“The gold suit is quite noticeable.” He pulled the cloak closed over her lap. “A large amount of the ton were in Vauxhall Gardens tonight. You will be instantly recognizable if you reveal the color underneath.”
Agatha nodded once and turned her face away from him, tumbling from the carriage. He watched as her legs wobbled beneath her, hitting the hard slabs of the pavement. Stumbling, she clutched at the cloak and started up the steps to the house. Henry did not follow her. At the top she paused and turned.
“Aren’t you coming in?” Her voice tremored audibly on the last word.
“I have some matters I need to take care of,” he said shortly through the carriage door. “I’ll be back to talk further. Don’t do anything hasty.” Henry knocked his cane on the roof of the box and turned to face forward as the carriage rolled off into the gloom.
Henry sat back into the cushioned seat, well used to the cobbles of London and the rolling like nature of the carriage. He hitched his soft, merino undercoat closer to him, pulling out the cuffs to protect himself against the springtime cold.
He knew just where to find Charles Fashington. The government man may have been a member of the same club as Henry, but that is where the similarity in their tastes ended. Routine enquiries into the allegiance of all government members as part of Henry’s war work had noted Fashington’s predilection for a certain tavern in town where the ladies were of easy cheer and even easier virtue. But there had been nothing on any leaning towards the French, which made the list Charles had found in his clothes all the more strange.
The tavern, the Hare and Hounds, was situated just off Great Russell Street in the rookery of St Giles. As he walked through the door, a girl barely more than fifteen reached to take his coat, her hands tracing themselves over him.
“Can’t you see I’m not wearing a coat?” Catching her hands, he pulled her from him and, with a gentle push, turned her away.
The girl gaped at him and slapped her thigh with a gin sodden cackle. “Ere Betsy, this one was so eager to see you he took his coat off before he even reached the door!”
The tap room erupted with a raucous cheer. Henry ran a hand slowly through his hair. Agatha had rattled his customary calm. He would have normally entered the tavern unnoticed, but thanks to her he had now caused a scene. Deliberately flattening his shoulders and breathing deeply, he stared into the distance for a few seconds, and then flipped the girl a coin. With a sly grin, he acknowledged the cheers and sauntered into the throng, becoming one of the crowd. Making a beeline for the singled out Betsy, he encircled her waist with his arm and banged on the bar with the other.
“Landlord, a drink for the lady!”
“Coo guvnor, you really are keen aren’t you?” Betsy simpered at Henry, her ample breasts spilling out above her brightly colored, but soiled gown. Henry’s hand tightened around Betsy’s waist, squeezing hard. He crowded Betsy, turning her to face away from the other drinkers in the tavern. His other hand brought Betsy’s chin up to make her face look at him, seemingly charming, but in reality his fingers flexed into the flesh just below her jawline. As she winced in shocked pain, he lowered his voice.
“Where’s Charles Fashington?”
“Who?” Betsy gasped. Henry grimaced. He thought back to what Fashington had been wearing.
“Tall, black coat, black hair, likes the ladies. Permanently drunk.”
“You should have said, sir. He goes by the name Miles… Miles Trebin. We all call him Flash, cos he’s flash with his money. Different girl every night.”
“Where is he now?” Henry ground out, before Betsy could tell him more of ‘Flash’s’ interests.
“Upstairs with Millie, she’s his favorite… he has certain tastes…”
Henry dropped Betsy with disgust, his fingers clenching and unclenching. Betsy sank to the floor in shock. Single-minded, he took the stairs to the upper rooms two at a time. He cursed himself at the top of the steps; he hadn’t asked which room Miles was in. Shaking his head, he grasped the handle of the door opposite him, and pushed.
The first room was empty apart from a large canopied bed and a dressing table. Without bothering to close the door, Henry moved onto the next closed door. The second bedroom along the hall was occupied. The couple in there were too busy to notice the intrusion. The gentleman, though, was blond, not black-haired.
The third room yielded results. Charles lay on the bed in just his breeches. ‘Millie’, completely naked, stroked his body with a feather, and giggled. They both turned to stare at Henry with a look of drugged pleasure on their faces. Millie was the first to realize that she did not recognize the man at the door. Shrieking, she dropped the feather and reached for a camisole on the floor.
Henry kicked at the feather. “Get out.”
Millie whimpered and wrapped the camisole around herself.
“Now look here…” Charles sat up and frowned.
“Out.” Henry moved from the doorway as Millie shot past him. He pushed the door shut behind her with his foot. He did not have long before Betsy and Millie raised the alarm.
Charles’ face cleared. He stood from the bed and leaned nonchalantly against the bed post. “Anglethorpe. What do you want? I only entered your garden to speak to Agatha, not your sister.”
“My sister? You drew my sister into this too?” Henry couldn’t stop himself. Striding to the corner of the bed, he kicked Charles’ feet away from under him and as he fell, drew back his hand and punched across the falling man’s nose. His hand connected with a crunch across Charles’ prominent cheekbones. With a cry, Charles crashed to the floor, blood spattering across the valance of the bed.
“Break off your engagement with Miss Beauregard.” Henry looked at the ceiling and took a deep breath. “You should bear the brunt of the ton’s displeasure.”
“But you were the one who was forcing me to marry her!” Charles whined, getting to his knees, his bloody face in his hands.
“I was wrong. You are a despicable cur.”
As Charles shook his head, more drops of blood fell to the floor. “If I jilt the chit my honor is ruined. My position in the government will become untenable.”
“Granwich will find out anyway. Tomorrow you shall print an apology in the papers.” With a single right hook, Henry smashed Charles’ hand away from his face. Fashington howled in pain as the drips of blood turned into a torrent. Curling in a ball on the floor, he moaned.
“I can’t hear you!” Henry raised his booted foot.
“Alright,” Fashington groaned, feeling at his face. “I’ll do it, tomorrow… Just don’t tell anyone I was here, my… government position y’know.”
Henry knew. Little did Fashington know that certain key individuals already knew of Fashington’s likes and dislikes. They had been a little alarmed by his fast ascent from clerk to position of power in the strategic war against France. Henry could not believe that in a fit of pique he had nearly forced Agatha to marry this man.
Loud shouts echoed in the hallway. Quickly, Henry loped to the window, and flung the sash open. The window opened onto an alley that was dark and smelled faintly of rotting vegetables. The drop was only twelve feet, with guttering all the way down. He swung his leg over the sill, and then turned back to Fashington.
“Why did you shoot at her?” he asked quickly.
“Shoot?” stammered Fashington, pushing his kerchief to his nose, “oot oo?” he continued bewildered.
“Pablo Moreno’s circus, Vauxhall Gardens?” Henry prompted him.
Charles gasped. “I didn’t do anything. I only paid Pablo to embarrass Aga… Miss Beauregard. To make the engagement untenable… I…”
Henry grunted. The brute hadn’t done it. Whatever his plans had been, they hadn’t included murder. Nothing stood in Henry’s way of asking Agatha to marry him now. As the door burst open, he swung his left leg over the windowsill and dropped cat-like into the night.
CHAPTER 15
Agatha stared at the door, nose to nose w
ith the large lion that dominated the door knocker. Alone again. It seemed to be becoming a habit. But that was how she wanted it, wasn’t it? Her hands crept to her lips. They tingled where Henry had stroked at them with his strong lips. Never had she thought that he would be capable of such tenderness. No. It wasn’t tenderness. She was wrong. Charles had proved that. She couldn’t trust her conclusions anymore after that episode. But if it wasn’t tenderness then what was it?
With a silent apology to the lion, she lifted the knocker and let it go with a crash. Henry’s butler opened the door and looked at her enquiringly.
“Agatha, Agatha.” Behind Smythe, Victoria flew into the hall. “Where have you been? We’ve been going spare trying to find you. Stop blocking the door, Smythe. Why are you wearing Henry’s coat? Where’s Henry?”
Smythe stood back silently to let Agatha in. As she brushed past him, she caught one of the coat’s lapels on the table, revealing the golden suit beneath. The butler’s eyes rounded in interest. Victoria looked from Agatha’s suit to the butler, and back to Agatha’s slumped shoulders.
“Your bedroom, I think,” she said, pushing Agatha up the stairs. “Tell Mrs. Noggin some tea, Smythe, please in ten minutes, but no sooner.”
In Agatha’s bedroom, Victoria led her to the bed and pushed her to sit. She pulled the great coat off her and then untied Agatha’s hair.
“Lie down for a while. I think you’re in shock. You’re as white as snow and you haven’t said a word since you arrived home.”
“I—”
“Tell me later.”
Shivering, Agatha lay on the bed and tucked herself in a ball, hands against her lips. Dark sleep captured her instantly.
She awoke an hour later, a coverlet loosely covering her. Sitting up and rubbing her eyes, she looked down at the gold suit. Victoria peered at her from the corner of the room where she sat reading, her pelisse with the cut strings beside her.
“You’re awake! I have a tray of food for you.” Victoria pointed at the table to her right, which was laden with plates. Agatha’s stomach rumbled. She had missed all meals since breakfast that morning when she had decided to step outside of the house’s doors.
Standing, she moved behind a folding screen that had been set up for her. She pulled off the gold suit as quickly as she was able to, and then hefted a nightgown over her head.
“So.” Victoria’s voice floated nonchalantly above the folding screen. “Henry’s not back yet and you are wearing a very gold suit which the servants say was last seen on the Grande Salvatore. I might say on the Grand Salvatore at Vauxhall Gardens before he made a grand exit. It was said to have been the best ever performance of knife throwing this century!”
Agatha stood on tip toes and peered over the top of the screen.
“Oh yes, some of the servants actually went to the show,” Victoria continued. “They say that the Grand Salvatore threw only one knife that landed in the most impossible of places and then did a wild dance.”
“It wasn’t a dance. The mask slipped,” Agatha mumbled, dropping back to her heels and tying the strings on her cap.
Victoria stood. “You mean it actually was you?”
“Yes,” Agatha said in a small voice, stepping out from behind the screen.
Victoria sat back in her chair again in amazement. “Don’t tell me. You were investigating the forces of gravity on a flying object?” She laughed. “Why do I always miss all the fun?”
“Someone shot at me,” Agatha said distinctly. “It wasn’t fun.”
“Bloody hell.”
Oh dear. Henry would kill her if he heard Victoria saying that again. “And your brother is going to break off the engagement with Charles.”
“Shot at? Charles? I should hope so. I thought he was a real prig for forcing you into that.”
“You were the one that said it would be nice to be Charles’ wife!”
“I’ve changed my mind. I had to boot him out of our garden this morning. He said that he offered to break off the engagement and that you refused.”
That odious octopus-armed low down sly crawling cockroach.
“Yes. I knew that wasn’t true as you had spent ages telling me how much you didn’t want to marry him.”
Agatha nodded in relief.
“Anyway, if anyone can get rid of Charles, Henry can. He can do anything.”
“Hmm.” Anything. She wouldn’t have believed it was possible, but certainly as he had kissed her Agatha had lost all sense of methodical proportion. The only word to describe it would have been transcendental. Agatha frowned and pushed her hands together as a shiver ran through her.
“So how did you end up as the Grande Salvatore? And don’t think I did not notice you saying that you were shot at. Are you sure?”
“I had to get away from Charles, and then I took your pelisse by mistake.” Agatha recounted the meeting with Pablo Moreno as Victoria’s eyes grew rounder.
“But that must mean that Henry thinks Charles shot at you because you wouldn’t break off the engagement!”
Agatha nodded in agreement. “Moreno did say he wanted to kill two birds with one stone.” She shivered. “But Charles wouldn’t have done it. It’s madness. There are easier ways of getting out of marriage than by shooting me. For goodness sake, he just needs to jilt me.”
“But you wouldn’t jilt him,” Victoria observed thoughtfully, gathering her pelisse to her and walking to the door.
Agatha drew back the coverlets on her bed and got in, sighing as the sheets enveloped her again. “I didn’t think I would be allowed.”
The next morning dawned bright, brighter than any of the other March mornings. As Agatha climbed out of bed, she felt lighter.
Heaviness dogged her steps as she descended the stairs, though. How was Henry going to get Charles to lift the engagement? And surely the shot hadn’t been meant for her. It was probably someone who had discharged their pistol by accident in a demonstration. There was no reason why anyone would want her dead. Two birds with one stone. That was just an expression that everyone used.
As Agatha settled at the breakfast table, a blue slip of paper fluttered from the sideboard to the floor.
“Where did this come from, Carruthers?”
The same footman that had tended so carefully to Victoria after the phosphorous incident, bent to pick it up and handed it to her. “I’m not sure, Miss Beauregard. The butler said it was slipped under the door sometime in the night.”
A chill of foreboding travelled up Agatha’s spine. “Is Lord Anglethorpe back yet?” she asked, absently taking the slip of paper in her fingers.
“No, ma’am.”
With hesitant hands, Agatha fumbled with the slip of paper.
‘Leave London, or you will die. If you do not leave, your family will die too. Especially if you tell anyone of this note.’
Agatha dropped the paper, watching with wide eyes at it tumbled to the floor. It was no use trying to reassure herself any longer. The bullet had been meant for her. And now they, whoever they were, were threatening her family.
Hesitantly she picked the paper up by the corner. She looked up to see if the footman had seen her actions, but he had been busy restocking the sideboard with food. Hearing a step outside the door, she took a deep breath and stuffed the paper into her bodice.
The threat bothered her all morning, the paper burning against her chest, a lump like ball of fear lodging itself irremovably in her throat. Listlessly, Agatha trailed the house. Twice she tried to find Victoria, but she had disappeared. What could she have said to her anyway? She retired to her bedroom and lay on her bed, waiting for the lunch gong, tossing this way and that, her eyes catching again and again on the slim blue paper she had tossed on her bedside table.
At twelve o’clock she swung her legs back off the bed. No one had called for her. She hadn’t even seen Henry at breakfast. Good grief, she hadn’t even thought about Charles once. Rubbing her face, she trod heavily down the grand stairs into the hall.
Lunch was just being laid as she entered the morning room, the grand sideboard groaning with silver platters. The footmen increased their activity, furtively glancing at Agatha with barely concealed smiles. It took the butler to shoo them away before Agatha could eat in peace.
The sun streamed into the morning room as she ate, slowly but solidly for ten minutes, forcing down the food. Pushing her plate to one side, she reached for the steaming coffee urn. Twisting the tap, she decanted a cupful.
As she warmed her hands on the cup, smelling the comforting smell of the bitter brew, the door banged open against the mahogany sideboard and the usually calm butler entered with a furrowed brow.
“Pardon me, Miss Beauregard, but there is a magistrate here to see you.”
“A magistrate?” Agatha dropped the cup to the table, coffee spilling against the pristine white linen. Was he there about the previous night?
“Yes, miss. Shall I show him in here?” Usually the butler showed all guests into the dainty drawing room. Her apprehension rose. Picking up the overflowing coffee cup, she took trembling sip of the coffee and straightened her back.
“Yes, do.”
As the butler disappeared, Agatha clenched her hands around the hot cup. If he was there about the knife throwing then it was better that she pretend she had nothing to do with it.
The butler returned, holding the door open with barely concealed disgust. A middle-aged portly gentleman staggered through, covered in mud. With a huff, he collapsed in a chair as the strong smell of sweat filled the room.
Agatha put down her cup with dawning recognition. She had seen him once before long ago, but could not place him. It hadn’t been in London. Silently, she poured another cup of coffee and pushed it across the table. He grunted his thanks, and took a large gulp.
Somewhat Scandalous (Brambridge Novel 1) Page 10