“Unfortunately our bird is very sure of your veracity as far as money is concerned,” he replied. “Or seems to be. I hope I have planted the seeds of doubt.”
Her hand rested lightly on Ingram’s arm, but her fingers twitched with the nervousness she felt just being close to him. How could they talk like this and not discuss what had happened between them just the night before? He had kissed her, a long lingering kiss that had left her with little doubt of her feelings toward him.
He, unfortunately, was still very much a mystery to her, a delicious enigma. He was treating her now with the cool, disinterested attitude of friendship, and it made her jumpy and anxious. But how could she expect anything else? She knew so little of him, really, but what he had told her as they walked and talked these few times. If he was like most men, though, he would not be interested in a vinegary, plain spinster of intellectual bent. He would probably prefer a fiery Italian opera singer, or a Cockney shopgirl, or . . . a million other women than a virtuous spinster of a certain age. And despite his unprepossessing looks, Lord Ingram was a force to be reckoned with, a powerful man many women would be drawn to, handsome or not.
They had been silent for a few minutes. They really had nothing more to talk about. When Dorsey arrived at one, it was now up to Ariadne to heighten his doubts, magnify his worries. She knew her job very well.
He stood staring out at the river, the play of thoughts and emotions on his rugged face fascinating to her. How she would love to watch him, touch him, know him more deeply. He interested her in a way no man ever had before, though she had had her share of infatuations, all of them unrequited.
His dark brows drew down over eyes the color of coal, and he shook his head. A self-effacing smile flitted over his lips, and he sighed. He turned and said, “I suppose we ought to get back, Miss Lambert.”
“Ari. You called me Ari once.”
“Ari. Airy. Aerie. Aery.” He varied the pronunciation each time, subtly, lingering over the syllables, his deep voice husky.
She loved the sound of his voice, melodious, with a burr. It was like the purr of the giant cat he resembled. “What shall I call you? Ingram does not seem to fit, though it is proper, I know.”
He shrugged. “My name is Lovell Melcher.”
She smiled suddenly. “Shall I call you Love?”
His dark eyes widened and he seemed arrested in mid-breath. “What did you say?”
“N-nothing,” she said, alarmed. “It was just a . . . a joke. On your name . . . Lovell.”
“Oh.” He took her arm. “I should get you back.”
“Yes. I must prepare for my piece.”
They returned to her home with no further conversation, and he departed.
* * *
Ariadne sat with her hands folded. She wore her most hideous dress, one she had forgotten about, so desperately unflattering was it, and her glasses, and had a hank of knitting on her lap, something fuzzy and amorphous. She should have borrowed a few of the scroungy cats from the livery stable at the inn, but hadn’t thought of it in time.
She had to make this convincing. It was imperative that Dorsey be uneasy, alarmed, and to that end she must appear worried and frightened. So she began to think of the most difficult periods in her life; it was not hard, for her existence had not been without turmoil.
There had been times of great pain: when she was fifteen she had lost both parents within a fortnight of each other to a cholera epidemic, and before that she had suffered through her baby sister’s death from typhus. She had struggled with little money, just enough to get by for a long time, until her financial affairs had been straightened out by a kind great-uncle.
She felt the leaden weight of the old pain descend. She had been just getting to know him—he had been benevolence personified, and had been going to adopt her as his heir—and then he died suddenly of an apoplectic fit before any formal arrangement had been made. Just nineteen, she was alone again.
His sister had been the one to whom she finally turned and there was a measure of peace in her household, at least. She had not been a warm woman, though good at heart and grateful for Ariadne’s care. Ill for many years, her death, though sad, had meant freedom for the poor woman.
And freedom and plenty for Ariadne, at last.
Dolly came to the door, her blue eyes wide and her cheeks pink. “Gentleman to see you, miss,” she said, breathlessly.
“Show him in.”
Dolly had not reacted that way over Ingram, so this must be the fair-of-form and foul-of-mind Dorsey. Ariadne took a bit of the tender flesh on her arm and pinched, very hard. Tears welled up in her eyes.
“Miss Lambert . . . Ariadne, I am so happy . . .” Dorsey, hat in hand, advanced into the room toward her.
Ariadne raised her face to him, knowing her tear-filled eyes behind the glasses must appear huge.
“My dear,” Dorsey said, in melting tones. “What is wrong?” He sat in the chair by her, placing his hat on the floor underneath it.
Sniffing, Ariadne raised her voice and injected a whine into it. “M-my solicitor, beastly man, has just left. He tells me I will have to leave this house! I c-can’t afford it!”
“What?” Dorsey’s tone was hollow.
“And I have been so economical, only hiring one male servant, not eating beef but once a week. And no beeswax candles, only tallow!” She sobbed and took off her spectacles, dabbing at her eyes with a scrap of a handkerchief.
“Surely just a mistake,” Dorsey said. “You cannot be turned from a house you own . . .”
“But I do not own this house, I just rented it for the Season. I wanted to see what life was like in London. Oh, and it has been just a dream! First, Olivia, who is an old school acquaintance, has been so kind and gotten me invitations to all her fine functions, though I know we do not travel in the same circles at all. And then . . .” Ariadne sighed. “And then I met you, dearest Edward. I am so fortunate. Just as I am having to face the unpleasant truth that I shall have to go back to Upper Little Thrapston . . .”
“Go back to . . . where?”
“Upper Little Thrapston. My home village. I shall have to rent a tiny cottage there . . . just enough room for two!” She giggled idiotically and sighed, putting her hand over his. “You can work for the vicar, Mr. Post—he is quite elderly and needs help writing his sermons—and I can raise chickens and sell the eggs. We shall manage!” She gave her fiancé a watery smile. “Together, man and wife, forever and ever!” she cooed.
Chapter Eleven
“Ingram, may I have a word with you?”
The viscount laid down the paper he had been perusing in the reading room of his moderately priced club, Aleworthy’s. He looked up at Dorsey and nodded. “Certainly. Hope there is nothing amiss?”
“N-not at all,” Dorsey stuttered. “Just need the name of that fellow you said could find out a person’s worth discreetly.”
“Ah, yes.” Ingram leisurely stretched and put his hands behind his head. “He is a banker, but with an affection for the betting books. Always needs a little cash.”
“Where can I meet him?”
“Where? He will not risk meeting you in a public place. After all, not the done thing to sell information like that. I will tell you after I speak to him. I can make an appointment for you tonight, if you are in a rush. Hope nothing has gone wrong between you and the inestimable Miss Lambert?”
“N-not a thing.” Dorsey’s downy upper lip was beaded with sweat and he was turning his hat around in his hands.
Ingram watched him for a moment, then signaled to one of the waiters who stood discreetly waiting for just such a summons. “Brandy, Donald, and be generous.” He grabbed the papers that were piled on the chair beside him—they discouraged those who would perch and chat—and indicated it. “Have a seat, Dorsey. You look like a man who needs a drink.”
“Much obliged, Ingram.” Dorsey dropped into the chair and put his head in his hands, groaning.
“So, I take it f
rom your request to see my banker friend that things are not all that you thought?”
“She talks of giving up her leased Chelsea house. Thought from the way she talked formerly that she owned it. And she wants me to work for the vicar in Upper something or other Throck-something. The vicar! Writing his deuced sermons, or some such nonsense. And she talks of keeping chickens!”
Ingram silently congratulated Ariadne on a brilliant ploy. A whiff of the cloth was more potent than anything else when it came down to a gambling-addicted young man. And chickens? Brilliant. Nothing more prosy or boring than chickens.
“But if you are going to marry her,” he drawled, “you will be dealing with her solicitor when you do the marriage agreement. Whatever she has will come to you. You will find out then what she is worth.”
“I cannot wait,” he said, nervously, wringing his hands over and over each other. “It will be too late once the papers are being drawn up. If she is not flush, then I will need to find a way to get m’self out of it. I need money, and soon.”
Ingram stared at Dorsey. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-seven or eight, and yet he had already embarked on a career that was sure to see him in either Marshalsea or Newgate before long. Ingram had done his research; Dorsey’s late wife had left him in possession of ten thousand pounds, an amount that should have been adequate for his sustenance for many years, if he had lived frugally. But there was nothing of that left and the young man’s creditors were becoming impatient.
He had used up his credit at the hotel he had been residing at and now had rooms at a boardinghouse in Cheapside. The young woman who acted as Dorsey’s sister was, of course, his mistress, and lived there with him under the name of Miss Anne Dorsey. But before she had assumed that identity, she had been called Mrs. Bonnie Chandler and had lived in the seaside town of Ilfracombe in Exmoor. Mr. Chandler, a rather burly merchant seaman, was still looking for her.
All this Ingram had culled from discreet questioning and a tidy sum dispensed to a smart little inquiry agent, as he called himself, a small gentleman who made his money by ferreting out secrets others would rather leave mysterious.
The brandy arrived and was decanted generously. Dorsey drank it like it was cheap hock. He drank like a man desperate. All the better. It was going to be an interesting evening.
* * *
When the message arrived Ariadne was struggling with phrases to describe the salubrious nature of the air in Chelsea, for a chapter of her book on the Thames. No matter what she did, the words came out dry and dull. As it stood, no one thinking clearly would read England’s Artery: The Thames and Its Tributaries except the most avid river buff. Assuming anyone would publish such rubbish.
Perhaps she was not a writer after all.
The message was a welcome respite. She threw down her quill, sending a spattering of ink over the white tablecloth, and took the paper from her lazy footman, James, who then sauntered off to do nothing somewhere else. The note was brief and to the point, in a slanting, compact hand that was typical of the writer.
The game is on; the prey has been flushed. Set the hounds to baying.
Immediately, Ariadne scribbled a note to Olivia and rushed to get ready. It was going to be an interesting evening.
* * *
In the shadows of the trees that lined the Embankment near Chelsea Old Church, Ariadne waited for the signal. Olivia, draped in black and veiled, too, hushed her companion, who was prone, it seemed, to a kind of moaning monologue that Ariadne had tired of in the first three minutes of their acquaintance.
A fog rose from the river; Ariadne wiped her glasses impatiently, and looked at the watch pinned to the bosom of her dark wool spencer.
Five minutes to midnight. Ingram had a surprisingly dramatic turn of mind when it came to setting the scene. They could have done all of this in her drawing room, but they must needs gather in the foggy gloom because Ingram said so. For a man who seemed so pragmatic on the surface, it was an interesting glimpse into his character. The timing and the setting could not have been more theatrical, the scrape of a boat bobbing at a dock, the fog, the sound of water rats skittering too close for comfort. And behind them, Chelsea Old Church loomed, the belltower clear against the moonlit clouds.
Midnight tolled.
The sound of footsteps echoed, and Ariadne’s heart beat faster, catching up with the impatient tattoo of booted heels. Tonight would either see the end of Dorsey’s career as a scoundrel and blackmailer or he would be turned in to the authorities. And tonight would see the end of her own association with Lord Ingram, for what could he possibly have in common with a bluestocking spinster? His kisses must have been an aberration, a strange whimsy in a man known to walk his own path with little regard for the feelings of others.
But it was no time to be thinking of Ingram’s intoxicating kisses. She straightened and stood, waiting. Olivia’s companion, veiled like her friend, was leaning heavily against her. Near the church by the wrought iron fence that topped a low brick wall, a dark figure lingered, but Ariadne could not make out who it was; a confederate of Ingram’s perhaps.
She could see the figures of Ingram and Dorsey now looming out of the fog, Ingram with the bolder step and broader shoulder, his caped greatcoat fluttering around his booted legs as he strode forward. Dorsey, now that the time was near, appeared hesitant, sensing perhaps that he was not coming for the purpose he had been led to believe. He skittered behind Ingram.
She stepped forward, into the very faint light shed by the church gatehouse’s lamp.
“Here,” she said, her voice muffled in the eddying fog.
Ingram took Dorsey’s arm and guided him forward. He hung back now, like a dog unwillingly returned to a cruel master.
“What is going on, Ingram?” he said, his voice quavering.
Olivia stepped forward now, with her veiled friend. “Dorsey,” she said, her voice trembling. She threw back her black veil and dramatically pointed one finger. “I accuse you of the base crime of blackmail.”
Ariadne reflected that her friend had more in common with Ingram than she would likely confess. It was like bad theater, melodramatic and trite.
“What?” Dorsey’s eyes widened. “I don’t understand.” Quivering, he took a step back, but was held firm by the viscount’s iron grip. “I am not now, nor have I ever been a blackmailer.”
The other woman stepped forward and pushed back her veil. She was revealed to be an older woman, with a round, handsome face. “Edward,” she said, in the moaning voice Ariadne had come to despise. “Please, just give me back the letters!” She put out her gloved hands beseechingly.
“Henrietta?” Dorsey stared at her, his expression mingled relief and anger. “What are you doing here? I told you to leave me alone.”
Ariadne frowned.
Ingram said, “Do not try to weasel out of this one, Dorsey.” He had a firm hold on the younger man’s arm.
“I am not trying to . . . I say, what is going on here?” Dorsey began to struggle. “Miss Lambert? What are you doing here, and with—”
Olivia said, impatiently, “Henrietta, tell him! Tell him that if he tries to blackmail you about those letters you will see him in Newgate, no matter what the consequences.”
The rotund woman looked sheepish, and said, “I do want my letters back, Edward. And you! Oh, Edward, my love, come back to me!”
With that, she threw herself down at Dorsey’s feet while he stared down at her in wide-eyed puzzlement.
Ingram released Dorsey’s arm and pulled the woman to her feet. “Madam, do I understand this correctly?” His voice was dry and almost amused. “Dorsey never blackmailed you. You used us to corner him for you and accost him. Perhaps you even hoped to force him back into your bed.”
“I love him! I will always love him. He knows that. After what we have been to each other—”
“Stop!” Dorsey, looking hideously embarrassed, said, “Henrietta, I hold you in the highest esteem, but I told you it was over.
You shouldn’t have followed me here from Brighton.”
Olivia Beckwith, a disgusted look on her face, said, “Henrietta Godersham, I cannot believe you let me make a fool of myself like this. I am going back to my husband before he calls in my physician. I have had to conceal all of this from him, and he has been most alarmed by my behavior of late. Good-bye to all of you.” She pulled her veil back down over her face, but then impatiently threw it back up over her hat. “Can’t see a blessed thing with that on. Ari, I will see you on the morrow. My apologies to all, but I am washing my hands of this affair.” She turned and left, her footsteps echoing in the fog until she disappeared. The distant sound of a horse’s hooves came to them after a moment.
The figure that had been lingering along the church wall—Ariadne had forgotten about that loiterer in the drama of the moment—broke away from the shadows and raced over to their strange group. It was the young woman who had been posing as Dorsey’s sister. “Edward, what are they doing to you?”
“Bonnie,” he groaned. “I told you to stay home. I told you I would take care of you, and I will.”
Ingram grabbed Dorsey by the collar of his coat and said, “Well, at least you can turn over the letters to Mrs. Godersham, or I will send a note to this young lady’s husband—this Anne who is not Anne at all, but Mrs. Bonnie Chandler—as to her whereabouts. It has come to my attention that he is looking for her, after you basely tempted her away from his protection. Unless you do what I say, I will return her to him.”
Anne/Bonnie screamed and staggered, and Ariadne found her own services as support necessary. She fanned the girl’s face. “For heaven’s sake, Ingram, must you be so gruff?”
Chagrined, the viscount said, “Good God, I just said I would send her back to her husband! I do not understand any of this, except that Dorsey does still have this lady’s letters.” He indicated the weeping Henrietta Godersham.
“Please, Ingram, do not contact Chandler,” Dorsey said, his hands clasped in a pleading gesture. “I will do anything. Henrietta can have back her letters; I never wanted them in the first place.” He took the weeping Anne/Bonnie in his arms and held her close. “Just do not contact Chandler. He is a brute and a monster and will kill her if she is forced to go back to him. Especially . . . especially in the state she is in.”
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