Gilding the Lady

by Nicole Byrd

  Clarissa got out with one of the groom’s help, ignored the stares from others on the street that such treatment—in this part of town—drew, and, squaring her shoulders, walked a few feet to the building and opened the door.

  The bell attached to the door tinkled as she went in, and the air smelled musty. The room seemed empty, and Clarissa paused to look around. She felt as taut as the linen in an overstretched embroidery hoop. She drew out the large silk man’s handkerchief—supplied by the earl—and rehearsed her speech.

  But when a heavy footfall made her turn to see the woman who entered from the inner doorway, Clarissa found that everything she had rehearsed flew out of her mind.

  “Wot you want?” the woman demanded. With slightly protuberant dark eyes, she stared down at the handkerchief in Clarissa’s hand.

  “Lifted a handkerchief, have ye? I can take it off your hands, dearie.”

  “It—it has a mark on it, the owner’s initials,” Clarissa said, her voice faint. She struggled to remember her lines.

  “I know how to take ’em off, not to worry. What we say to four pence?”

  “Is that all?” Clarissa asked, in spite of herself. “This is very good silk.”

  The woman frowned. “Best price you’ll find on the street, I wager. I’m too bighearted for me own good, but I take good care of me girls, I do. And you’re new about ’ere, aren’t you?”

  Clarissa nodded, still trying to find her wits, which had flown out the door at the sight of the woman’s strangely familiar face.

  “You’re too pretty to waste yourself lifting kerchiefs, my dear. You should put yourself under my wing.” The woman no doubt thought that her tone was warm. “I can teach you lots of good tricks.”

  Clarissa shivered. “I—I—”

  “Wot ’appened? Some bloody respectable gent’lman try to seduce you and then throw you out on the street when you slapped ’is bloody face?” There was actual sympathy in the woman’s voice, Clarissa thought.

  She hesitated, and then, to her dismay, the door opened. Looking worried, the earl stepped inside.

  The woman who ran the shop bristled. “You! You was ’ere yesterday. Didn’t I tell you already—”

  “I’m with her,” the earl said shortly, glancing at Clarissa with concern.

  “You didn’t wait,” Clarissa answered, her tone low.

  “I was concerned—” But he didn’t get to finish.

  “ ’Er pimp, are you? Didn’t waste any time, did you, dearie?”

  The earl stiffened, and Clarissa had a wild desire to giggle.

  “Should have come to me, first,” the woman complained. “Well, get on out with ye both.”

  But the earl had conquered whatever outrage he felt, and he said, “No, we need information, and we can pay for it. We are searching for a woman of mid years with dark hair and a generous build. She might have been using the name Livermore.”

  “Or you might know her as Mrs. Craigmore,” Clarissa put in.

  They both looked at her, the earl in surprise, the woman of the shop with an expression of disgust.

  “She weren’t never married. And ’ow you know ’er?”

  “From the foundling home,” Clarissa said simply. “Are you, perhaps, her sister?”

  There was a moment of silence. Lord Whitby’s gaze shifted from her to the woman and back, but he held his tongue.

  “So you’re one of ’er girls, eh?” The woman shook her head. “I always told her” she was wasting her time in that place, stealing pennies when I could ’ave made her pounds, but she liked to bully the girls, I think, and she was too damned lazy to work a real trade.”

  A real trade like this? Clarissa wondered, but she said instead, “You must be her younger sister.” Who had perhaps known the matron’s bullying, too, was her thought, but the woman unexpectedly preened and patted her hair, mostly hidden by a lace-trimmed if somewhat yellowish cap.

  “Suppose you can tell, eh?”

  Clarissa nodded. “Do you know about—”

  “That she got ’erself coshed—oh, yeah. What, you the one who did it?” She looked more curious than angry or grieving.

  “She was strangled, and I did not do it,” Clarissa said firmly before the earl could speak. He looked grim, but he allowed her to talk. It was obvious that this woman would only respond to a female.

  “If it weren’t you, it must ’ave been—” Looking suddenly wary, the matron’s sister paused.

  Clarissa swallowed hard. “Who?” She demanded. “If not me, then who?”

  There was an agonizing moment of silence. The woman said, “Why should I risk ’is ire, for naught but a fare-thee-well? You got someone to take care of you—or give you a bloody lip, more likely, when you don’t earn your keep. So why do you care?”

  “I care if they put my neck in the noose!” Clarissa argued.

  And the earl put one hand in his pocket. When he drew it out, she saw the glint of gold. The woman’s eyes narrowed.

  “Miss Craigmore, if that’s your name, too, I can pay you well for the information. I also do not wish to see this lady—this female—hanged for a crime she did not commit.”

  He held out the guinea, and the woman swallowed, her gaze drawn to the large coin. “Craggity,” she muttered. “Me sister was always changing ’er name, thought Craigmore sounded more top-drawer. And if it weren’t you, it were the other one, that’s all I know.”

  “What other one? Another girl who had been at the foundling home?” Clarissa demanded “I don’t see—”

  Miss Craggity shrugged. “Naw, it were a man, o’ course. He was in the gang she worked with, after they threw ’er out of the ’ome. I guess she wrangled with ’im. She always said ’e was ’olding out the best part of the take.”

  “Do you know his name, or where we can find him?” the earl put in, his voice sharp.

  The woman shook her head. “Naw, she only called ’im Rudy. And I took a few things from ’er after the break-ins, but nothing big. She said ’e kept the best for ’imself, wouldn’t let anyone else enter the study while the rest of the gang went for the silver and the portables. . . .”

  “What did he look like?”

  Clarissa held her breath until Miss Craggity shook her head.

  “Never saw ’im. It was me sister who came ’ere, when she had spoils for me to sell. That’s all I know, and all I wanted to know. Not getting my neck snapped for the likes of ’er, thank-ee very much.” She eyed the golden coin with open greed.

  The earl frowned, but he passed it over. She snatched up the guinea and dropped it into the deep reach of her bosom, while Clarissa blinked in surprise.

  “Now, out with ye!”

  The earl waited for Clarissa to turn, but she glanced back over her shoulder. “Why didn’t you claim her body?”

  Miss Craggity shrugged. “Only ’eard about it later, gossip on the street. And why should I waste good blunt on ’er; she never did on me. It’s not like we got a bloody family mausoleum, missy!”

  Nor any family feeling, either, Clarissa thought. She allowed the earl to hold the door and, after first glancing out, he stepped ahead of her, then waited for her to leave the building.

  Outside, eying the carriage, several roughly dressed men loitered nearby. Whether the woman inside had passed some signal, or the vehicle itself had drawn them with its promise of wealth to be made, or simply the aura—and rumor—of well-to-do gents with blunt in their pockets had seeped through the lawless miasma of the neighborhood, she wasn’t sure. Clarissa felt her stomach tighten in alarm.

  When she and the earl stepped out side, the men closed in.

  The man who seemed to be their leader moved forward and confronted the earl.

  “ ’And over your purse, gov, and we might let the girl go,” he said, his tone gruff.

  Whitby’s expression hardened. “Step aside,” he warned the ruffian.

  “You’re outnumbered, gov. What, you don’t trust me word? I admit, she’s a toothsome morsel�
�” He leered at Clarissa, and she shivered.

  With a neat economy of motion, the earl swung his fist. He caught the man in his flabby stomach, and the would-be thief crumpled.

  The other men stepped closer.

  Watching them, Lord Whitby motioned, and both grooms jumped down from the back of the carriage. The earl’s men drew not one but two pistols from inside their coats. They held them at the ready, and their would-be attackers paused.

  The earl opened the carriage door. “Inside, quickly.”

  Clarissa scrambled to obey. The earl sprang after her, and she felt the vehicle rock as the grooms, or perhaps runners, leaped onto the back of the carriage. The coachman lashed his team, and they jolted forward.

  Clarissa braced herself, but she heard only one disappointed shout, then nothing more than the usual clamor of the street. There was no further outcry behind them, and they seemed to be moving steadily. She took a deep breath.

  “We did find out a little more,” she said, “although a name and perhaps some notion of where to find him would have been better.”

  The earl was silent for a moment, then he nodded. “You will never, ever go back to that neighborhood,” he told her. He had the old ring of command back in his voice, but he looked white about the lips.

  “Of course not,” Clarissa assured him. “Why should I?”

  He didn’t answer, and they rolled along the streets back toward home and safety—or as much of it as Clarissa could currently hope for.

  Dominic found it hard to let go of his fear. That he had allowed Miss Fallon to put herself at such risk—he had felt the old sickness in his belly—the turmoil he still recalled too vividly from the battlefield. Sending his men into danger . . .

  He had taken every precaution, and her presence today had indeed seemed necessary. She didn’t seem to blanch at the danger, but he still shivered for her. The face of a young soldier came back to him, young and fresh-faced one day, the next lying shattered on the bloody field . . .

  Dominic shut his eyes, but could not block the memories.

  Not this time, dear God, please, not this time.

  He felt her touch on his arm, and he jumped.

  “Dominic? I mean, my lord? You’re shivering. Are you all right?”

  “Only—” She would think him a craven, Dominic thought. The inside of the coach had dimmed as the sun sank lower in the sky. She gazed at him with her usual open glance. “Only that I don’t want you hurt. And I remember the men I sent into battle, the faces of the ones that died.”

  “You didn’t kill them,” she pointed out, with her usual common sense. “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”

  “But I ordered them into battle. They were in my charge.” He couldn’t expect her to understand. He shut his eyes again, but she let her hand linger on his arm, then slide up to brush his cheek.

  “I don’t deserve to be comforted,” he told her, even though his skin tingled at the slight touch. “They had sisters, too, some of them, and mothers, wives, babes.”

  “Who would have been glad their menfolk had a commander who cared if they lived or died,” she told him, her voice steady.

  Clarissa had never seen the earl look so vulnerable, his dark eyes so shadowed. Was this why he hid behind his shield of aristocratic disdain? She knew about memories, and how they could haunt a person.

  “I dream about the foundling home, sometimes,” she told him, and recounted the dream about the children chanting and mocking her. “And then I see the shadow of a hangman’s noose . . .” Her voice faltered.

  His expression changed, and he turned, pulling her quickly inside the shelter of his arms. “God, what a selfish brute I am! Clarissa, you are not going to be tried for a murder you did not commit! You will certainly not be hanged. I will not allow it, I give you my solemn oath. I would spirit you out of England, first. I would die before I let you be harmed. Do you believe me?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, feeling a surge of joy. How much had to do with his promise and how much to the feel of his arms around her, she couldn’t have said.

  And at last he kissed her. Kissed her lips, long and hard, touched her earlobes gently, nibbled on the tender edges, caressed the soft skin of her neck until she quivered like a bowl of blancmange. He traced the line of her brows with his finger tips, kissed her hands again, her wrists, her palms, and then returned to her lips and kissed them until her blood seemed to sing in her veins. And although he was careful—she was almost amused to note—not to touch any part of her below her neckline, as if he had drawn himself some private boundary of this much license and no more, still, her stomach quivered and the new and unfamiliar ache inside her grew.

  But they could not quench that deeper hunger, and she knew it. So she gloried in his kisses, returned all his caresses with a passion equal to his own, and tried to store up every touch, every sensation, for the barren times ahead when he would have left her, and she would face a life empty and alone.

  Twelve

  They picked up Matty at the market, then drove to the Fallon home. When the carriage pulled up, Dominic got out to help Clarissa down.

  “Will you not come in, my lord?” In front of the servants her tone was formal, but her eyes still held the warmth of their recent encounter. He hoped he had not made a terrible mistake, allowing himself the luxury of inciting such feelings in a lady of little experience. Although, the other side of his mind said, she wasn’t exactly shy about kissing him back!

  “Of course, if you wish,” he said.

  They entered the house and found Lady Gemma waiting. At the sound of their entry, she came down from the drawing room and greeted them civilly. Still, she took one look at Clarissa’s costume and shook her head.

  Dominic braced himself for well-deserved reproaches, but she seemed more resigned than angry. “Thank you for looking out for her, Lord Whitby. Will you stay for dinner? My husband sent a note that he has been delayed, but Lady Gabriel is here, and later we could discuss, ah, recent events.”

  With the butler hovering nearby, Dominic was circumspect, as well. “Thank you, that’s very kind. I’m afraid I’m not dressed for the evening, however.”

  “We have no need to stand on ceremony; you do not need to change,” she answered. Although to Clarissa, she looked her drab gown up and down and said, “You, my dear, on the other hand—”

  Clarissa nodded, and with Matty behind her, climbed the staircase to don a more suitable frock.

  At least he was not in his shirtsleeves, this time! Dominic accepted her offer of wine and followed his hostess to the drawing room, where Lady Gabriel and Miss Pomshack were seated.

  With the lady’s companion in the room, they had to make small talk until Clarissa returned wearing a pleasing dinner gown, and soon dinner was announced.

  Lady Gemma explained that her husband was collecting more facts about the house break-ins, which he hoped might lead them to the real culprit.

  Dominic nodded. He still had men on the same errand, but Captain Fallon was a more intelligent sleuth than most of the runners, and besides, he could understand the man’s need to do something when his sister was imperiled.

  “And my husband,” Lady Gabriel told them, her smile twisted, “is combing Yorkshire for a man named Smith.”

  What that had to do with the current quagmire, Dominic was not at all sure, although Lady Gabriel and Lady Gemma exchanged glances.

  At dinner, he was seated between his hostess and Lady Gabriel, as his rank demanded. Across the table, he was glad to see that Clarissa ate a decent dinner, even if she looked a little distracted. Both the ladies near him made witty small talk, but he was still glad when the time came for the ladies to withdraw. After only a few swallows of his port, he rose and followed them to the drawing room.

  There, they used the same stratagem of a card game to withdraw a little way from Miss Pomshack, leaving that good lady to her book, so that they could discuss what progress they had made.

  Dominic gave them a b
rief version of their foray into Whitechapel, leaving out the absence of Clarissa’s chaperone, and although he omitted many of the more ominous details, Gemma shuddered.

  “I know it was most improper—” he began.

  “So is being hanged,” Clarissa interrupted, sounding impatient. “Improper, that is. Gemma will not scold us, and anyhow, we are home safely. I am more concerned that we did not discover more.”

  Lady Gemma sighed. “Let us think about what you did learn. We were right about the late matron’s connection with a gang of thieves and housebreakers, at any rate, although we are not much further along with finding them, or their ringleader.”

  “Who is surely the best suspect for her murder,” Lady Gabriel agreed, keeping her voice low as she pretended to check the cards in her hand.

  “But we have to find him!” Clarissa said, too loudly, then with a quick glance toward Miss P, lowered her voice again. “I’m sorry, it’s just so frustrating.”

  Lady Gemma pressed her sister-in-law’s hand in sympathy. Dominic wished he could do the same, and for more than to just express compassion, although he certainly felt that. But the touch of Clarissa’s soft skin was so . . .

  To distract himself, he frowned and tapped his cards. “Yes, and Miss Craggity implied that there had already been some dissension between them, which is even more suggestive. She said that her sister claimed that he was ‘keeping the best for himself.’ ”

  “Yes,” Clarissa agreed. “She said he was the only one allowed to enter the study.”

  Lady Gabriel frowned for a moment, then nodded in understanding. “Of course. My husband keeps his cash box in his desk.”

  “And that would be the best bounty of all,” Lady Gemma agreed. “Money. No need to resell it to a receiver and get only a fraction of its worth, like the household silver and other valuables.”

  “So perhaps she demanded more of the results of their criminal acts,” Dominic suggested. “And that led to their quarrel and her death.”

  “But how can we find him?” Clarissa bit her lip.

  “If there were some way to know which house they were targeting next—” Lady Gabriel said.