Gilding the Lady

by Nicole Byrd

  The old woman snorted “The marquess wouldn’t never have allowed her to leave, me lord. But yes, some time after that, she took to her room—was ordered to take to her room, I should say. . . . I was the only one allowed to attend her; even the rest of the servants weren’t permitted to see her, and the marquess was such a harsh master, no one dared argue. The marquess made out she had a pleurisy, though he never called a doctor to her.” She paused again, and then looked up at him, her faded eyes shrewd.

  “Nowadays, these round gowns, they hide a lot, me lord. But twenty-odd years ago, fashions were different, and a lady’s condition was harder to conceal. So you know about the babe, then?”

  Gabriel felt a tingle as sharp as a fiery spark scorching bare skin, but he kept his expression even. “Yes,” he said. “You are not betraying any confidence.”

  She sighed.

  “I delivered her, and I was the one who smuggled her away, me lord. Your mother was afeared what the marquess would do . . . but she cried her eyes out, she did, when she gave the infant into me arms.” The old woman’s own eyes dampened again from the memory. “I took the poor mite to a lady friend your mother trusted. Did the babe live?”

  Gabriel nodded. “I found my sister only this year,” he said. “But she is well.”

  The old woman crossed herself. “Oh, it does me heart good to hear that. I was so afeared. . . . But the marquess—he’d already suspected I had smuggled letters out for your poor mother, and then after I took away the child, he threw me out. I wasn’t sorry to leave that miserable household, begging your pardon, me lord, but I hated to leave your mother all alone. The woman who replaced me, she hadn’t a flicker of courage in her, and I knew your mother would be left friendless.”

  They were both silent for a moment, then Gabriel said slowly, his throat aching with the effort to sound as if the answer did not matter, when it so desperately did. “And those letters . . . do you recall to whom you sent them, Mistress Cutter?”

  She looked up at him. “I never saw his name. She was afraid to put it on paper, you see, in case her husband—She sent them through an agent, I think.”

  “I see.” The disappointment was overwhelming. To come so close . . .

  Then the old lady added, “But they were addressed to Yorkshire, me lord. I’m afraid I don’t recall more than that.”

  The darkness lifted.

  Gabriel pulled himself together and thanked her again. And when he walked outside with Molly Cutter’s daughter and saw the stout man as he came up from the field, with muddy boots and a still resentful air, Gabriel took out a good handful of silver and handed it to the woman.

  “Lady Gillingham would wish your mother to have some reward for all she did,” he told her.

  The woman’s eyes widened. “Oh, thank’ee, me lord. This is most good of ye.”

  Making sure he spoke loudly enough for the man to hear, Gabriel added, “I will arrange with my man of business to see that a suitable pension is paid to your mother, for as long as she lives. I know that she has earned it.”

  The woman gave a curtsy and stuttered her thanks.

  But Gabriel was sure that it was he who had the most cause to rejoice as he mounted his horse and rode away. Not much, but a hint, a clue, after all these weeks—a step closer to finding his father.

  Only a day or two later Clarissa gathered enough courage to venture out, with Matty at her side, for a short errand into the shops. Clarissa found a new bonnet to go with the two new dresses that Gemma had insisted that they order for her, and also purchased a quite fetching shawl, charging it all as usual to her brother and Gemma’s account. It was becoming easier to think that she could afford such luxuries and even had the right to wear them.

  And, remembering her days in service when she had never had the pleasure of small treats, she made sure to buy Matty some bright pink hair ribbons to wear on her afternoons off, which turned the maid’s cheeks almost as pink with pleasure.

  They walked out of the shop with Matty carrying the hat box, and Clarissa still holding the forest green shawl, which had such a lovely silky feel. It would go very well with one of the new dresses . . .

  And just as she was feeling more throughly at ease than she had in days, they ventured back onto the street, and Clarissa looked up and saw it.

  The face . . .

  It was the woman whom Clarissa feared most in all the world. And she was here.

  Seven

  Clarissa froze.

  She stopped so abruptly that Matty bumped into her. “Oh, sorry, miss,” she said. Then, glancing at her mistress’s face, Matty frowned. “Is somet’un wrong?”

  How could Clarissa explain that her heart hammered, and her eyes seemed to film over from sheer terror? The stout woman stood a few feet away on the crowded sidewalk. She was speaking to a slightly built young man whose back was to Clarissa, and she was dressed quite respectably in a brown silk gown. She had a nice Norwich shawl knotted loosely about her shoulders, and her bonnet was adorned with bright flowers.

  Could Clarissa be mistaken? She had never seen Mrs. Craigmore dressed so well. Perhaps she had been misled by a surface resemblance, and this was not the woman Clarissa remembered. After all, it had been years since she had seen the matron of the foundling home, the woman who had been such a scourge during Clarissa’s time in that miserable place.

  She tried to still her pounding heart as the woman finished her conversation and turned toward her. If she saw Clarissa—

  Clarissa’s first instinct was to flee in panic just as she had done before.

  No, she would not! She drew a deep breath and gathered all her courage. If this was not the woman she thought it was, she was frightening herself with phantoms. And if it was the same woman—Clarissa would not run away again!

  She was no longer an orphan without anyone to sustain her, an unprotected child abandoned to a poorly run foundling hospital. She was grown up now, and she had family about her. Clarissa thought briefly of her brother; she would not let Matthew and Gemma down.

  So even though her knees shook beneath her thin muslin skirts, she stood her ground. And when the woman came toward her, Clarissa called, “Mrs. Craigmore!”

  The stout woman paused, and her smug expression altered into something almost like alarm. “What—what do you mean? You ’ave the wrong person, miss.”

  But by now Clarissa was sure that her first impression had been correct. They stood very close, and she could not confuse the face or the form of her old foe, even if the woman’s clothing was different and her person more presentable.

  Clarissa lifted her chin in defiance. “I’m not mistaken, and I know who you are. How could I forget you? With your shouts and your beatings and your miserly meals, you made much of my childhood miserable.”

  The matron’s eyes narrowed. “You! I remember you, never could ’old your tongue! You witless girl, what are you doing here?”

  “I am not witless, and I am not a girl any longer!” Clarissa declared. “I am quite grown up. I survived despite your mistreatment. In fact, you misused all the children in your charge and mishandled the funds entrusted to you. You ran away from the foundling home, but the authorities are still searching for you!”

  A few people glanced at them.

  “Nonsense!” the matron blustered, but her round cheeks seemed to have paled. “I ’ave no notion what you are saying. You are obviously quite out of your ’ead. Be silent and do not speak so to your betters!”

  “You are not my better in any way, not in class and certainly not in morals!” Clarissa shot back. “You are an evil woman, and if my brother or I have anything to say about it, you will pay for your crimes!”

  More people were staring, and a handful paused on the pavement to watch the scene. Mrs. Craigmore glanced about her, and her mouth tightened.

  “You are raving,” she said again, paying strict attention to her diction as if aware of their growing audience. “I will not listen to such drivel, from someone who is proba
bly only a serving girl herself or a clerk from the shops.”

  “My mistress is a lady!” Matty said from behind them, her tone indignant. “Don’t you speak to ’er so!”

  But the matron ignored the interruption. “I have better things to do than be insulted by an unbalanced servant.” Shaking her head, she tried to push past Clarissa.

  With some wild idea about holding the woman until the watch—or Matthew—could be summoned, Clarissa grabbed her arm.

  But the woman was more heavily built, and she still had the strength that Clarissa had experienced firsthand, back in the days when the matron had too often struck the children with her heavy rod. At least this time her hands were empty, save for a large embroidered reticule hung over her wrist, and she had no weapon with which to lash out. Clarissa tried to hold her, but the older woman was too powerful. After a few moments of almost silent struggle, Mrs. Craigmore pushed Clarissa aside and disappeared into the crowd.

  Some of the spectators muttered, but no one moved to stop her.

  The taste of defeat bitter in her mouth, Clarissa watched the woman slip away. She found that she was trembling now, as much with frustration and disappointment as with fear.

  “Are you all right, miss?” Matty asked, her voice anxious.

  “Yes,” Clarissa said, although she had to lean against the wood railing of the nearest shop front. She felt weak from shock and disappointment as well as the physical effort it had taken her to confront her old nemesis. “I need to speak to my brother at once. If you see a hackney, please hail it.”

  The street was crowded, but in a few minutes, the maid found a carriage and, waving her arms, was able to flag it down. They were driven back to the Fallon house. As soon as the hackney driver had been paid, they hurried inside.

  The butler, who had opened the door, stared at them.

  “Is my brother at home?” Clarissa blurted.

  Looking surprised at her agitated manner, the man nodded. “Indeed, Miss Fallon. He is in the library—”

  At last, a piece of good fortune. Clarissa ran to find Matthew and, her words tumbling out, told him what she had seen.

  “The matron—Mrs. Craigmore—I saw her—”

  Through another miracle, he managed to make sense of her almost incoherent sentences. When she had stammered out her story, he repeated, “On Bond Street?”

  “Yes, in front of the hat shop where—oh, what is the name of it?”

  Matty had waited in the hallway, but the study door was open. “Mademoiselle Gray’s,” she almost whispered.

  “Yes, that’s it, just along from the bookseller’s.”

  Matthew had already risen. “Stay here,” he told her. “Do not, on any account, venture out again. I shall see if I can find any trace of the woman or what direction she may have fled.”

  The matron was surely long gone, but it warmed Clarissa that her brother would take such immediate action. She saw him snatch up his hat from the hall table and hurry out. Now she could go upstairs to the drawing room and ask the still puzzled-looking butler to bring tea.

  Matty watched her anxiously. “I’ll put the new ’at away and take up your things, miss. Can I get you some’un else?”

  “No,” Clarissa said. “Thank you, Matty, for everything.”

  Clarissa tried to pull herself together. No one could understand how much effort it had taken to face that woman. . . . She stripped off her gloves and untied her bonnet, and gave them to the maid.

  “What about your new shawl, miss?” Matty said.

  Only then did Clarissa look down and realize that her lovely new shawl was missing. Had she dropped it during the struggle? She actually rose and went to the door, thinking for an instant of returning to look for it, but a shiver of fear made her pause, and anyhow, she remembered Matthew’s instruction to stay at home.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s gone.”

  “A shame, and it was that pretty, too,” Matty told her, then turned and took the rest of her mistress’s things upstairs.

  Clarissa sighed over the loss, but it could not be helped. She could send a servant back, but there were too many pickpockets and small-time thieves on the London streets to expect the valuable silk to still lie on the pavement unclaimed. And anyhow, she might have torn it when she had grappled with the matron.

  She sat alone for a few minutes. Miss Pomshack must be upstairs, but Clarissa did not send for her, preferring some time by herself. When the tea tray came, she found that her hands were still shaking, but she managed to sip a little of the warm brew. In another half hour Gemma returned from a call on friends and found her there.

  “What is it, my dear? You look quite distracted, and you’ve ripped your sleeve.”

  Clarissa told her the whole story, and Gemma was so sympathetic that Clarissa began to recover her sense of composure.

  “It was brave of you to confront her,” Gemma said. “I remember how frightening I found the matron, and childhood impressions linger a long time. I do hope Matthew can pinpoint some clue to her flight. Would you like to lie down, Clarissa, or have a sleeping draught?”

  Clarissa shook her head. She had no need for repose, and she wanted family about her. Besides, if Matthew found anything, she wanted to hear about it at once.

  But when Matthew returned, he was frowning. “I could locate no trace of her,” he told them, his voice heavy. “I questioned all the shopkeepers in the area, and no one admits to knowledge of her.”

  “You don’t—You don’t doubt that it was her that I saw, do you?” Clarissa asked anxiously.

  “Of course not. Even if you have not seen her in several years, you are not likely to mistake the woman. And despite the fact that we have lost her this time, just knowing that she is in London is a step forward. We have you safe now, thank God, but I still mean to see that the matron pays for her crimes. I will make further inquiries and set some runners on watch.”

  “I’m most surprised that she would be seen in such an area, shopping calmly amid the most exclusive shops in London,” Gemma pointed out. “How has she come up so in the world? We last saw her decamping into the woods with her ill-gotten gains, but she cannot have had ample funds to support herself in such style? Silk gowns do not come cheaply.”

  Matthew frowned again. “We have no way to tell,” he pointed out. “It has not been that long ago that you and I frightened her away from the foundling home, and she might have had more money than we knew. I admit I had expected her to flee farther afield, but it’s also true that one can hide amid London’s masses just as easily—perhaps more easily—than in a distant but smaller town.”

  “She has likely changed her name,” Gemma mused. “It sounds as if she was most surprised to be accosted as ‘Mrs. Craigmore.’ ”

  Matthew nodded. “I’m sure of it; anyone with any wit at all would think of that. But we have a description of her, and we will not give up.”

  Clarissa listened to them talk over plans, and she was warmed by her family’s determination that Clarissa’s mistreatment should not go unpunished. She knew that the odds were against them finding the matron again. But at least they were looking, and as for herself, she had faced her greatest fear. This time, she had not run away. Perhaps her nightmares would ease as a result.

  Clarissa took a deep breath; she felt as if something inside her had begun to heal at last.

  After Matthew went to his study to write out orders for more investigation, Gemma moved closer. “How are you?”

  “Better,” Clarissa promised. She still felt unsettled, but she would overcome her foolish fears, she told herself. And if she did ever again come across Mrs. Craigmore, or whatever name the woman now went under, the next time it would be the matron who recoiled in fear!

  Clarissa and Gemma spent the afternoon quietly. Miss Pomshack was resting in her room, but Clarissa was still too agitated to sleep. After Matthew had finished writing out his orders, he had put on his hat and gloves and departed to set more inquiries in order.
Clarissa changed her dress, giving the damaged frock to Matty for mending, and came back downstairs to chat with Gemma. It was not long after that a knock sounded at the door.

  The butler went to open it, and from upstairs, Clarissa heard the sound of a familiar male voice.

  Clarissa knew at once who it was. She glanced up and met Gemma’s eye.

  “Do you feel up to a caller, my dear?” her sister-in-law asked.

  Clarissa hesitated. But footsteps already sounded on the stairwell, and she felt it would be too rude to turn the earl aside at this point. Or perhaps she just wanted to see him.

  When Lord Whitby entered, he made them a polite bow. “Good day, ladies. Are you of a mind to take another turn around the park?”

  Gemma said, “Welcome, my lord. How nice of you to come. Clarissa has a bit of a headache today so I’m not sure if she feels up to a carriage ride.” She paused and glanced at Clarissa.

  She couldn’t decide, so she hesitated. She didn’t wish the earl to leave so soon—there was something comforting about his presence—but neither was she sure she wanted to go out into public view again.

  She looked up at him, and he seemed to catch some hint of her agitated feelings.

  “I’m sorry you are not feeling well. Perhaps I should apologize for intruding and quietly withdraw?” he suggested.

  “Oh no,” she said before she thought. “I am happy to see you, my lord.” Then, fearing that she had been too direct, she blushed.

  But Lord Whitby motioned to them to be seated and then chose a chair near her own. “Then we will converse, and I will try to take your mind off your aching head.” His smile softened the austere lines of his handsome face and made him seem so much less arrogant and top-lofty, she thought; he should really smile more often.

  She grinned back at him, and Gemma went to ring for a tea tray. But now there was another interruption, a loud pounding on the door. Gemma paused in the doorway and Clarissa turned her head. Had Matthew found some clue? Why would he make such a noise?