tinny sat at her dressing table puzzling over a note she had received shortly after consuming an excellent breakfast of hot chocolate and rolls. As unexpected as were the contents of the note, she had no doubt as to whom it was from; it was Anthony’s seal impressed in the wax that held the missive closed.
“Why should he make such an odd request?” she murmured.
“Well, what does he say?” Nan insisted.
As it was her third query, Ginny refused to be nettled by her companion’s cross demeanor. Ginny’s reluctance to answer was due only to the fact that she found it difficult to speak when a deep apprehension had her throat so tightly in its grip. With trembling hands she lifted the note and once again read, aloud this time, “Go nowhere. I pray you, feel no anxiety on my behalf.” She let the vellum flutter from her grasp. “Why should I not go where I have planned? And he doesn’t say why I shouldn’t be anxious on his behalf. It is a bit of a puzzle.”
“Perhaps he spotted that man with the mangy of bear out and about today,” Nan suggested with a shudder. “He knows how much it distresses you to see that chain about its neck. Why people hand over good coin to see such sights is one I cannot credit!”
“Nan, dear, I would gladly brave the bear in order to buy my bride clothes, and I mean to dedicate myself to that end. Today! Besides which, I’m persuaded a mangy old animal is not so great a fear that he should feel the need to allay it. I think I might know what this is about, but I must go out to learn what I can”
“But, miss, he asked you not to!”
“Nevertheless, I shall go, and you shall accompany me”
“Me?” Nan asked, her eyes wide with horror. “I’m sure I wouldn’t know what to say to anyone. It is the of dragon you should take along.”
“Yes,” Ginny said, turning to the glass to check her appearance one last time. “But I’m persuaded Grandaunt Regina would endeavor to keep me at home. Besides which, she knows what it is Lord Crenshaw refuses to say. What’s more,” she said, turning to bestow a warm smile on her friend, “you are in need of an outing!”
Nan cringed. “But the bear! I can’t abide that bear, miss!”
Ginny bit back a smile, thinking it was high time Nan owned up to her fear of the bear. “I know you can’t, dearest, which is why I shall fetch you a hat with a thick black veil from Grandaunt’s room. You shan’t be able to see a blessed thing.”
“Well,” Nan said, hesitating, “if I am to wear such a fine hat, I can hardly go out in my everyday clothes.”
“You shall have one of my gowns,” Ginny said, jumping from her seat and going to the clothespress. “Here; it’s my black from when Father died and should fit you well, for all the flesh I’ve put on since. To think I used to be as rail-thin as you,” she said with a tsk.
“Rail-thin, and no wonder Sir Anthony never spared you a glance,” Nan exclaimed as she took the gown and held it against her scrawny form. “And here I am, still thin as a stick and you a regular go-er!”
“Now, Nan, there shall be no such cant if you are to ride with me today. Promise you shall be on your best behavior!”
“Yes, miss, o’ course. I shall go directly and change”
Ginny collected her gloves, reticule, and paisley shawl, then donned her chip straw bonnet with the wide satin ribbon and tied it firmly beneath her chin. There was nothing like a lovely poke bonnet to protect one’s complexion from the sun and one’s carefully coaxed curls from being pulled this way and that by the wind, especially since she had requested the hood of the carriage be folded back. She would be more likely to spot any clues to Anthony’s doings with the carriage fully open.
Once again she fingered the note and wondered exactly what it meant. In her heart of hearts, she knew he would never cry off, that he would move heaven and earth to marry her. Therefore, he could not possibly object to her shopping trip, at least not in and of itself. There must be some other reason he did not want her to go out, and the rumored boxing match was the most likely culprit. Whether or not it was the case, she fully intended to discover on her own.
John Coachman would doubtless have some light to shed on the matter, and the moment she was able, her hand in his as he handed her up the steps of the precariously swaying carriage, Ginny posed her question.
“Pray tell, where is the boxing academy in relation to Regent Street, where I am to do my shopping today?”
The driver scratched his head and surveyed her from the corner of his eye. “You don’t want to be going there, miss. After two in the afternoon, Bond Street is only for gentleman. No lady of quality would be seen walking there”
Ginny settled her skirts around her and reminded herself she was to be a duchess one day. Holding her chin high, she said, “We needn’t walk. I daresay a drive along the street past the boxing academy would do well enough.”
The carriage dipped and swayed as the driver took his place at the box and turned to give her a rather imperious glance, one to which Ginny took great exception. For the first time she realized her expedition was a bit on the bold side, her dubious safety in the hands of this unknown quantity-minus Grandaunt’s presence, no less.
“If ye don’t mind me being so bold, miss, I would say a drive down Bond at this time of day would be the end of your ‘opes and dreams to marry the young lord, though I’m meaning no disrespect, miss,” the driver said with an obsequious tug at his forelock, an action at great odds with his assertive manner.
“Very well, then,” Ginny said with what she hoped was an authoritative air. “In that case, might we merely come close? I hear there is to be a great fight today, and I am wishful of learning which of my friends will be in attendance”
There came a rumbling sound from the driver’s seat that shook the entire carriage. As Ginny clutched at whatever was at hand to steady herself, she gradually realized the shaking was caused by the driver’s laughter, and it seemed he was laughing at her.
“Miss, ye don’t want to be seen anywhere near the place, and you ain’t gots no `friends’ who are feebleminded enough to attend. It’ll just be men. A proper young miss has no men friends, if’n you know wots I mean”
“Well!” Ginny said for Nan’s ears only. “If it be that beyond the pale, Lady Avery is sure to be there with a feather in her cap” The thought of Lucinda having access to Anthony’s activities while Ginny did not was a thought past bearing. Turning again to the driver, she attempted a different tack. “Is there a possibility of perhaps crossing over Bond Street on our way to Regent Street?”
“There’s no other way but to cross Bond. There will be naught to see of the academy, though, unless we take Berkeley Street all the way down to Piccadilly so as to meet Bond at the right end. It’ll take half-again as long, but it can be done”
“Oh, lovely!” Ginny cried and was relieved when the driver merely grunted and took up the reins to begin their journey.
“Isn’t it exciting, Nan?” Ginny said, laying a hand on her companion’s arm. “I promised I would take you along on many adventures if you would only come with me to London, and here we are! I shall buy you whatever you wish: ribbons at the Pantheon Bazaar, gloves if you like, even an ice at Gunter’s on our way home. Oh, and we shall be sure to stop at Hatchard’s Bookshop, as we shall pass right by it. I daresay I shan’t have time to read a word between now and the wedding, but it will be nice to have a book or two at hand for later.”
Nan groaned. “I think I shall be sick!”
“Oh, dear! We are going at a spanking pace, are we not? I daresay not being able to see is making things worse,” Ginny said, lifting Nan’s veil from her face. “We are sure to encounter no bears in this part of town, so you might as well be comfortable.”
Nan sniffed. “I am persuaded it was yourself who was afeard of the bears,” she said in her loftiest air. “I shall be just fine, now that I am able to look about”
“And I shall be just fine once I learn what it is Lord Crenshaw is at such great pains to hide from me,” Ginny averr
ed.
“Pain is what you’ll get from that grandaunt of yours once you get home again. She’ll not take kindly to your going off on your own this way,” Nan warned.
Ginny hadn’t considered the matter from that perspective but had to admit to the truthfulness of Nan’s words. Grandaunt would be furious once she learned Ginny had gone off into the heart of London in the company of mere servants. The promise of any number of ribbons, even should they be every shade of old rose, had not the power to diminish the unpleasantness of Grandaunt’s sharp tongue upon their return. Ginny pondered the matter and arrived at an excellent solution.
“I shall buy Grandaunt a gift, one that demonstrates how grateful I am for all she has done for me, and use that as an excuse to go shopping without her. I could hardly manage to surprise her by making my purchase right under her nose!”
Nan appeared to be unconvinced, but she uttered no more objections, all her energy seemingly taken up in staying upright in the startlingly open carriage as the ground was eaten up at what seemed an impossible pace. This lack of conversation left Ginny free to muse on the events of the day. Though she was more than content to shop for pretty things and relieved to be having her final fitting for her wedding gown later in the afternoon, it was the boxing match in which Anthony was to fight that most occupied her thoughts. If she were not allowed to so much as saunter down Bond Street, how was she to learn anything of import?
Once they arrived at the corners of Bond and Piccadilly and Ginny took in the quantity of gigs, curricles, and carriages stopped in the street, her questions multiplied. What could everyone be doing here? Could the plethora of young bucks, corinthians, and dandies milling about be an indication of how far and wide rumors of the fight had spread? Ginny remembered that Lady Derby had mentioned the wager book at White’s being filled with regard to who should be the victor of the match, but surely the members would prefer to await the results while ensconced in the comfort of their club?
“Have ye seen enough, miss?” the driver asked, his whip at the ready.
“I’m not sure. There’s naught to be seen but carriages and a sea of black.”
“I should say so!” Nan, who had replaced her veil, affirmed.
“I wasn’t referring to your veil but to the gentlemen in their dark coats, Nan. There’s not one lady to be seen in all that somber attire,” Ginny said, craning her neck to spot a familiar face in the crowd.
“As long as the man with the bear is not among them, I don’t mind the lack of color,” Nan insisted.
“Miss?” the driver asked, holding his whip ever higher.
Just as Ginny was about to admit defeat, she heard a familiar voice coming from a carriage on the side of the road farthest from the seeming melee down Bond Street. Eagerly, she turned to put a face to the voice and was heartily downcast to be confronted with Lady Derby’s contemptuous smile.
“What a happy coincidence!” she said. “Though, truth be told, I should have guessed we’d find you here. Young maidens from the country have very little sense,” she purred. “And who is this you have with you?” she asked in a voice so cool, butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
Ginny had never felt so bereft of speech in her life. Lady Derby was as menacing as ever, but it was the man with the hard, bright blue eyes seated beside her who studied Ginny’s person with a cold insouciance that filled her with an icy sense of dread.
“Ah,” she said, in a futile attempt to form actual words.
“Roxanne! Is that you?” Lady Derby exclaimed, addressing her words to the veiled Nan. “I had thought you said you weren’t feeling quite the thing this morning.”
The man said nothing, but his cold, bright eyes shifted and narrowed as he took in Nan’s appearance.
Nan, blinded as she was, was thoroughly unaware she had been addressed and was silent, as well.
In a stroke of blessed good luck, Ginny remembered that the widow of Anthony’s newly dead cousin was called Roxanne. Under the circumstances, it would not be entirely untoward for the two of them to be spending some time together. It was a scenario fervently preferable to being caught out in public with naught but a ruffian driver and an even younger maiden than herself with infinitely less town bronze. Sending a silent prayer of thanks winging upward, Ginny thought furiously. Lady Derby was the person who could answer her questions, and answer them she must!
“Yes, well, the two of us are out to fatten my trousseau but couldn’t help but be intrigued by the crowd yonder. I wonder if perhaps a carriage tipped over, and all of those people were needed to help set things to rights.”
Lady Derby gave a trill of laughter. “Oh, you are a knowing one, Miss Delacourt! Surely you don’t expect me to believe you aren’t perfectly aware of the boxing match today?”
“Oh, was that today?” Ginny bluffed. “And here I was so sure it was to happen tomorrow,” she added with an airy wave of her hand.
“Did you hear that, Your Grace?” Lady Derby asked of the saturnine man by her side. “I can hardly credit it, but she believed it was to happen tomorrow!” Clearly she found something amusing about this pronouncement, as she went off into gales of laughter, but the lips of the strange man didn’t so much as curve into a smile. He did, however, sit up a bit straighter and regard Ginny with a more avid interest.
Evidently this was an important man and as such was perhaps better informed than even Lady Derby. Ginny cast about for something to say that might elicit an illuminating response without exposing her total lack of real knowledge. This proved to be a most taxing endeavor, and the four of them sat in silence for what seemed to Ginny to be an agonizing length of time.
Finally, she hit on something suitable. “It is wrong. What they say… it is all quite wrong,” she hedged.
“Oh?” Lady Derby asked with a knowing glance for her companion.
“Lord Crenshaw does not fight for my honor, as there is no need for it to be expunged. I am guilty of nothing more than speaking aloud my observations.”
Lady Derby’s companion tilted his head in interest, his gaze never leaving Ginny’s face even as he leaned back to hide his expression in the shadow of Lady Derby’s bonnet, an enormous contraption of green-glazed chipped straw adorned with a clutch of faux cherries at the brim. Ginny thought how very well matched the cherries were to Lady Derby’s faux red lips, especially in contrast to her creamy white pelisse of soft wool with red braiding and frogs and very smart cloth boots, dyed red, as well. Ginny, in a pelisse of palest old rose and a bonnet devoid of any adornment but the wide green ribbon tied in a jaunty bow under her chin, felt a perfect dowd in comparison.
“If that is true, Miss Delacourt, I wonder that you have not spoken aloud your sprightly observations on the carriage race tomorrow or the balloon ascension the day after,” Lady Derby mused openly. “If I were to speak aloud my observations, in just your so refreshing manner, I would say that it was most odd you were off to buy bride clothes when the fate of your marriage hangs so precariously on the outcome of something as uncertain as a boxing match.”
Ginny, the breath frozen in her lungs, was saved the impossible task of formulating a reply by the sudden furor down the street. Huzzahs and shouts of “He’s done it!” rang in the air, causing the horses all up and down Bond Street to become restive and whinny, adding to the near-thunderous roar of confusion.
If only she knew what it was he had done.
Anthony, pacing his rooms on Jermyn Street, wondered what he had done. If he had hoped to keep the boxing match from ever reaching Ginny’s ears, all hope of that was lost. The hue and cry that rose to greet him as he stepped outside of Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Academy could be heard as far as Chester. Worse yet, the fact that he had engaged in a boxing match with his own valet would be the on dit of the season. As tempting as it was to whisk Ginny away to the country to keep her from ever learning the truth, they would never be able to return to London without some gudgeon putting a flea in her ear about the three tasks her husband was ad
jured to accomplish and from which he had fled.
There was nothing for it but to follow through on his promise to his uncle to the best of his ability. To that end, he called Conti into his presence with the intention of laying plans. He was expected at Wembley House in a matter of hours, and every minute counted.
“Conti, let us make matters clear between us. Your cousin . .
“Yes! I am Conti, but my mother was a Fagniani!”
“Yes,” Anthony said through gritted teeth, casting about for a way to get through the conversation with the loquacious valet as quickly as possible. “Your cousin is the illegitimate daughter of the dancer known as Fagniani and the old Duke of Queensbury, is she not?”
“Si! No! I shall explain. There are several claimants to her patronage, but Old Q left my cousin Maria a very large legacy een the case that he was her papa”
“So, Maria, your possible cousin, is sitting on the specialized carriage, the one of which I am in desperate need, of her possible father?”
“Si! No! I shall explain. Maria, she ees my cousin, si! She married the Earl of Yarmouth, but they did not like each other so well. Even before the Old Q died, she went to Paris and has lived there ever since.”
“So…,” Anthony drawled. “The carriage is in London or in Paris?”
“No! Si! My cousin, she ees een Paris. The carriage…?” Conti shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows?”
Anthony folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes at his so shortly ago brilliant but now utterly deranged valet. “So, you are suggesting I rap on the door of the Earl of Yarmouth, an acquaintance of mine, by the way, and request the use of a carriage that he might or might not have in his possession, that might or might not belong to his estranged wife, who might or might not have inherited it from someone who might or might not be her father?”
“Si!” Conti exclaimed, throwing his hands into the air in triumph.
Anthony pressed his lips together and silently counted to ten, then ten again.
“Conti, this is piu importance! Do you know any of the servants in the earl’s household?”
Miss Delacourt Has Her Day Page 13