A Lady in Disguise

by Sandra Byrd

  I smiled. “Thank you, sir.”

  He smiled back. “Thank me with dresses that will make Harris gasp.”

  “I shall,” I promised.

  Shaken, I made my way to the street. Nearby was the neighborhood police division. I had to know what was going on before my livelihood was threatened for good.

  A carriage pulled up just as I stepped toward the street. I got in as it had begun to rain.

  “Metropolitan Police Division,” I said. The driver, a clean-cut man, smiled, perhaps a bit impudently, and took off. We arrived a few minutes later, and he tipped his helmet to me. “Would you like me to wait?” His grin seemed saucy somehow.

  “No, thank you,” I said. I would get another carriage.

  I walked into the division, and asked to speak with any inspector. I told them my name and that I was the daughter of Inspector Andrew Young. I didn’t know if they’d have heard of him, his not having worked here, but the name seemed to prompt recognition. The man at the desk left, and then came back.

  “The inspector says to tell you he’s busy just now.”

  “Can someone please tell me why someone from your division was at the Theatre Royal asking about me? My name,” I repeated, “is Miss Gillian Young.”

  He disappeared again and then returned. “Inspector says no one was sent after you, miss, at Drury Lane.” He peered at me. “What division did your father work at?” His face grew hard.

  Suddenly, I felt I should not say. It would get back to Collingsworth. And, I suddenly realized, it was not perhaps this division who had been sent to enquire. It was Chelsea—where Papa and Roberts had worked. Roberts’s scheme to leave a dummy list had not erased the risk!

  “Never mind.” I turned and quickly left.

  I took another carriage, but by the time I returned home I was slick with damp anyway—and from anxiety, and fear.

  • • •

  The evening of the Vernissage ball I arrived just a bit late. I hurried up the stairs; Lady Tolfee was in her dressing room, tapping her finger on the dressing table. Her hair was already done, and her lady’s maid stood, idly, nearby.

  “I’m sorry,” I said as I arrived in her suite. “Here, this shall take but a minute.” I pulled her dress out of her garment bag.

  I noted the delight on her face, and only at that moment felt relief myself. A beautiful gown covers a multitude of sins, as far as Lady Tolfee was concerned. I always tended to Lady Tolfee dressing in her gowns, in case there was a hem that needed adjusting or a button firming up.

  “Shall we call Lady Mary?” I asked, referring to her eldest daughter. I had the lady’s maid remove the sky blue dress from the bag.

  “She shan’t be attending,” she replied coolly.

  “Oh . . . I’m sorry she’s unwell. She can perhaps save the dress for another event?”

  “No, dear, she’s not unwell. We had a little discussion, and I told her if she was not thankful for the opportunities afforded to her, then someone else would be.” She eyed me. “You’re just her size, aren’t you?”

  Cold washed over me. “Yes, but . . . perhaps it won’t fit in any case.”

  “Come, now. Every woman knows the size of other women, and this will fit you beautifully. Even I know that.”

  She was right. It would.

  “I think it would be a lark for you to attend,” she said, as I’d expected. “You’re an heiress now, of a great country property, which makes you eminently suitable for an event, especially as my guest. None will cross me. Lord Palmer was your grandfather, and I shall introduce you as such. Yes, this is a splendid idea.”

  Her maid began moving toward me, to help me change, I assumed. Had she just come across this idea? It seemed unlikely. I did not know if she was trying to punish Lady Mary for the unspoken indiscretion by having her replaced by “the help,” or promote me, somehow, for some reason. Or both. There were jewels at the ready, and ivory loose slippers that could be tightened by laces to fit.

  As her maid did my hair, I recognized that I depended upon her good graces and patronage, and so I would attend this post-Vernissage ball as her guest, dressed in a crystal-crusted gown of blue silk.

  It is but one night, I reminded myself. I smiled and thought about how I’d just chastised myself for still wearing my mother’s costumes. Yes, I can play a role for one night.

  Lockwood, I knew, would also be in attendance.

  An hour in, though, the pleasure had begun to fray at the edges. I was not truly Lord Palmer’s granddaughter in a way he would ever have acknowledged, and I might not even be heiress to that qualifying country house for long. I felt like a fraud, the granddaughter of Lord Palmer here, but not the daughter of Inspector Andrew Young. And yet . . . I was both, wasn’t I?

  My fevered thoughts broke when I felt a hand on my arm, and another one reach around me in a familiar manner. I turned. “Lord Lockwood.”

  He looked very fine indeed in tie and tails, and there were quite a few glances our way. I held no illusions—they were looking at him and wondering who I was. He grinned at me. “I am delighted beyond words that you are in attendance and would not have arrived late had I known,” he said. “May I have the honor of a dance?”

  I nodded, and he led me to the center of the room where a waltz was about to begin. The checkered wood parquet floor tiles gleamed under the blazing crystal chandeliers, and the orchestra struck up a beguiling Strauss. A young woman looked at us, bewildered. I suspected Lockwood’s name had been on her card for this dance.

  “I had not expected to see you here.” He turned me from her view. “I did not know that you . . .”

  “Mingled with this social set?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “But not because you are not worthy. I am just used to seeing, well, none other than married women, the dowagers, and the debs. You are none of the three.”

  “I do feel a bit out of place; I had not expected to be here myself.”

  He raised an eyebrow inviting me to say more. I would, but not for a moment. First, I wanted to relish the feel of his one hand engulfing mine, protectively, possessively, almost, and the other resting intimately against my back. The warmth from it emanated through my gown and reverberated within my entire body. It was an entirely new and welcome sensation.

  “You are a fine dancer,” I said. “You have come a long way since your awkward boyhood days.”

  He laughed. “For a woman who does not often dance, by her own admission, you float in my arms.”

  I smiled. “We have Miss Genevieve’s Day School for Young Ladies to thank for that. I love dancing, to lose myself in the music, in the warmth, in the rhythm . . .” In the arms of a man I want to dance with, I ended silently. I hadn’t met one before him. “I would dance every night if I could.”

  Ah, Miss Genevieve. You’d be proud to see me here tonight. Mrs. W had worked hard to find me a place in the school; it had been a triumph when I’d been accepted.

  “Lady Tolfee invited me as her guest,” I said, finishing my explanation as to why I was, unexpectedly, in attendance.

  “And you’d had a dress ready? As a seamstress, that is understandable.”

  “Oh, no. I could never afford this dress on my own, not even the material. It’s been lent to me; Lady Tolfee commissioned it for her daughter, who has been banished for some reason.”

  He nodded. “I’ve heard Lady Mary has fallen from her mother’s favor.”

  “Something I hope not to do,” I admitted. “And so I am here. The dress shall be returned to Lady Mary. No matter. I am not of this world.”

  The music stopped, and normally, we would have parted ways. I could not imagine that he had not filled up the cards of many young debs and perhaps a few dowagers. In fact, one beautiful woman was looking our way insistently. He turned so I would face her, and not he. She glared at me and then walked toward Lady Tolfee.

  “Is everything so black and white to you, Miss Young?” The question was honestly, but not rudely, put. “No
t of this world, definitely of that? Do you consider where you want to be, regardless of the world to which you believe you have been assigned?”

  I was taken aback. “I suppose you’re right,” I said, thinking of my mother, thinking of myself. “It is not always so clear.”

  “Good, then we agree.” He drew nearer to me than he would have had to, and whispered in my ear, which tingled as it received his welcome words and, just barely, his lips against the ridge of it. “Even in a borrowed gown, you are the most beautiful woman in this room. It’s why all eyes are on you—not because you don’t belong, but because you are compelling.”

  I blushed. “I do not know what to say.” I did not. It was not often I was at a loss for words, but by his smile, this man seemed to relish that he had put me in such a position, though gently.

  “Say you’ll attend a fencing exhibition. Colmore Dunn and I are going to spar. You said your father enjoyed the sport. Surely he would approve.”

  Francis Collingsworth had invoked my father recently, too.

  Lockwood turned me on the dance floor. We fit perfectly. I allowed myself to melt into his arm. “He did,” I agreed. “And he would.”

  “You seemed to enjoy our time together with Henry V,” he continued. A tease crept across his face.

  I would not let him win all. “I enjoyed watching you train actors, certainly,” I said. I would not own to my relishing our exchange of lines.

  He laughed. “I don’t remember it quite that way, myself. He looked at me deeply; I willingly fell into the intimacy of it. “Always trying to keep the upper hand. You are a fencer, Miss Young, at heart. I should not like to spar with you.” He put his index finger up and held it out like a sword. I put mine up, too, and crossed his, as though we were sparring. He smiled and curled his finger around mine possessively for a moment. I caught my breath.

  “Someday, I truly shall test your recollections of Henry V.” He let my finger slip away. “I’ll send round information on the exhibition so you may put it on your calendar.”

  “When the dates arrive, I shall see if I may fit it in,” I said, allowing a little sparkle to my voice. “Thank you for thinking of me.”

  He bowed, the dance over, and drew near to me before moving toward his next dance partner and whispered once more, his lips close enough to read.

  “I think of you constantly, Miss Young.”

  I danced with a few other men, and while I found the conversations engaging and the manners kind, I was not taken with any of them in the way I had been with Lord Lockwood. The conversations revolved around politics of the day and hunting; neither topic interested me. Lord Lockwood was never alone, each dance brought a new woman, clinging to him. I felt an unreasonable despair, for a moment. Then I thought of them as clinging beetles, and it raised my spirits somewhat.

  I went to thank my hostess, but she was engaged with other guests. I left via the servants’ entrance, hailing a hired carriage from the fleet of them that tarried nearby. The night was thick with the coal fog that hung like an unwelcome apparition and made for heavy breathing. I could just barely make out the outlines of a row of carriages waiting to return guests to their homes. The fourth in line pulled forward; odd, as the first would normally have pulled toward me.

  I stepped toward the door; I could not make out the features of the driver until he came round to open it for me.

  “You again?” Horrified, I could barely squeeze out the words.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  It was the same driver who had taken me to the police division hours earlier. There were hundreds, perhaps a thousand, hired carriages in London, too many for this kind of coincidence.

  “Cheyne Gardens,” I said.

  “Yes, I know where you live,” he said, grinning, and then closed the door behind me before I could hop out to safety. “But we’re not going there.”

  A flush of fear coursed through me and I nearly cried in panic. Who was he? How did he know where I lived? How had he arranged to be my driver, twice?

  Most important, where was he taking me now? I could not escape a carriage driving at this speed without hurting myself.

  Lord, protect me. I do not know what to do.

  He drove through the night like a madman, the carriage barely escaping hitting other carriages and, once or twice, a pedestrian. I wondered if I would die in a runaway carriage as Papa had died by a “runaway” cart. Had this man been the driver then, too?

  I prayed that he would go too far and would catch the attention of a police officer, but that was not to be. He never stopped—if he had, I should have risked all and jumped out.

  I crossed my arms in front of my chest to tamp the panic, and it worked. I must keep my mind alert. He drove out of the West End, heading east, toward the City, where Lockwood had offices for his investments, as did Mr. Pilchuck. We passed the Tower of London; I, too, was very much a prisoner. The fog had settled all around us again and I could not see where we were headed, but east, yes. East. Toward Wapping and the London Docks? I had heard of young women being kidnapped and shipped abroad. Was this what he had planned?

  The scent of the brackish river was a hint and I could hear the creaking of large ships as they wavered in the water. The fog lifted, as there was little coal smoke weighing it down.

  Yes, the dock. He slowed now, knowing, I was certain, that I dared not get out. I looked out of the carriage window and saw a trio of men, coarse and drunk, who called out vulgar sentiments when they glimpsed my face. I pulled back from the window.

  The driver pulled up to a ship. “Care to visit a foreign port?” He barked a laugh.

  “Certainly not.”

  “It would be easy to arrange,” he promised. “You’d be just as much a treasure in the right hands as the ivory, spices, coffee, and cocoa that come through.”

  I could see that it would be easy to arrange for my disappearance now, or later. Unless I remained in my own home and never took transport again it would be simple to kidnap me once more. I could not remain cloistered and work—or live! To whom could I turn? The police? I did not know who was trustworthy and who was not any longer.

  “Return me to my home,” I insisted. Should I take a chance and step out of the carriage? I reached for the handle, and as I did, he chucked the horses and took off again. Slowly at first, so I could still hear him speak.

  “I will, this time, missy. But don’t be poking around new police divisions asking questions or making enquiries, or you shan’t find me as forbearing. If you learn anything new, you know to whom you should deliver that information. Otherwise, leave well enough alone. The dead are dead. You do not want to join them nor end up in a distant port.”

  I held my breath all the way back to Cheyne Gardens, not really knowing if he would take me home or not. Finally, the carriage did stop in front of my house. I had not told him which house it was; I had not needed to.

  He came round and opened my door, making a big display of bowing. “Be careful, Miss Young. London is not safe for an unprotected lady. Nor is the contented countryside of Hampshire.”

  “Who do you work for?”

  “Myself,” he answered slyly. “Doesn’t everyone?”

  Shaking, I walked up my front steps. I reached my key into the lock, half expecting it to be unlocked, but it was not.

  I entered the hallway and walked into the sitting room. I noticed immediately that my mother’s flower book—new to the environs—had been moved and that it was open, facedown, on the console.

  Someone had been looking through it. Were they still here? I stood motionless, but heard nothing. Perhaps he, or they, were standing still as well. Had my kidnapper had a twofold purpose? To warn me off, and to keep me away whilst someone searched my home?

  After some minutes, I quietly looked about.

  The console drawers were ajar and I looked through them, quickly. Nothing had been removed.

  I walked to Mrs. W’s room and cracked the door open. Nothing seemed open or disturbed, so I
closed the door behind me and moved on.

  Heart in my throat, room by room, I found nothing was askew until I reached my bedroom. There, the books had been moved on my dresser and the drawers all opened. The cubbyhole was blessedly closed and its contents remained intact.

  I smelt Turkish tobacco, which prickled my mind into attentiveness.

  Whoever had come and likely gone had been looking for something—probably something I may have just returned home with from Hampshire. The timing was right, and I’d been home but a few days. Whoever searched knew that Mrs. W was not here and that I would be gone that night.

  A horrifying thought crossed my mind and I nearly fainted in fear. The girls!

  My legs jellied as I raced up the stairs. I knocked quietly on Ruby and Charlotte’s door. Neither answered, so I quietly pushed it open to find them both peacefully asleep in their beds. I stared for a minute and thought I saw Ruby’s eyes blink. Was she awake, and did not want me to know? Had she been looking out the windows as she’d admitted to doing?

  No matter. Heaving with relief, I closed their door and knocked on Mother Martha’s. After a moment, she called out a muffled, “Yes?”

  “Are you all right?” I asked. “Is everything fine?”

  “Quite all right, miss,” she said. “Do you need my help?”

  I wished she could help. I did not wish to scare her. “No, thank you,” I said. “I shall see you tomorrow.”

  I walked downstairs and then all the way to the basement. The door to the Area was unlocked. I did not know if it had been pried, or if Louisa or Bidwell was in the habit of leaving it unlocked. I would remind them, on the morrow, to lock it. But neither would admit to having left it unlocked for fear of reprisal.

  I worried that if I alerted anyone to another break-in, my staff might leave my service.

  • • •

  Mrs. W returned to us the following week, considerably cheered, and I was glad for her company; it made me feel safe. I had decided, for all of us, to leave well enough alone now, as Papa was gone and I had the girls and myself to think of. No more incidents had occurred, and I’d had the locks changed once more.