And he was gone.

  Chapter 28

  “They’ve escaped,” Philip said as soon as she unlocked the door to his knock. “We need to leave in case they come back tonight.” Philip swayed were he stood and for the first time Harriet took in how green he looked.

  “Philip, are you all right?” She placed a hand on his arm to steady him.

  He shook his head. “No,” he groaned.

  She looked him over, frantically trying to find out where he was maimed. “Where are you hurt?” She could hear the panic rising in her voice.

 

‹ Prev