by Jane Feather
" 'E was all wrapped up, guv. 'Ad 'is face 'idden in a muffler. I swears it," the man babbled, burying his head. "In the Fisherman's Rest on Dock Street. 'E comes and says 'e wants a little job done. 'E 'ad an 'usky voice, raspy like. Brings us 'ere and points out yer 'onor to us and says get on wi' it. There'll be a guinea apiece. We was only doin' what we was told to do."
"Yes, I'm sure you were." Sylvester believed the man. Whoever was behind this wouldn't be foolish enough to reveal himself to his tools. But the Fisherman's Rest was a clue.
"We wasn't expectin' no woman from 'ell," one of the others muttered, groaning as pain stabbed in his kidneys.
"Something of a surprise for all of us," Sylvester agreed blandly. "Now, don't forget my message." Turning on his heel, he strolled to the waiting vehicles, where an argument seemed to be in full flood between Edward and Theo.
"You cannot possibly drive in an open carriage looking like that," Edward stated.
"Don't be absurd. Who's going to see?"
"Oh, Theo, come into the chaise with us and let Edward drive with Lord Stoneridge," Emily said, her head at the window of the chaise. "We want to know what's happened."
"Now, what's the matter?" Sylvester inquired somewhat wearily.
"Edward's being so silly," Theo said. "He says I shouldn't drive in the curricle, just because my gown's a bit torn."
"A bit!" Edward said, pointing at Theo's gown of pale-yellow muslin. "It's ripped all the way up to your waist."
"Well, how could I do a high kick without tearing it? I could have pulled it up to my waist first, I suppose, and regaled the entire neighborhood with the sight of my drawers."
"Theo!" protested Emily.
"Of course, they're very pretty drawers," Theo continued, ignoring the flapping ears of tiger and coachman. "They have lace frills and pink ribbon knots, and I believe -"
"That'll do!" Sylvester interrupted this devastating description before it drew an even larger crowd. He scooped her up and bundled her into the chaise. "You may satisfy your sisters' curiosity on the way back to Curzon Street, where you will change your dress."
His tone was scolding, but his eyes were alight with laughter, and something else. Something akin to admiration.
He instructed the coachman to return to Curzon Street and climbed into the curricle beside Edward.
"Was it footpads, sir?" Edward asked directly as the pair of chestnuts sprang forward and the tiger clambered hastily onto his perch at the rear.
"Up to a point," Sylvester said. "I'm sure they'd have happily robbed me of my last sou."
"But there was more to it, you believe?"
He nodded. "Another one of those 'accidents' that seem to be occurring with dismaying frequency."
"Who?"
"God alone knows. I'd rather hoped it was some disaffected tenant. But clearly it's not that simple. But don't say anything to Theo. I have enough of a problem second-guessing her as it is, without giving her a cause to get her teeth into."
Edward smiled. "She needs to be occupied."
Sylvester groaned. "Why can't she occupy herself like other young women? Emily and Clarissa enjoy doing the usual things. Shopping and exhibitions and balls and suchlike."
"Theo's not like them."
"No," Sylvester agreed glumly. "She's not like any woman I've ever met. If I don't watch her every minute, she'll be riding ventre a terre in the park at the fashionable hour, or attending a prizefight, or presenting herself at Manton's Gallery for some target practice. I can't think what her mother and grandfather were thinking when they encouraged her to be so damnably independent."
Edward bristled. "I believe they both understood they'd have had to break her spirit if she was to be molded in any conventional form," he said stiffly. "And she's a very special person."
Sylvester glanced sideways at the young man's rigid countenance. He smiled and said pacifically, "Yes, she is."
Edward visibly relaxed. "Do you intend to discover who's behind these attacks, sir?"
"If I'm to stay healthy – not to mention alive – for much longer, I think I'd better." Sylvester passed a brougham with barely an inch to spare.
"If I can be of service," Edward suggested tentatively. "I know a one-armed -"
"Oh, for God's sake, you young fool, a one-armed man can ride, shoot, drive, fence, fish, and make love as well as a man with two arms," Sylvester declared. "If I need your help, I'll call upon you, fair enough."
The impatient tone was much more reassuring than sympathy or an anxious disclaimer. "Fair enough, sir."
They reached Curzon Street before the chaise and were drinking claret in companionable silence when the girls arrived.
"Is that the ninety-six?" Theo said, lifting the decanter, inhaling the bouquet. "Some bottles in that delivery were corked."
"This one's fine," Sylvester said. "Go and change your dress. We're all famished."
"I'm also very thirsty," Theo responded with a twinkling smile, filling a glass. "All that exercise, you understand."
She was radiating mischief and energy. Sylvester had rarely seen her like this, and he realized with a shock that she was happy, and in the few weeks since he'd known her, he hadn't often seen her truly happy. At least not outside the bedchamber.
And she was happy because that encounter had exhilarated her, had enabled her to do something she was good at, something that pleased and satisfied her and made her feel useful.
She was never going to settle for the life of a society matron. Maybe motherhood would use up some of her surplus energies. Thinking of their passion-filled nights, he couldn't imagine it would be long acoming.
"Take it with you," he said. "You may have ten minutes to change."
"You wouldn't go without me?"
"I wouldn't put it to the test."
"What! After I saved your life?"
"Don't exaggerate. Nine minutes."
There was a distinct glimmer of laughter in the gray eyes, a complicit quiver to his mouth, and Theo felt the warmth of her own response leaping to meet him. These moments of private understanding in public places had been rare occurrences since their arrival in London, and she'd missed them.
Smiling to herself, she went upstairs to change.
The Pantheon on Oxford Street was big and busy, a ballroom and concert hall, with a supper room frequented not by the haut ton but by respectable, wealthy burghers and their ladies. Sylvester had judged that Rosie would feel more comfortable in its relative informality than in the fashionable Piazza, where disagreeable matrons and haughty young bucks would regard such a family party with disdain.
The Countess of Stoneridge also seemed more at home in the Pantheon than at Almack's, he noticed ruefully, as she kept the table in gales of laughter with a series of wickedly accurate comments on their fellow diners.
It was Theo who noticed Clarissa's abstraction first. "What are you looking at, Clarry?" She twisted in her chair to gaze over her shoulder.
"Don't stare, Theo," Clarissa exclaimed, blushing.
"But who…? Oh," she said with complete comprehension. "I see."
"Oh, do turn around, Theo," Clarissa said.
"He is very beautiful," Theo said. "Take a look, Emily. A veritable parfit gentil knight."
Emily turned around and, like her sister, had no difficulty identifying the cause of Clarissa's abstraction. "Oh, yes," she said.
"Who? What?" Rosie demanded, standing up to peer myopically around the supper room. "I don't see a knight. Is he in armor?"
"No, you goose. It's an expression. Sit down." Theo jerked her skirt, pulling her back into her seat. "How do we find out who he is, I wonder?"
"What are you talking about?" Sylvester asked, just as Edward turned from his own examination and chuckled merrily.
"Clarissa's found her knight," Theo said. "Don't blush, love." She patted her sister's hand. "Shall I go and introduce myself?"
"No!" exclaimed both Emily and Clarissa.
"Then Stoneridge shall introduce himself and
invite him to come and take a glass of wine with us," Theo said firmly. "Do you see him, Stoneridge? That beautiful young man with the long fair hair, sitting with the elderly woman by the window. An elderly woman, that's a good sign, Clarry. It can't be his lover; it must be his mother."
"Theo!"
Theo ignored her sister's protest. "Go over and introduce yourself, Stoneridge, and invite him and his mother to join us. Pretend you know them, that you've met them somewhere before. And then you can just laugh and say you made a mistake, but invite them anyway."
"I will do no such thing," Sylvester declared. "You managing hussy."
"Then / will go." Theo pushed back her chair. "How can you expect anything to happen in this world if you don't make it so?"
Before anyone could stop her, she was weaving her way among the tables, a smile of greeting on her face.
"Oh, how could she?" Clarissa murmured, cooling her burning cheeks with her water glass.
Edward and Emily were convulsed with laughter, as if sharing an old joke. Sylvester felt as if he'd strayed into someone else's life and no one was behaving in a manner he understood. It was a familiar sensation in Belmont company. He took a resigned sip of wine and waited to be enlightened.
Rosie scraped the last morsel of pink ice from her bowl. "Theo never minds talking to strangers," she informed him, as if the confidence would enable him to make sense of the hilarity. Even Clarissa was half laughing, despite her blushes. "She's not in the least shy."
No, "shy" was not an adjective he'd ever have applied to his wife. He watched her. She was talking to the people at the window table, her head bent confidentially toward them. Then she turned, and her eyes flew across the room, brimful of laughter. She raised one hand and made a circle of her finger and thumb in a gesture of accomplishment, and then came back to the table.
"Well, it is his mother, and his name's Jonathan Lacey. And they're going to call in Curzon Street," she announced, resuming her seat. "They seem very respectable, not at all like mushrooms, and he has liquid eyes, Clarry. Huge, and the color of the tawniest port. Utterly beautiful. And you should see his hands. So long and slender."
Sylvester caught himself looking at his own hands. They weren't exactly short and fat, but he knew for a fact that he did not have liquid eyes.
"I'm sure he's an artist of some kind," Theo was continuing, sipping her wine. "Anyway, I could tell his mother liked the idea of calling upon the Countess of Stoneridge, so I'm sure we'll see them in a day or so."
"What did you say, Theo?" Edward asked, wiping his eyes with his napkin.
"Oh, I said I thought we'd met before, then realized my mistake, apologized, and introduced myself. The rest was easy."
"Would someone explain what the devil is going on here?" Sylvester inquired. "I realize I am singularly obtuse, but -"
"Oh, that's because you're not a Belmont," Theo said blithely.
There was a second's awkward silence; then Edward said, "Well, neither am I, but I have the advantage of you, sir. I've known this motley crew since I was in short coats."
"Then you do indeed have the advantage," Sylvester said evenly, pushing back his chair. "It's time Rosie was at home."
"But it's true," Theo said, refusing to allow the evening to end on this fractured note. "You are not a Belmont, so of course you don't understand our jokes. That doesn't mean you can't, if you wish to."
"And you are now a Gilbraith, madam wife," he stated.
"Maybe so," Theo declared. Now they'd started on this road, she couldn't see a way to get off it. She continued with her usual bluntness. "But your mother and sister lack a sense of humor, so I can hardly try to understand their jokes."
"That's out of order, Theo!" Edward exclaimed, unable to help himself.
"No," Theo said. "No, it's not." Her eyes were on her husband. "It's the truth. Isn't it, Stoneridge?"
"Unfortunately," he said quietly. "But we'll continue this discussion when it won't embarrass anyone else."
Only Theo and Sylvester understood what had happened. The others were puzzled and uncomfortable, but nothing further was said beyond the merest commonplace until the three Belmonts, escorted by Edward, were ensconced in the Stoneridge town carriage en route to Lady Belmont's house.
Sylvester handed Theo into a hackney and climbed in after her. She huddled into her cloak, wishing it hadn't happened. Everything had been going so well. She'd been telling the truth as she saw it, but it hadn't come out right. She'd sounded bitter and angry. And it was all because he'd reminded her she was a Gilbraith. The old sense of entrapment had washed over her in an acid tide that all the sweet reasoning she'd done with herself in the last weeks couldn't deflect.
"You shouldn't have reminded me," she said in the darkness of the hackney.
"That you're a Gilbraith? It's the truth."
"Yes, just as it's the truth that you own everything that ever belonged to a Belmont!" Oh, why couldn't she bite her tongue?
Sylvester said nothing, merely rested his head against the cracked leather squabs.
"I can't help it," she said, twisting her gloved fingers into a knot, not sure whether she was apologizing or explaining. "I try to forget it, Stoneridge. And then it comes back to me and I become all twisted and angry again. And I want to hurt you as you've hurt me."
"Have I really hurt you, Theo?" he asked softly. The hackney slowed at a crossroads, and a gas jet outside flickered over his face, showing her the harsh set of his mouth, the strain around his eyes. "Be honest," he said. "How have I hurt you?"
He watched through narrowed eyes as light and shadow played over the gamine features. Theo shook her head in inarticulate confusion and gazed fixedly out the window.
When the hackney drew up at Belmont House, Theo still had said nothing. Sylvester handed her down and escorted her into the house.
"I trust you spent a pleasant evening, my lord… Lady Theo." Foster bowed, taking his lordship's gloves and curly brimmed beaver.
"Very pleasant, thank you," Sylvester said.
"And Lady Rosie enjoyed herself?"
"I believe so."
"She consumed enough pink ices for an army," Theo said with an easy smile. Concealing her true emotions from the staff was never difficult, although she found it impossible with her family.
"Good night, Foster." She ran up the stairs.
"Cognac in the library, please, Foster." Sylvester turned aside.
The butler nodded to himself. More fireworks, it seemed.
Sylvester was staring into the fire when Foster brought in the decanter of cognac. "Thank you," he said absently. "Just leave it on the table. I'll help myself."
He poured a glass and sipped in morose reflection. Someone was trying to kill him, and he couldn't concentrate on that when Theo's tense little face kept obtruding into his thoughts. Her unhappiness tore at him.
With sudden determination he opened a drawer in the desk and took out a pistol. He checked that it was primed, then dropped it into the deep pocket of his coat.
He went into the hall. "Foster… my hat and my cane… Thank you." He ran a hand down the cane, touched the little knob in the handle that released the sword blade. It responded with oiled efficiency.
The butler tried not to stare at the sword stick, but he could also see the unmistakable bulge in his lordship's coat. The night streets were not particularly safe, it was true, but these precautions seemed rather extreme for a late-evening stroll to St. James's or some such gentlemanly destination.
Drawing on his gloves, the Earl of Stoneridge left the house. He was going to the Fisherman's Rest on Dock Street.
Theo was standing at her bedroom window as he went down the front steps. She'd expected him to come up to her… to drive away her confusion and dismay with his body as he drew from her the deep, ecstatic responses that made her forget all but shared passion. Instead he was going out. Had he finally wearied of her storms?
The thought stunned her. She saw life without Sylvester, and what she
saw was a wasteland.
How had he hurt her?
Suddenly she turned back to the room. "My cloak, Dora. I'm going out."
Her abigail blinked in astonishment. She'd just hung the cloak in the armoire. "But it's eleven o'clock, my lady."
"So?" Theo said impatiently, drawing on her gloves. "Quickly." If she delayed much longer, Stoneridge would have disappeared from the street, and she'd never catch him up.
She wrapped the velvet cloak around her, drawing the hood over her hair as she ran down the stairs.
"Did his lordship say where he was going, Foster?"
"No, Lady Theo." The butler shot the last bolt on the front door.
"Well, I have to find him," she said. "Unlock the door quickly. He can't be far away."
Foster hesitated for a fraction. But the earl had only just left, and Lady Theo couldn't come to any harm on Curzon Street. He unbolted the door again, and she ran past him and down the steps, turning to the right, as Sylvester had done.
Chapter Nineteen
Theo reached the corner of Curzon Street and Audley Street just in time to see Sylvester hail a hackney carriage. There was a second one immediately behind, and without pausing to think, she flagged it down.
"I'm going where they're going," she said, gesturing to the other vehicle before scrambling into the dark, shabby interior.
"Right you are, lady." The jarvey cracked his whip, hoping this would be a long fare.
It was only as the hackney swung round a corner, bouncing over the cobbles, that Theo realized she'd brought no money with her. Never mind. Sylvester would pay her fare as well as his own, and if she lost him, she'd take the hackney back to Curzon Street, where there was money aplenty.
Where could he be going? She pushed aside the grimy leather curtain over the window aperture and stared out in the dark streets. The area they were going through had a very unfamiliar feel, but, then, she was only just learning the topography of the few square miles of London inhabited by the ton. Presumably Sylvester wasn't going to the clubs on St. James's. He'd surely have walked that short distance.
After what seemed a very long time they turned alongside the wide, dark body of the Thames and drove along the embankment. The air smelled different. Dirty and smoky, fetid with a midden stench and the ancient river slime clinging to the sloping cobbles of the embankment.