by Laura London
“No, my lord. I never get sick.”
“Truly? What a convenient creature you are. You don’t get sick. You don’t cry. Our little misunderstanding of last night aside, is there anything else that you don’t do? Yes, you ought to hang your head, that’s the closest I’ve ever come to raping anyone. Throw the milk out now, there’s a good girl.”
Katie walked over to the clear bay window, opened one hinged pane and dumped the milk outside. Unfortunately, it was not clear sailing to the pavement and Katie, hearing an indignant scream, looked out the window to find that she had tossed the spoiled milk squarely onto the lavender parasol of an elegant young lady who had been taking her morning promenade below.
“Oh, dear,” said Katie, dragging her head inside hastily. Lord Linden joined her by the window.
“Oh, dear is right. Are you trying to have me evicted?” said Linden, his dark eyes washed by laughter.
“But that’s what they do in the Rookery, toss the garbage out the window.”
“My dear child, this is not the Rookery, this is Bennett Street. And here ‘they’ do not toss their garbage out the window. What a life you must have led!” said Linden. “Tell me, chérie, who looked after you during those times that Papa disappeared?”
“Ladies that Papa hired, mostly, though none of them stayed very long because Papa forgot to pay them most of the time. When I got older, I stayed alone. Papa says that every tub must stand upon its own bottom.”
Lord Linden pinched Katie’s chin gently between his fingers. “Katie, if we are going to get along, I think you had better stop telling me what Papa says. Frankly, I am beginning to develop a profound dislike for that gentleman.”
“Are we going to get along, my lord?” asked Katie wonderingly.
Lord Linden sighed, released Katie, and sat down in an open-backed armchair. He couldn’t send the chit back to the Rookery and Nasty Ned. It would be nothing short of murder. “I’m afraid so, petite. At least until I can find your father and bring him to some sense of his responsibilities. That is, if he hasn’t gone to America.”
Katie had great faith in Lord Linden’s powers of persuasion, but an intimate knowledge of her father’s character told her that it was beyond the power of mortal flesh to bring him to a sense of his responsibilities. “It’s not that Papa doesn’t like me,” she explained, “it’s only that he doesn’t think about me very often.”
Lord Linden looked grim. “Then we’ll just have to remind him.”
Chapter Five
London shone rose that evening and on Bennett Street the bandtailed pigeons strutted to and fro on the rails of the ironwork balconies, chuckling softly to themselves. Katie could hear them as she lay on her stomach on Lord Linden’s bed, watching him tie his white silk cravat.
“How did you know that I didn’t have French pox?” asked Katie. She lifted her slim ankles from the bed and bounced them one by one against the mattress.
“Because,” said Linden, immersed in the mysteries of knotting.
“Because why?” pursued Katie.
Lord Linden started to say something and then stopped as though he had changed his mind. “You really are very innocent, aren’t you? If your friend Zack was so eager to introduce you into the muslin company, it seems to me that he ought to have used a little more energy making sure you knew the facts of life.”
“Well, I do know them. Once I saw a cow and bull. Zack says that’s all you need to know.”
Linden gave a quick gasp of mirth. “Which partially explains your reluctance last night.”
“Are you still angry with me about that?” asked Katie uncertainly.
“No.”
Katie thought a minute. “Lord Linden, do you recall that lady who came into the restaurant while we were having breakfast? The one who is your grandmother’s friend? I think she might not have believed you when you told her I was your nephew. She wasn’t very friendly, was she?”
Linden smiled at some secret thought. “Don’t worry, child, it was directed at me and not you.”
Katie wriggled to the side of the bed and let her head hang over the edge. “How do you think she knew I wasn’t your nephew?”
“Probably because she knows that none of my sisters would ever allow their offspring to traipse around London looking like the loser in a dogfight,” said Linden crushingly.
Katie digested this in silence. Then she dropped her hands to the floor and rubbed her knuckles against the rug. “I think you look beautiful. Will it be much fun at the party you’re going to tonight?”
“Lord, no, dull work, my dear. A soiree at my grandmother Brixton’s, of all the damned things. Banal as a banker’s bath water.”
“Why do you go then?”
“Because grandmère‘ll raise holy hell if I don’t show up. And that means she’ll send my mother a long, detailed letter about what a hell-bound babe I am and my mother will send me a letter, splattered with tears and lavender scent, begging me to stop breaking her heart with my wild ways. My mother can work herself into hysteria rapidly, I assure you. And, it not being possible to slap one’s mother in the face, I’d have to endure a certain amount of it.” He grinned suddenly and looked very young. “Actually, Grandmère and I have a lot in common. She’s got Caligula’s own temper, too.”
“Was Caligula one of those Greeks?”
Linden gave his cravat a final pat and came to sit on the bed beside Katie. “No, barbarian. He was a Roman emperor.” He tapped her nose lightly. What a problem this girl was. A short stop at Bow Street had set inquiries in motion concerning the whereabouts of Katie’s father. They had found that there were others interested in this subject: the baron’s creditors. Housing her until her father was found was a problem. Lord Linden could well imagine the reaction of any London hostess requested by him to provide shelter for a young girl of Katie’s glowing beauty and present circumstances. No one would believe he hadn’t made her his mistress. If that wasn’t enough to damn her, her father’s reputation surely would. Baron Kendricks was a notorious cheat, and nothing short of the sponsorship of a duchess would ever open society’s doors to the Bad Baron’s daughter; As he looked down into Katie’s soulful blue eyes, he thought how unfair it was that Katie should be tarnished with her father’s reputation. In spite of her rearing, the girl was an unfledged innocent. It spoke volumes for Katie’s inexperience that she still trusted him after last night.
Katie sat up, hugging her knees. “Is your grandmother’s house far away?”
“No, it’s about four blocks down Bennett Street. Are you afraid to stay here by yourself?”
“No, but I don’t understand why you don’t want to come back here after the party. It will be a lot of trouble for you to stay somewhere else and it would be so easy for me to sleep in the drawing room.”
“Perhaps.” Linden rubbed the back of Katie’s hand with his finger. “Unfortunately, it would also be so easy for me to forget my good resolutions. I’m a dissolute creature, child, and you want to beware.”
The big blue eyes smiled into his trustingly. “You’ve been kinder to me than anyone has before. You know, Lord Linden, about last night…”
“Yes?” He let his finger wander over her wrist.
“If I was going to be anyone’s mistress, I would like to be yours. But you see, when you got tired of me, then I would have to be with just anybody, and I don’t think I could do that.”
Linden rose abruptly from the bed. “Don’t tease yourself about it, child, it doesn’t matter. I’ve got to be off now. Don’t burn the house down while I’m gone. And don’t open the door for anyone; I won’t be back before morning, so if anyone knocks, it won’t be me.” He reached over and chucked her under the chin as she sat, crosslegged, on the bed. “Good-bye now.”
She listened to his steps on the stairway and heard him lock the door behind him. She was alone. Her face brightened with an idea, and she bounced from the bed, skipped across the room, and opened the French doors leading to the balco
ny. The pigeons scattered with a wild flapping of wings as she leaned over the wrought-iron railing to look for Lord Linden. He was nearly at the corner, sauntering elegantly through the golden evening.
“Enjoy yourself!” she called through cupped hands, and waved. He turned and touched the brim of his top hat with the brass tip of his cane in a farewell gesture, and she watched him, hands on chin, until a slight bend in the street took him out of her sight. The late breeze ruffled playfully at her auburn hair and flapped at the curtains on the French doors behind her, ran in to make a turn around the room, and passed by her again on its way out. She stood idly, in reverie, as the pigeons returned to coo softly at her feet.
“Well,” she said aloud. “Pigeons certainly make a more pleasant noise than fighting cocks.” As if it understood her, one of the smaller pigeons walked stiff-legged between her feet and stood there, rubbing its wings against her ankles. “Dear little thing,” she said.
She remembered then that the pantry had been freshly stocked that day from funds from Linden’s ready pocket. They had bought bread, dried meat, fruit, cheese, and especially for her, he had said, a strange bundle of yellow, smooth-sided tubular fruit, connected together at one end in a way she thought was vastly clever.
“Bananas,” he had responded to her query, smiling to himself. “From the Canary Islands. No, they aren’t attached for shipment; they grow that way, in bunches. Little monkeys eat them in the jungle, they say.”
So now I’m going to eat monkey food, she thought. Katie looked doubtfully at the oblong yellow fruit. If only there was a monkey around to tell her how to eat it. She brought it out of the pantry into the little kitchen, took a knife from the rack and cut it in half. She found it was filled with a delightfully scented white fiber. Possessed by a culinary brainstorm, Katie sliced two pieces of bread and squeezed both halves of the banana out onto them, carefully daubing the fruit around to make sure it was evenly distributed. She cut two pieces of cheese and laid them on top, poured a sparing glass of white wine and carried the snack upstairs. Katie changed into a comfortable old nightdress, and sat crosslegged in a giant overstuffed armchair that she pulled before the open French doors of the balcony. And there she had a royal feast, entertained by the flutterings of the pigeons and watching the comings and goings of the finely dressed passersby. It seemed everyone was going to a party somewhere, and she was having a party herself. The shadows grew longer and blacker, spreading across the street until they had diffused the sunset into darkness. The swallows and bats began to dart once again. Katie put aside her plate, having reduced the mongrel sandwich to a small pile of crumbs, and dozed contentedly.
She woke with a start some time later, thinking she had heard a knock on the door downstairs. It had been so real, so distinct; three sharp raps. Perhaps she had dreamed it. Her eyes were wide in the darkened room as she listened. Nothing. She closed her eyes again and tried to return to sleep. Seconds, or minutes later, it came again, the triple knocking.
Katie lifted herself slowly from the chair and winced as it squeaked beneath her. The dark outline of the key Lord Linden had left her was barely visible against the purplewood veneer of the small tier table in the corner. She reached out and touched it in passing, feeling its reassuring metallic coldness; then she crept down the carpeted stairway.
The doorknob was being rattled and turned by an unseen hand.
“Katie,” came a sepulchral whisper from the other side of the two-inch oak door. It was a voice she had never heard before, a disembodied, menacing voice that drew out her name as if it would pull her soul from her body. Involuntarily, she backed from the door. “Open the door, Katie.”
She backtracked up the stairs, staring mesmerized at the twisting doorknob. Her mind raced frantically, attempting to attach a face, an identity, to that ghostly whisper. Linden had his own key. Anyone visiting Linden wouldn’t know her name. If it were Zack, wouldn’t he identify himself outright? Perhaps the voice had no face. The rattling of the doorknob ceased and Katie halted stiffly, poised in uncertainty, one hand clamped tightly on the railing. Seconds slipped into moments and breath returned to her constricted throat.
The French doors were open upstairs! A picture sparked into her mind of a now threatening breeze, gaining entrance to ruffle uninhibited through the exit to the balcony. Katie turned and ran up the stairs, intending to slam the doors. She rushed into Linden’s bedroom and faced the starlit balcony.
A black-hooded head was rising over the iron railing; the faceless personification of the disembodied voice. A blade glimmered dully in the moonlight as the figure vaulted awkwardly over the railing and advanced across the room at Katie like a black shadow. In a blind panic, she grabbed the key from the corner table and ran from the room, her pursuer’s footfall rustling heavily behind her. She skidded down the steps, and her shaking fingers refused to quiet themselves as she fumbled hysterically with the lock. Before, the door had sheltered her, but now it held her prisoner. Katie twisted her head to see her assailant bearing down on her, the blade held high. At that moment, the lock gave way and she tore outdoors, hearing the knife hissing as it searched for her. Her assailant stumbled over the threshold with an audible thud and she gained a few steps on him. Katie flew down the pavement without looking back.
Five houses down the block, a pair of grooms stood chatting next to an elegantly groomed, long-maned Arabian mare that pulled restlessly against the hitching post. The smoke from the groom’s clay pipe curled and eddied in the rectangle of light thrown out from the open door behind them. Katie snatched the reins and threw herself into the saddle of the nervously circling horse just as the owner, dressed in formal riding clothes and carrying a crop, came out to take possession of his waiting animal. Katie was thundering down the street, hair streaming, expertly guiding the horse with her knees, before the groom or the outraged owner could prevent her.
“Horse thief! Stop!” Two grooms and the injured owner chased her as she galloped in the direction she had seen Lord Linden walking. Four blocks, he had said. Her pursuers puffed after her, the horseman waving his crop wildly in the air. Katie longed desperately for protection and there was only one man she knew that could provide it. A brightly lit mansion ahead and to her left, surrounded by waiting coaches, must belong to Lady Brixton, she decided.
It had been a rather uneventful evening for the footman tending Lady Brixton’s door that night; one of your run o’ the mill stuffy high society gigs, so he was taken completely off guard by the slim nightdress-clad miss who came galloping out of the night on a fine Arabian mare. The young Godiva reined in and fairly flung herself upon him, where he sat in his porter’s chair, haughty in his white stockings and powdered wig.
“Is this Lady Brixton’s?” asked the girl frantically. “Is Lord Linden within?”
“Yes it is, gel, and yes, he is—but you can’t go in there! Hey! Come back! This is highly improper!” But she was gone, brushing past an astonished pair of new arrivals. Katie received a flashing impression of glittering ambiance; there was a sparkling crystal chandelier, bronze candle-holders, a glistening marble and gilt porcelain mantel clock, and a rich variety of sterling silver spice boxes, fruit dishes, and coconut cups. A hundred fashionably dressed guests were cut in midsentence and stared open-mouthed at Katie. Lady Brixton, at the head of the reception line, a bastion of blue-blooded, bejewelled respectability, changed the glazed condescension of her facial expression to a mask of frostily horrified astonishment.
It was not an atmosphere that nurtured melodrama, and Katie, standing panicked and wild-eyed before a vast seat of London’s most exalted citizens, suddenly felt that it might have been better to have taken her chances with her attacker’s glinting knife. Words froze in her throat and she clasped her hands together fearfully.
Standing beside Lady Brixton was a short, rather plain girl in elegant mourning black, whose face also registered a planet-struck expression. There was a third person in the reception line; he was very young and ver
y handsome with peach-blond hair and a friendly pair of pale brown eyes, which had widened with incredulous delight as Katie, en deshabille, came spilling into his grandmother’s parlor. I’d like to have you for dinner, you luscious creature, he thought, and strolled forward to say quite kindly, “May I help you with something, my dear?”
“Oh, yes, please,” whispered Katie apprehensively. “May I talk to Lord Linden?”
Linden, thought the young man. It would be. He turned to see Lord Linden striding through the crowd toward them and watched with frankly envious appreciation as Katie flung herself at Linden and clutched desperately at his tailored lapels.
“Lord Linden,” gasped Katie, “a man came into your bedroom. He had a knife! Really! And that man thinks I stole his horse, but I didn’t. And I think that I’ve lost the key to your house because I don’t have it in my hand anymore. Is that your grandmother? I think she is very, very angry with me and I don’t want to be here at all. I’m so unhappy. Please, please help me.”
The tale of how Lord Linden’s latest chère amie had gate-crashed one of Her Grace Lady Brixton, the Duchess of Hounslow’s most select soirees was to spread like freed fire through the all-male echelon of London’s finest clubs the next morning. And the story lost nothing in the telling, for those gentlemen fortunate enough to have been present at Lady Brixton’s could not decide to whom they should award top honors; the dazzling titian-haired nymph who had so enlivened Lady Brixton’s otherwise dull party, or Lord Linden, for what General Clappington had admiringly described as “the boy’s deuced cool head under fire.” Lord Linden had calmly disentangled Katie’s fingers from his chocolate brown evening coat, grabbed the lacy tablecloth from a nearby supper table and, to the disgust of the other gentlemen present, wrapped it around Katie’s too ravishing figure. Then, with charming aplomb, he had made a graceful bow to his hostess, thanked her for a most pleasant evening, assured her that he was her most obedient servant and made his exit, shoving Katie in front of him with a little more force than might have been strictly necessary.