by Jane Ashford
“Is there anything unusual you remember about that day?” asked Ariel, leaning forward on the stool and causing it to rock a little under her. “Anything at all?”
John frowned at his shoes, then shook his head.
“Bess hadn’t come to you about any trouble?” wondered Ariel.
“If she had, I would have helped her! I would have done something.”
“I know.” Ariel nodded.
“Are you doing something now?” said Alan, ignoring the emotion that charged the atmosphere.
“What?”
“Being out of employment must leave you short of funds,” Alan continued, approaching the question from another direction.
“I’m all right,” replied John, though his appearance belied his words.
“Perhaps you’ve thought of a way to make a bit from Bess Harding’s death?”
The former coachman clenched his fists and started to stand, but the other men came forward and he sank back onto the stool again. “What the devil do you mean by that?” he asked.
“It hasn’t occurred to you that the regent would pay well to have this ‘haunting’ stopped?”
John stared at him for a long moment, then started to laugh. “He would, wouldn’t he? Curse me if I don’t wish I’d thought of it. Prinny deserves the scare, and he spends more than I’d need on one of his perishing dinners.”
“A man of your…experience would have no trouble arranging the incidents,” Alan added.
The other man shot Ariel a look, growing serious again. “Maybe. And maybe not,” he responded. “But the fact is, I didn’t.”
“You know nothing about it?” Alan probed.
“Not a thing, your lordship.”
Their gazes locked, and the tension in the room escalated to a trembling point before breaking and receding again. Alan sighed. The fellow seemed to be telling the truth. It was another dead end.
Silence fell over the shabby room again. They could hear the noise of conversation below.
“Do you need help, John?” Ariel said then. “I am living in the house. Would you like to return to your old position?”
Alan started to protest.
But the former coachman was shaking his head. “I believe I’ll stay where I am for now. A friend of mine may have a job for me down Sussex way, and I’m thinking it’s time for me to leave the city. Get a good safe berth before I’m too old to find one.”
“You’ll let Miss Harding know where you are going,” stated Alan.
John looked at him. “I reckon you’ll find out, whether I do or don’t,” he answered.
Alan simply held his gaze.
After a moment John sighed. “I’ll send word along,” he said.
“Is there anything else you can tell us?” Alan asked.
“Why did she do it, John?” said Ariel. “What happened?” She wrapped her arms tightly around her ribs.
He shook his head. “I’ve wracked my brain, and I still can’t figure it. There was nothing out of the ordinary. She did go on one of her visits, but she’d been doing that for nigh on two years.”
“Two years?” said Ariel, remembering that Charles Padgett had mentioned a similar period of time. “What do you mean? What visits?”
“It’s nothing to do with this,” he replied.
“We’ll judge that,” Alan informed him.
John shrugged. “Now and then, she went off on her own,” he said. “Didn’t want to be driven. Didn’t want to be asked where she was going.” He grimaced. “Tore a wide strip off me when I did ask.” He shook his head again. “Bess always loved her secrets.”
“So you don’t know where?” Disappointment tinged Ariel’s voice.
John rubbed his palms together. “I tried following her once, and I’d swear she was heading for some back slum. But I never found out because she caught me and gave me to understand that I’d be out on my ear if I didn’t keep my nose out of her affairs.” He grimaced again. “Bess could be very persuasive.”
“Where could she have been going?” wondered Ariel. She hesitated, then added, “She told me once that she grew up in a back slum.”
“Did she now?” said John. After a moment’s consideration of this, he shrugged. “I kept strictly out of it after that. You didn’t cross Bess.”
This seemed irrelevant to Alan, and he didn’t think there was any more to be discovered here. “Shall we go?” he asked Ariel.
She looked reluctant, then stood. “I suppose…yes, of course.” She straightened. “Good-bye, John.”
“You watch yourself, miss.”
“I can’t let her go like that,” Ariel told him. Her jaw hardened, and the look of resolve returned to her beautiful face. “I won’t.”
Unexpectedly, John smiled. “You always were a stubborn one. Remember that white pony?”
“Cloud!” A smile lightened Ariel’s expression, too. “I haven’t thought of her in years. Such a poorly named horse.”
“Mean little beast,” agreed John. He glanced at the others. “Kept wanting to bite or kick or shake her out of the saddle. But she just kept coming back, with her teeth gritted and a look on her face that said she’d win or die trying.”
“And I did win,” said Ariel.
“She took to you finally, didn’t she?” recalled John. “I thought we’d have to put her down.”
“I never give up,” declared Ariel fiercely.
“This ain’t a pony.” John moved toward the door. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’ll just slip back on my own.”
“You’ll wait until we’re gone,” said Alan sharply.
John held up his hands, conceding the point. Alan put a hand on Ariel’s arm to urge her out of the room. “See that all’s well,” he told Roger.
The stairs remained clear. “Let’s go,” Alan commanded, and the party began to retrace the path they had taken earlier.
The slumped figures in the outer room hadn’t moved. They were sunk in some kind of stuporous oblivion, Alan concluded. Perhaps this alehouse doubled as an opium den.
They left the foul place and picked their way back to the coach, where the driver was looking rather nervous. Alan helped Ariel inside as the others swung up onto the back. Ariel had just settled herself in the seat when there was a flurry of pounding footsteps and a shout from one of their guards. Alan lurched into the coach, shouting, “Move!” Ariel was thrown hard against the cushions as the carriage careened away down the dirty street with the horses of their escort pounding along on both sides.
“Is anyone following?” Alan called.
“No one in sight,” came the reply from outside.
“Bloody hell,” said Alan, venting his feelings.
They continued to travel at a dangerous speed until they reached a more populated area, with lighted shops and people still walking along the pavements. When the driver had let the horses drop into a walk, Alan finally relaxed a bit, letting out a breath and allowing his back to touch the carriage seat. “Right,” he said, as if answering some unspoken question.
“What was it?” wondered Ariel quietly.
“A gang of footpads. Five at least, with cudgels and knives.”
“They meant to rob us?”
“As I warned you might happen.” Alan took a deep breath. He had not wanted to take Ariel to such a neighborhood, and he had been absolutely right. If she had only listened to him, she would not have had to endure this scare.
“Where do you think my mother was going on those visits?” she said.
He turned to stare at her.
“Do you think we could discover it if we…?” Noticing his incredulous gaze, she broke off. “What?” she said.
“Have you lost your wits entirely?” he interrupted.
“What do you mean?”
“We were very nearly robbed just
now, and most likely beaten, or worse.”
“But we escaped,” she pointed out.
“Yes, but…you…you ought to be hysterical.”
“Is that what you would like? I thought you despised hysterical females.”
“I do. But—”
“And in any case, the danger is past. So there is no need to be alarmed,” she added kindly.
Alan found himself speechless. The more he saw of Ariel Harding, the more amazing she became. She was like no female he had ever imagined. One corner of his mouth quirked upward. No doubt she would inform him that his conclusion was a failure of imagination rather than a fact based on solid observations.
“Perhaps we could question some of the hack drivers near the house,” Ariel suggested, returning to the earlier subject. “Do you think they might remember where they took Bess?”
“No.”
Ariel sighed. “I suppose not. But I should so like to know…” She brightened. “She might have dropped hints to some of her friends. She loved being mysterious. I’ll find a way to ask them at the prince’s masquerade.”
Alan nearly groaned. Here was yet another sore point with the prince. He had urged the regent in the strongest possible terms not to hold a huge masked ball that he had planned. Predictably, the prince had refused point-blank to cancel an affair that would offer the haunters a thousand opportunities. “You are not going to the masquerade,” he said. “I will be too busy to escort you.”
“But I must.”
They had pulled up before her house, and in the light of the lantern that hung beside the door, he could see the obstinate defiance in her face. He grasped her arm so that she couldn’t get down. “We will not continue to make a spectacle of ourselves at Carlton House,” he insisted.
“Spectacle?” she repeated. She jerked away from him and opened the coach door, ready to step down. “Is that what we are?”
“With the way that you have been behaving there—yes!”
“If you are afraid I will wreck your reputation, I am sure I can find another escort,” Ariel jeered.
With a muttered curse, he grabbed Ariel by the waist and swept her back into her seat, slamming the carriage door shut with the other hand. “Tell me what you intend to do,” he demanded.
“Why should I?” She struggled to free herself, but his grip was unbreakable.
Alan couldn’t remember when he had been so angry. Among his brothers, he was known as the even-tempered one, the one who ended disputes rather than started them. His colleagues at Oxford knew him to be a supremely rational debater, a man who reasoned rather than attacked. And yet here he was, longing to force Ariel to obey him by sheer brute strength. “What are you going to do?” he demanded again.
“I don’t see any reason to tell you,” she replied.
Retaining his grip on her, Alan took a deep breath in an effort to calm himself. There was only one way he could have any control over what she might do, he concluded finally. “I’ll take you,” he muttered.
She turned to look at him, her surprise and dawning hope evident in the lantern light.
“And you will swear to continue to communicate your ideas to me before taking any action,” he added.
“Could you let go of me now?” she replied.
Abruptly he released her. All London assumed she was his mistress. Though she didn’t realize it, she had been labeled. Without his protection now, she would be fair game for any man. “If I escort you, will you give your word to go there with no one but me?” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
“Do you give your word?” he added. His anger was dissipating, and being replaced with a kind of reckless elation that he had never experienced before.
“I promise,” Ariel assured him.
Surprising himself as well as Ariel, Alan began to laugh. “You would do quite well as a blackmailer,” he said after a while.
Her eyes gleamed in the lantern light. “Perhaps I’ll consider it when I’m older,” she replied.
Nine
It was very likely that Bess had had costumes made for masquerades, Ariel thought as she made her way up to the attic two days later. She had loved them. And just because Lord Alan was being stuffy about wearing fancy dress didn’t mean she had to be. She intended to enjoy the occasion to the fullest. Who knew when she would get to attend another?
“Ooh, miss,” breathed Ellen the housemaid, who accompanied her to the attic for the first time. “Look at all these dresses!”
“Would you like one?” answered Ariel somewhat absently. She was concentrating on the search for the costumes.
“Me, miss?” The girl seemed flabbergasted. “Hannah wouldn’t allow it.”
This caught Ariel’s attention. “Why would she care?” she wondered.
Ellen had moved to one of the wardrobes and was stroking a silk gown. “She’d say they weren’t for the likes of me,” she answered, her voice distant, as if she had drifted off to some other realm.
Ariel hesitated. Ellen wouldn’t have any place to wear one of her mother’s dresses. But what harm could there be in simply owning one? “We’ll ask Hannah,” she decided. It would give her a chance to learn more about her possible adversary, she thought. She hadn’t yet been able to make out Hannah’s true opinion of her.
“Do you think we should, miss?” Ellen was clearly doubtful, but her fingers continued to stroke the luxurious cloth of their own volition.
“Why not? Come, we’ll do it now.”
They found Hannah in the kitchen, as usual. She was sprinkling some green herb into a large pot on the cookstove, and she looked up in surprise when Ariel marched in with Ellen at her heels.
“Hannah, my mother left a great number of gowns in the house here. She had a penchant for new clothes. I would like to give Ellen a silk dress. Have you any objection?”
The older woman looked from Ariel to Ellen’s hopeful face. Ariel realized she was a little nervous. There was something formidable about Hannah, even though she was the quietest, most unobtrusive person.
The pause lengthened. Ellen shuffled her feet on the brick floor but didn’t speak.
“Let’s have a look,” Hannah said at last.
They climbed back up the stairs together, Hannah beginning to puff a bit by the third floor. She stopped to catch her breath at the top, and then followed them into the attic storage room. “Merciful heavens,” she exclaimed at the rows of crammed wardrobes. “No wonder you’ve been keeping this room locked up.”
Of course she had noticed that, Ariel thought.
Hannah walked down the row, shaking her head as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. “What a waste,” she murmured at the end.
“Isn’t it?” agreed Ariel. “I would like the gowns to be enjoyed, instead of just hanging here getting dusty.”
Hannah gave her a look that said she saw right through this altruism.
“I could just keep it in my room,” ventured Ellen. “To look at, like. And mebbe when I went home at Christmastime, I could—”
“Having a silk gown wouldn’t let you out of any of your work,” admonished Hannah.
“No, ma’am. Of course not,” replied Ellen, sounding shocked at the idea.
Hannah smiled slightly. “I don’t see any harm in it,” she said.
Ellen gasped with pleasure and turned to stare at the dress she had been touching earlier.
“Any one you want, Ellen,” said Ariel.
Smiling beatifically, the girl went to take down the dress—a stunning peach silk that was perfect for her dark coloring.
“Would…would you like something as well, Hannah?” Ariel ventured.
The older woman snorted. “It’d take two of them to fit round me.”
Should she offer her two? wondered Ariel.
“However…”
Ariel wai
ted.
“I have two nieces, down in Devonshire, who’d probably faint dead away to get a gown such as that.” She was looking at Ellen, who was holding the silk gown up against her and smoothing its folds.
“Let us send them some,” urged Ariel, delighted and relieved.
“I don’t know what their mother would say to me,” answered the older woman. “Look at that neckline. It’s near down to your…” She sniffed.
Ellen started and flushed deep red. “I’m going to put in a kerchief,” she mumbled.
“There are morning dresses that are not cut so low,” Ariel responded hurriedly. “I’ll show you.” She moved toward another wardrobe, and was gratified when Hannah slowly followed her. “Tell me about your nieces,” she added. “Are they dark-haired or blond? Here, look at this.” She pulled out a sprigged muslin gown with a deep ruffle at the hem and long narrow sleeves, also ruffled at the cuff. The neckline was fairly decorous—astonishingly so for her mother, Ariel thought. Probably that was why the gown hung here; it didn’t look as if it had ever been worn.
Hannah touched the muslin. “Fine stuff,” she commented. “Alice would look right lovely in that.”
“Good,” declared Ariel. She thrust the dress into Hannah’s arms. “Now, let us see. What is your other niece’s name?”
“Lizzie,” answered Hannah absently. She was looking down at the dress. “I don’t know, miss.”
“Oh, please. I would so like to think of them in these dresses.”
Hannah looked up and met her eyes. Ariel saw traces of suspicion, and doubt, and uneasiness. She let the woman examine her as long as she wished. It felt very much like a test, but she was confident of her ability to pass it.
After what seemed like a long time, Hannah nodded. “Thank you, miss,” she said. “The girls’ll be that thrilled.”
The three of them spent a pleasant half hour choosing another dress to send south, and then Ariel returned to her original purpose. She finally found what she was looking for in the wardrobe in the far corner. There were fewer dresses here; room had been left so that the elaborate ensembles would not be crushed. She took them out one by one and examined them. There was a lavishly ornamented gown in the style of the last century, with panniers and a skirt made of yards and yards of silk brocade. But when she peered into the recesses of the wardrobe, she saw no sign of the hoop or crinolines necessary for wearing it, so she had to put it aside.