His Lordship's Last Wager

by Miranda Davis

  “Maddening, eh?” Percy chuckled, “If only Ainsworth and Clun could see you now.”

  “Cork it, Percy.”

  Chapter 27

  In which a runner joins the chase.

  6 April 1817

  London

  “Mr. Stoker, I understand you are skilled at resolving situations that require,” the Duke of Bath chose his words carefully, “complete discretion.”

  “I do my best, Y’ Grace. Haven’t raised the dust yet,” Stoker replied. “I’m honored to be of service.”

  The Bow Street runner, Thomas Stoker, clasped his hands behind his back in a vaguely martial pose. He possessed a barrel chest propped up on stubby, bowed legs, giving one the impression his center of gravity was rather too close to the ground. He had a jowly face with droopy eyelids, pouches under his eyes, a pug nose, and an underbite. He reminded the duke of nothing so much as a bulldog.

  Pray God, he’s equally dogged.

  His grace snuffled, diverted by his own observation. But he recollected his purpose and assumed a more ducal mien.

  “My sister’s gone off—not gone off like rancid milk, run off—and I’d like you to track her down, snatch her up, and return her here. If you manage it without causing an uproar, I’ll double your fee.”

  Stoker never took his eyes off the duke, his expression impassive. He slipped his occurrence book from the pocket of his loose, dark coat and flipped to a fresh page. From another pocket, he removed a stubby graphite pencil and touched its tip to his tongue.

  George’s newly-hired, short-term employee finally spoke, “You’ll pardon my indelicacy, Y’ Grace, but has the lady run off with someone improper? Eloped, has she?”

  “God, no. She’s with Lord Seelye Burton for harebrained purposes all her own. He’s our brother-in-law, Mr. Stoker, a trusted friend and war hero, one of the Horseman of the Apocalypse. Heard of them, haven’t you?”

  “Indeed, I have. Very gallant.”

  “She’s bamboozled him into helping her, so I s’pose you’re rescuing him from her, but I’m payin’ you to fetch her back,” the duke emphasized. “Lord Seelye may find his own way home. I’ll deal with him later.”

  “I’m to bring her back quick an’ quiet an’ leave him be,” Stoker said, jotting notes.

  “Help him, if he needs it,” the duke added, “He may, after all. Jane has a mercurial, quarrelsome temperament, so one should probably assume the worst.”

  “I know of Lady Jane by reputation, if not by sight. Is she armed?”

  “Lord only knows, but you may not shoot her if she is. She’s a dead aim, but she’s never fired at anyone,” his grace said. “Sporting that way.”

  “Sporting,” Stoker repeated slowly. “She is not the only lady of quality with a knowledge of firearms, I believe.” His tone made clear his opinion of ladies of quality knowing how to use firearms.

  “Don’t I know it. She’s the one who taught all her friends how to shoot,” his grace said and added under his breath, “Did my forbidding it stop her? No, of course not.”

  “I’ve never but treated ladies with proper respect, Y’ Grace.”

  “All well and good but I know my sister. You’ll be tempted to make an exception.”

  The runner looked taken aback, which was just as well, thought George. Satisfied he’d given the man fair warning, he added another caution, “And then, of course, there’s her bear.”

  “Her bear,” Stoker repeated deliberately. He wrote a few words and looked up. “When did she go missing?”

  Relieved he didn’t have to belabor the bear issue, the duke told him she had a day’s head start, with no indication where she went after Reading, though she mentioned Athlingcourt in a note. How she intended to travel was anyone’s guess, making the runner’s task more difficult.

  From his desk, the duke withdrew Jane’s letter that he’d crumpled into a ball and Wymark had ironed smooth and passed it to the runner.

  Stoker read it and said he’d leave for Reading the next day.

  “My second coachman might know more, Mr. Stoker. Question him before you go.”

  “Very good, Y’ Grace. Now, as to her physical description—” Stoker continued.

  “Blonde. Fair. Blue eyes. Trim figure. Dresses well. Pretty in repose, one might say.” He frowned at that and reached for the bell cord. “I’ll have a miniature fetched, she’s almost never in repose.”

  “Concerning the bear, Y’ Grace.”

  His heart sank. “It’s a performing bear. Does tricks. Quite tame, I’m told.”

  “And if it’s not?”

  “Let Lord Seelye deal with it,” he replied, then amended, “You carry a firearm, yes? Shoot it, if necessary. My sister’s safety is paramount.”

  “Am I to bring it back?”

  “Absolutely not. Get rid of it, is that clear?”

  “Quite, Y’ Grace,” Stoker said. “I’ll be off at first light.”

  Chapter 28

  In which compromise is reached: our hero compromises and our heroine lets him.

  Jane could not be ejected from the narrow boat when they reached the road to Thatcham. She’d discovered a pitcher of clean water—his unused shaving water, damn it—and a stash of dry biscuits—damn Percy, the peckish prat. She couldn’t be starved out, though Seelye was perfectly willing to leave her in durance vile.

  Then there was Percy, who insisted it wouldn’t do to keep her kenneled, however vehemently he endorsed the idea. After negotiating with her, Percy agreed to put ashore if Jane would unlock the door and return his clean clothes. More annoying still, his friend caved in to her demands with a few too many jibes about dogs and cats.

  For his part, Seelye promised “not to put her off in the countryside, or chuck her into the canal or bear crate, or hand her over to an eastbound narrow boat.” (He did intend to send her home from the next town on the coach route—a pledge she had not explicitly wrung from him.)

  In return, Jane agreed to remain inconspicuous.

  “I purchased a simple skirt with cunning pockets and a shirtwaist from one of the women at the Reading wharf to blend in,” she babbled behind the closed door. “She thought me barmy for wanting one of her pasty-selling skirts.” Jane assumed the woman’s accent, “‘But the Quality has they quirks, ain’t they?’”

  “Very enterprising, my lady,” Percy said and turned to Seelye. “Don’t you agree?”

  “Jane. Blend in.”

  She opened the door and came out.

  To Seelye’s dismay, she looked very like a dock woman, albeit an extraordinarily fetching one. She had braided and spun her satin hair into a simple, serviceable bun. Her loose, worn clothes accentuated her lithe figure, and the skirt’s length revealed too much of her well-turned ankles. Even her half boots looked appropriately scuffed and dirty after traipsing around Woolhampton. Before them stood a young woman any man on earth would want to tumble.

  Percy promised to supply them from shore along the way. Jane accepted his capitulation graciously and, along with his clean clothes, gave him money for food before returning to ‘her’ berth.

  No other lady of Jane’s rank and standing would dream of participating in a scheme like this, much less insist on it. Only Jane, he thought.

  Oddly enough, he found himself chuckling.

  He soon sobered.

  What now?

  Should he do as he ought? Or do what would make her happy? He groaned, this was just what he needed, another damned dilemma.

  He shouldn’t let her come along, but he’d underestimated how much the canal trip meant to her. Her determination surprised him as much as her sudden reappearance. He never imagined her life lacked anything. Yet, she was willing—even eager—to sacrifice a lady’s crowning glory, her hair, for a taste of freedom. No, she wanted ‘the merest taste of real freedom.’ And didn’t she sound wistful when she said it.

  If he found life in Society flat, how much more so would a woman of Jane’s mettle? It was impossible for a lady of h
er rank to participate in this mad project, even if she’d devised the entire bear rescue scheme herself. He asked himself what would he do if denied every opportunity for adventure in life? The honest answer proved most inconvenient to his resolve to send her packing.

  Out of earshot, Seelye begged Percy to get himself to Hungerford. “I’ll give the lady a taste of life on the canal. A day with nothing to do but hide out of sight should have her packing for Town.”

  “Makes your blood boil, don’t she?” Percy asked.

  “Yes,” he replied automatically but caught himself. “Not in the way you imply, blast you. More like sepsis, something life-threatening. For God’s sake, just go.”

  “Good day,” his friend said and hopped onto the grass embankment.

  Seelye watched Percy head for town with a sinking feeling. Jane did make his blood heat. It wasn’t sepsis, or annoyance, or simple sexual agitation. It was far more complicated. It was growing admiration.

  Society celebrated a lady’s delicacy, not her resolve. Her beauty, not her brains. Seelye, on the other hand, couldn’t help but respect Jane’s abilities and resolution—and her resourcefulness, for she had somehow escaped a locked coach and caught up with them.

  For all her glitter, she was not the petulant ballroom embellishment he’d assumed. No, now he recognized a kindred spirit, with as much heart and bottom in her way as the Horsemen. Indeed, she possessed the very qualities he valued most in his comrades and himself: cleverness, loyalty and courage.

  What’s more, she was willing to risk everything to achieve her goal. Wasn’t that at the heart of any great endeavor?

  “Your Mr. Percy is a reasonable gentleman,” Jane spoke up, startling him. “It’s a shame he can’t stay.”

  Seelye flung up his hands and declaimed heavenward, “Is not a bear trial enough?”

  She clapped her hands and said, “Bravo, bravissimo,” before retiring to the cabin.

  In the evening, they dined on cold, roasted potatoes in silence. When he returned from Bibendum’s evening walk, she ‘allowed’ him to bunk in the sitting room, where there was no fit place to sleep.

  He went to ponder the question of Jane under the stars and fell asleep next to the crate on deck.

  * * *

  Tracing Lady Jane’s movement from Reading was simple enough for a Bow Street officer.

  Before he left Grosvenor Square, the duchess informed him that Richard Martin offered the bear sanctuary in Ireland and that Lord Seelye supervised the animal’s transportation himself.

  From the duke’s second coachman, he learned Lady Jane had gone to Reading under false pretenses to confront Lord Seelye at the canal wharves, where he put her back in the coach. She must’ve slipped out as he drove slowly through Reading’s traffic, the coachman surmised, though he had not discovered her absence till he found an empty coach and her folded letter at the first change of horses halfway to London. He thought it best to deliver it to his grace rather than turn around on a wild goose chase.

  Thus, the Bow Street officer concluded: the lady was determined to see the bear off in Bristol. How far she traveled from Reading since her disappearance, he couldn’t know. Without her maid, she might go directly to Athlingcourt and thence to Bristol with one of that household’s servants attending her. That would be most proper. Or she might follow the canal hoping to re-board the narrow boat and travel under Lord Seelye’s aegis.

  He opted to start on the canal. It would be faster and easier to catch up to a narrow boat and eliminate that possibility first. If she wasn’t aboard, he could hie off to the ducal estate and track her from there. Either way, he’d find her in the next few days for double his fee.

  The day after meeting the duke, he covered the miles to Reading quickly, thanks to an early start, an excellent tarmacadam toll road, and coaching inns with well-stocked stables. He reached High Bridge Wharf and found witnesses who confirmed that a woman of Lady Jane’s description appeared briefly two days earlier. There was plenty of talk about a moaning crate traveling the K&A, too.

  He proceeded to Woolhampton, where he heard a story at a public house that was too odd to discount, given what he already knew.

  People did not make up tales about bears arriving uninvited to the local squire’s annual spring fête for the neighborhood’s first families. And where there were rumors of a bear, he might well find an eccentric aristocrat who fancied herself its mistress.

  Stoker rode to the country residence of Mr. Alfred Maxfield, host of the now infamous event, where a primly-dressed housekeeper opened the door. He begged pardon by rote before asking more authoritatively to speak with the squire on urgent business. The housekeeper, a Mrs. Cutty, looked askance and bade him wait in the hall while she spoke to her master.

  Maxfield, a bluff, well-fed man, came out to greet him and invited him into his study.

  To impress the squire, Stoker identified himself and took out his occurrence book.

  He said, “A Mr. Grundidge of Woolhampton, who attended your recent dinner, mentioned there was an unusual disturbance.” Stoker looked up from his notebook. “I am here to inquire further into the matter, if I may, sir.”

  The squire regarded him and said, “Funny you should ask.”

  Chapter 29

  In which our heroine bluffs again.

  Hungerford

  “If you had a modicum of common sense,” he told her in the most pig-headed, infuriating way, “you’d see why you must go. You’ve had your taste of adventure, if not freedom. Now, you must go home. I wish it weren’t so, but there it is.”

  “I rub along well with Mr. Plimpton and his sons,” she argued. “And I can be useful.” She plucked at her comfortable skirt nervously while they ‘discussed’ the situation on deck. Indeed, she could’ve kissed the skipper when he spoke up.

  “The wife’s usually with us, sir. They’s women on the canal working with the menfolk an’ children. T’isn’t odd to see.”

  Then Seelye had the gall to say he never “explicitly promised not to put her off at Hungerford.”

  “So much for your word as a gentleman,” she said, hoping to wound him.

  His grim expression indicated she had.

  When they docked, Mr. Percy appeared. Seelye’s friend let his tawny eyes linger over her in a way that made her feel flattered and skittish all at once. If only Seelye looked at her that way, she might forgive him a little.

  But no.

  Mr. Percy held his tongue while she and Seelye went back and forth about ‘going—not going—going-by-Jove—I will not go home.’

  In a lull, Mr. Percy mentioned he’d bespoken rooms for her at Hungerford’s best inn, hired a maid to accompany her back to London, and paid for it all with her own money.

  His betrayal disgusted her. She withdrew all previous praise of him but saved her worst for Seelye, who warned, “You will toddle off like a good little girl or be hauled to Hungerford like the minx you are.”

  No matter what she said, no matter how persuasive her points, Seelye remained adamant. He hoped she enjoyed her taste of freedom, blah, blah, blah. Go home.

  Jane chose a tactical retreat from the field of battle to Hungerford, allowing Seelye to carry her bag to the inn. She also allowed him to think he carried the day.

  She may’ve left the narrow boat, but she never explicitly agreed to go to London, did she?

  Seelye saw her to the guest room door and made her go inside ‘with no roundaboutation.’ It gave her some satisfaction to slam it in his face.

  She heard him say, “I’m sorry, Pest, truly I am. But it’s for your own good.”

  When she flung herself from the door, swallowing a roar of frustration, she found a girl cowering in the room, her dark eyes wide with apprehension. A wealth of freckles stood in stark contrast to her washed-out cheeks.

  “Oh, you’re here,” Jane said, not yet calm. “You’re the maid?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the girl whispered.

  She had brown curls and speaking
brown eyes that said she wished dearly to be on the other side of the door, which made Jane regret her stormy entrance.

  The maid curtseyed and introduced herself, “I’m Fanny Jellicott, i-if your ladyship p-pleases.”

  Jane relented immediately, “I didn’t mean to frighten you, Fanny.” She chose not to call her Jellicott as was customary. She sensed using the girl’s given name would put her more at ease. So Jane apologized for startling her and explained more gently, “I am vexed at the man who left me here, not you.”

  Fanny nodded slowly. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “He doesn’t think I belong on the canal.”

  “No, ma’am,” she said, shaking her head.

  Jane frowned. “You agree with him?”

  Fanny’s eyes widened. “Wouldn’t dare, ma’am.”

  She chuckled, “Oh dear. I’ve neglected to thank you for agreeing to be my maid on short notice. As you see, I’m dressed simply. I won’t require much.”

  The girl relaxed slightly. “Going to a masquerade, are you, milady?”

  “I was on a narrow boat and I wanted to blend in.”

  The girl’s hand flew to cover her mouth and she choked on a giggle.

  “Am I so out of place?”

  Fanny shrank back. “No, ma’am, course not. Beg pardon.”

  “I didn’t mean to take that tone with you. Is it hopeless for me to fit in? Tell me the truth, I won’t be angry, I promise.”

  “Well,” Fanny said, “you’re a bit fine for the canal, milady, if you see what I mean.” She glanced at a mirror hung on the wall.

  Jane followed her gaze and saw them both reflected in it. Each had her hair braided and pinned into a bun, but little else compared.

  Jane was taller, finer-boned, and elegantly featured. And she wore York tanned gloves with her pasty-selling outfit. Fanny was sturdily built and sun-kissed with her rosy cheeks restored. Her bare hands, while not rough, looked accustomed to work.