by Mary Brendan
‘And what do you think now?’
‘Now I think you’re an extremely devious woman with an extremely…intriguing granddaughter. I imagine that’s exactly what you want me to think.’
‘So, how did you like my sweet Lizzie? Pretty girl, isn’t she?’
Ross laughed at glowing logs. ‘Pretty girl?’ he echoed sarcastically. ‘You’d never have bothered putting a pretty girl in my way, Edwina.’
‘That’s true.’ She paused before opining innocently, ‘I believe you already like her.’
‘No, I don’t like her. But we both know that’s immaterial, don’t we?’
Edwina’s eyes narrowed. ‘I’ll pay out on marriage only, Stratton. No wedding, no dowry. I don’t want her settled in any other way. Her papa could have arranged that other way ten years ago. She could have arranged it for herself last week. She’s still in demand, you know.’
‘I’m sure,’ he drawled drily.
‘Well, don’t keep me in suspense. What occurred? Have you proposed?’
‘No. But we came to an acceptable arrangement.’
‘Which is?’
‘She’s paid me.’
Edwina stalked forward. ‘She’s done what?’
Ross placed his glass down on the mantel and withdrew the velvet roll.
Edwina looked at it resting on his palm, then at him. Quickly she shielded her frustration with her sparse lashes. ‘She must truly dislike you, Stratton. I believed never in this world would she part with that necklace.’
‘She’s parted with the rest of the collection, too.’
‘Then she’s frightened and that’s not like my courageous Lizzie.’
‘No doubt you’ll do the decent thing then and buy them back for her.’
‘Oh, no,’ Edwina said airily. ‘Why should I? I’ve not given up hope of you doing the decent thing. After all, you’re still here, aren’t you? And you so busy ’n all, and desperate to get to Kent. I would hazard a guess, Ross, that you’ve behaved boorishly and now you’re feeling guilty. After all, you might not like her now, but tomorrow…’
A tight-lipped smile quirked his sensual mouth, his dark brows hiked with sceptical enquiry. But the way he then shot whisky down his throat, slammed the glass onto the mantel and brushed past, made Edwina indulge in a secret smile before she turned to follow at a careful distance. She watched as he strode out into the hallway, his steps cracking like gunshot as he neared Pettifer. He took his coat and cane from the butler without slowing pace.
‘Tomorrow you will…’ Edwina murmured slyly at the closing front door.
‘Are you not going to talk to me, Lizzie?’
Lady Elizabeth Rowe placed down her breakfast coffee cup and gave her grandmother her attention. ‘Are you going to repay that man his money?’
‘I cannot. You know I cannot. I have explained about m’funds at present.’
Elizabeth snatched up her cup, raised it to her mouth. ‘Then I am not going to talk to you. There is nothing more to say.’
‘Lizzie, dear…’ Edwina cooed in her most wheedling tone. ‘Come, it is two days now since Stratton was here and still you punish me. You have had time to sulk and berate me as a foolish woman. And I have said m’sorrys. It is true I hoped that you and the Viscount might like one another. But if it is not to be…’ She shrugged as though it mattered little. ‘You cannot blame me for wanting to settle m’debts with money that’s just mouldering in the bank. Neither can you blame a fond grandmama for wanting to introduce her granddaughter to such an eligible gentleman. Besides, why take against him so? Don’t you find Ross handsome? Charming? Be truthful now. All the ladies sigh over him…’
Elizabeth scraped back in her chair and jumped to her feet. Forgetting her speech embargo, she snapped, ‘Handsome? He looks like a romany who has thieved himself fine clothes. Charming? He called me a rude, supercilious little bitch!’
‘Did he?’ Edwina barked, more surprised than outraged. ‘You never said so before. He is usually unfailingly civil to the fair sex; even to those creatures who hardly warrant it.’ She sniffed, recalling Cecily Booth boldly soliciting his company at Maria’s soirée. ‘You must really have got under his skin, my dear, to upset that courteous nonchalance he maintains. Were you…?’
‘Was I what?’ Elizabeth demanded, peering through the parlour window.
‘A rude little bitch. I know you can act haughty at times.’
Elizabeth flushed, leaned her hot forehead against cool glass as she gazed into the gardens. If honest, she knew she had behaved badly. No, worse than that: with anyone else she would have felt thoroughly ashamed of her conduct. Not with him. Never with him. He deserved all her rancour.
Yet there was an irritating niggling in the pit of her stomach. Had she been pleasant, perhaps he might have been so, too. But she had acted purely on aggressive instinct. She never used feminine wiles now. It was ten years since she had flirted and acted girlishly to get her own way. But now she was tormented by regrets…missed opportunities.
It would have been a shrewd move to flatter his pathetic conceit and angle for a little more time in which to nag Edwina to pay him. It would have been wise to batten down her stormy emotions. But it seemed the more cool sophistication he displayed, the more fraught she had become. She still couldn’t quite believe that while in the throes of temper she had forfeited her mother’s treasure…her treasure.
‘Well, were you rude?’ Edwina’s query cut sharply into her pensiveness.
Elizabeth spun about at the window. ‘I had every right to be as unmannerly as he was. For all his failings, Stratton’s memory doesn’t lack. He was at pains to let me know just how well he recalls my disgrace.’
‘And were you at pains to enlighten him to the facts of the matter?’
‘Why should I tell him anything so personal? He is of no consequence. I don’t need his approval,’ Elizabeth flared, sculpted chin arrogantly tilting.
‘So he knew of your misfortune, yet was still reluctant to go,’ Edwina muttered to herself. Noting her granddaughter’s haughty expression, she added lightly, ‘Well, if you peered down your nose at him like that, I can see how he might arrive at such a description.’
‘In case you have forgotten,’ Elizabeth snapped, ‘your nasty friend now has my mama’s jewellery in his grubby possession.’ She covered her face with her hands. ‘Oh, why did I do it!’ Her head shook behind her palms before they curled into fists. ‘I should have never agreed to meet him. I should never have allowed him to browbeat me into settling your debt. I should have let him dun you as he threatened. It is what cheats deserve. You have made a grave mistake in this, Grandmama, and you must put it right. Give him the piffling cash. Please! The Thorneycroft parure is irreplaceable!’
‘Don’t think badly of me, Elizabeth. I don’t always get things right. Neither do I often get them wrong. I would never jeopardise your keepsakes, or my sweet Valerie’s memory. The Viscount is an honourable gentleman. I’m as confident of that as I am of seeing you again wearing those amethysts. To tell the truth, they have lain idle in a metal box too long. In a way, I’m glad Stratton has them. At least they will see the light of day again.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Elizabeth choked. ‘No doubt they will also reflect candlelight: strung about one of his naked doxies! How will you like that?’ She flung furiously past her grandmother to quit the room just as Harry Pettifer was entering. The butler jumped aside then tilted backwards at the waist and turned his stately steely head to watch Lady Elizabeth fly along the corridor.
‘Come, tell me, Pettifer, am I right to persevere in this? I swear I need a little proof this might succeed or I shall give it all up, right now,’ Edwina sighed.
Pettifer raised the salver he had dropped close to his leg to prevent it catching the young mistress as she burst upon him. Stooping agilely, he swept up from the floor a letter and placed it back upon the silverware. ‘Never fear, Mrs Sampson; I think a timely confirmation that you’re on the right track has just arri
ved,’ Harry said with a twinkle in his blue eyes and a chuckle rumbling in his throat.
Chapter Six
He would like the opportunity to speak to her again, would he! With a view to reaching a more congenial settlement this time—perhaps negotiating the return of her family’s heirlooms. How noble of him! And what would he like in their stead? Elizabeth wondered acidly. Perhaps her head on a platter. Or more likely, her naked body on his bed. How odiously predictable these men were, she inwardly scoffed, flicking aside the letter with brave disdain. But the sudden, fierce pumping of her heart forced her up jerkily from the edge of her bed. Linus Savage always used similar phrases in his little notes: opportunity to negotiate…compatible terms…
Dropping onto her velvet dressing stool, she dragged a brush through her thick flaxen hair for a few moments before impatiently discarding it onto the polished wood of the dressing table. Its clatter masked her deep sigh.
She studied her face in the mirror, raised a finger to touch a small laugh line close to her pouty mouth and wondered why she’d not noticed it before. Wondered, too, how she’d come by it. She’d done precious little laughing recently. The finger moved to press against a frown line between her delicately arching brunette brows. That tiny furrow was probably less an imperfection than her moods and history warranted. Yet, on examining each feature by angling her head back and forth, up and down, she realised her appearance was barely touched by the years that had passed since her come-out. She’d been proud of her looks as a debutante…quite vain, she accepted, dropping her tilted chin and grimacing humility at fingers gripping the edge of the dresser.
Since then many men had attempted to make her life squalid and ugly. And now there was another to add to their number, and what terrified her was that of them all he might know how to succeed…
Her mouth pursed with indomitable spirit. She wanted her jewellery back. She wanted it so much, her stomach clenched into a hurting cramp. ‘If I reclaim the Thorneycroft parure I swear I’ll never again let it go…’ she promised her dead parents in a vehement whisper. But she could dredge up no devious plan likely to outwit a mercenary and make him forfeit his booty. If he returned her jewellery, she rather imagined it would be on his terms…
Pushing it all determinedly to the back of her mind, she concentrated on the day ahead. It was Sunday and, after attending morning service with Edwina at St Mary’s, there would be barely time for a quick change into serviceable clothes and a bite to eat before Hugh Clemence arrived and they made their way to Barrow Road Sunday School.
She picked up a pen. Replaced it on her writing desk. Picked it up again and tapped at paper with the nib. She firmly, neatly, put it back and pushed the parchment away. She would reply later, when she’d had time to construct a suitably scathing rebuffal to his impertinence.
‘Reverend Timms seemed a little peaky, I thought.’
Elizabeth nodded. ‘I thought so, too. I hope his wife has just a chill and talk of influenza is unfounded.’
Edwina leaned forward in her sumptuous barouche to raise a gloved hand at a neighbour just emerging from the churchyard. ‘Look at that ridiculous turban,’ she hissed at Elizabeth from a corner of her mouth. ‘Have you ever seen such a concoction of feathers? I swear she has a whole farmyard roosting atop her head. Of course when one is as sparse-thatched as she, a little borrowed plumage is understandable.’
Elizabeth glanced at Mrs Vaughan, a woman of her grandmother’s age, and her two gangly nieces accompanying her. Her soft lips quirked at one corner. ‘You can be very unkind, Grandmama. Very duplicitous, too. I heard, with my own ears, you praise her rig-out when she settled on the pew behind us.’
Edwina chuckled, then slid her granddaughter a look. When Elizabeth refrained from rebuking her over more serious duplicity, and appeared content to inspect passing scenery, she mentioned casually, ‘Pettifer tells me you received a letter today. He says it was delivered by a young footman in very smart livery. He believes it to be the new Viscount Stratton’s colours. Black and gold…’
‘How vulgar. Obviously it was his servant, then.’
‘Have you received a letter from him, Elizabeth?’
Elizabeth turned a pansy-blue stare on her grandmother. ‘I’m sure if I have, t’would be my own business.’
‘Come, don’t be missish! You’re m’granddaughter,’ Edwina huffed. ‘I’ve a right to be interested in what goes on between you and m’friend.’
‘A little late with your worries, I think. But, yes, indeed, a fond grandmama should be concerned,’ Elizabeth said sweetly. ‘And, yes, I did receive a letter from your good friend. In it, he insinuates he is willing to re-negotiate terms of payment. The lure to meet him is a hint at immediately returning my jewellery…’
‘Well, that’s mighty nice of him. You see; I told you he was a gentleman.’
‘In exchange for being so nice, I imagine he will require my immediate agreement to another of his propositions.’
Edwina shot her granddaughter a sharp look.
‘Oh, did I not say?’ Her tone was all innocent apology. ‘The Viscount was exceedingly obliging in offering various options should I be unable to persuade you to give him back his cash.’ She unfurled slender, white fingers and ticked them off. ‘There was the Fleet for you; and Gin Alley for me. For him, first of all, of course, came my services as paramour to pay him in kind. He calculated six years before he was done…and so was I.’
‘I’ll speak to him,’ Edwina spluttered. ‘Enough is enough. The matter is at an end.’
‘Because you say so?’ Elizabeth choked a despairing laugh. ‘No. You told me he was a powerful and influential man and I didn’t want to believe you. Unfortunately, now I do. I think money is not so terribly important to him now. He didn’t mention the cash in his letter. He wants reprisal. It appears you have outwitted him and he will not be bested in this.’ She jerked her head away, staring sightlessly into September sunshine. ‘I believe you meant well and hoped to see me safely settled with him, but…’ Elizabeth sighed a sigh that seemed to well from deep within. ‘But I think your friend has his own ideas. I think he will make a bad enemy. What have you done, Grandmama?’
Elizabeth held her breath as she leaned over the child’s scrawny shoulder. Valiantly ignoring a stirring in his wiry hair and the acrid smell of his unwashed clothes, she gently took the piece of chalk from his bony fingers. ‘Samuel is spelled with the u before the e,’ she told him, correcting his work by writing his name again beneath his own spidery effort. She returned his chalk, and with a smile moved on. Clara Parker was next in line. She was about ten years old and Elizabeth was aware the little girl hero-worshipped her. Glassy grey eyes were adoring her while a dirty finger twirled a stringy strand of mousy hair. ‘Have you finished your writing, Clara?’ Elizabeth asked on a smile.
‘Yes, m’m,’ Clara responded gruffly with an unobtrusive little stroke at the blue wool of Elizabeth’s oldest, least fashionable pelisse. ‘I’d like my hair in curls,’ Clara added shyly, twirling faster at her rat-tail tress, while gazing admiringly at Elizabeth’s pearlescent ringlets peeping from beneath an old felt bonnet.
Elizabeth’s hand hovered over the child’s head. Gingerly she took a section of limp hair and wound it round and round a slender finger. Carefully she withdrew her digit from the loose spiral. ‘Now do some letters,’ she whispered at the girl’s glowing, grubby face. Clara immediately cradled the treasured curl on a palm. ‘Come, attend to your lesson or the Reverend will be cross!’ Elizabeth looked at Hugh as, hands clasped behind his back, he leaned forward to listen to a youngster falteringly reading the few lines of scripture he had chalked on his slate.
Conscious of Elizabeth’s petite figure moving closer, Hugh arrowed her a smile and straightened. Taking out his watch he tapped it indicatively. It was time for school to end. His double clap brought heads up. Then the score or more pupils filed forward at the signal and handed their boards and chalk to the Reverend. The warehouse emptied slowly,
the children becoming jocular as they emerged into welcome evening sunshine that warmed their chilled little bodies. Finally it was just Hugh and Elizabeth left in the cold, dingy interior of the warehouse.
‘It’s a shame this window doesn’t face south and let in more light and warmth,’ Elizabeth observed as she peered up at a small pane of glass and the uninspiring sight of a neighbouring warehouse’s sooty wall.
Hugh grimaced agreement as he locked away the few precious articles into the cupboard. ‘Without Mr Grantham’s benevolence in allowing us this room, the school would have to shut. It’s here or the vicarage, and I don’t think Mother would relish the thought of twenty mucky urchins shedding lice on to our carpets.’ He laughed a trifle uneasily at the uncharitable admission. ‘If only there were funds to build a parish hall…’ he sighed.
Closing and locking the warehouse door, he gallantly drew Elizabeth’s arm through his to aid her progress as they started negotiating a path over uneven, slimy cobbles. In front of them lay a ten-minute walk through the back lanes of Wapping to the vicarage. Once there, Elizabeth would graciously accept a cup of tea and a slice of dry cake from Hugh’s elderly, widowed mother, before being taken back to Connaught Street in Hugh’s gig.
Hugh touched a gloved hand to his hat as a woman shouted a greeting from a doorway. She was lounging comfortably, basking in a shaft of dying sunlight that glossed a paint-peeling, bottle-green doorway and mellowed crumbling brickwork. As she exposed her face to the soothing warmth, the pipe gripped in her teeth angled skyward. A child, barely knee high, huddled into her skirts, two tiny thumbs lost in its mouth.
Before they had properly passed the tranquil scene, a man dressed in vest and patched breeches appeared. Grabbing the woman’s arm, he shoved her inside with a string of slurred curses concerning the lateness of his dinner and her sluttish ways. She answered him in some colourful language of her own, but slunk away into the darkness with the child wailing in her wake.