She then donned a particularly charming tea dress of flimsiest white India muslin embroidered with entwined red flowers, and went downstairs.
To her annoyance, Lord Vernon was lurking in the dining room. He sprang to his feet as soon as she walked in, although, fortunately, Kate caught sight of the Smallwoods and veered immediately toward them as though she hadn’t seen him.
Mrs. Smallwood greeted her loudly, and only moments later mortified her daughter further by leaping to her feet and calling, “Yoo-hoo! Lady Wickenden!”
Gillie, just entering the room, took it all in stride, but then she had apparently met the Smallwoods before, though under what circumstances remained a mystery.
“Am I late?” Gillie asked breathlessly, as if she’d run all the way.
“No, in perfect time,” Kate assured her. “We have ordered tea, scones, and cake. Is everything well?”
Gillie gave her a quick conspiratorial glance and nodded.
“I’m so glad you joined us, Lady Wickenden,” Mrs. Smallwood gushed. “For in truth, I wished to ask a favor.”
“Of course,” Gillie said at once, although an uneasy look entered her eyes. “If it is in my power.”
“I presume you are attending dear Mrs. Winslow’s ball on Saturday?”
“Why, yes, we do plan to go. All of us, even my stepmother.”
Mrs. Smallwood’s face fell. “Then you will have a full carriage,” she said in dismay.
“Mama,” Miss Smallwood murmured in an agony of embarrassment.
“Well, if I don’t ask, how will you attend?” her mother retorted. “The truth is, I was hoping to prevail upon you to chaperone Jenny for me. She so wishes to go and I cannot take her.”
Mrs. Smallwood’s eyes slewed around to Kate.
“I would not do, ma’am,” Kate assured her. “I am not a suitable chaperone for your daughter. To be frank, her reputation will barely survive tea in my company.”
“Kate!” Gillie admonished as the mother’s eyes grew round with something very like terror. “Lady Crowmore is joking you. In any case, I will be happy to take Jenny if she wishes, for we’ll need two carriages in any case.”
Instantly, Mrs. Smallwood was wreathed in smiles. “I was so hoping you would say that! After all, you do owe us for stealing Wickenden away from Jenny.”
Kate, who’d just lifted her teacup to her lips, almost choked. Hastily, she set her cup down again. “Well, that’s a story I don’t know,” she murmured.
Gillie shifted in her seat. “It wasn’t quite like that,” she muttered.
“It was nothing like that,” Jenny exclaimed. “Lord Wickenden was never anything but kind to me.”
“Exactly,” Mrs. Smallwood said with triumph. “But we don’t grudge dear Lady Wickenden her husband, for several gentlemen, much wealthier gentlemen than Wickenden, have since distinguished Jenny by their attentions. I believe I will have her married and off my hands before she is seventeen.”
Startled, Kate glanced at Jenny, who looked both mortified and hunted.
“I was married at seventeen to a wealthy man,” Kate drawled. “We all regret it. The most fashionable people now are not marrying off their daughters until twenty.”
“Twenty!” Mrs. Smallwood peered at her, appalled. “I believe you’re joking me again.”
“Not really,” Kate said. “If she were my daughter, I’d let her shine and have fun for a few years before the brilliant wedding.”
“But then there wouldn’t be a brilliant wedding,” Mrs. Smallwood objected. “She’d be on the shelf.”
“Forgive me, Gillie, but how old were you when you married Wickenden?” Kate drawled. “Two and twenty? Three and twenty? I believe he is counted a brilliant match.”
“Of course he is!” Mrs. Smallwood declaimed triumphantly. “Which is why she stole him from my Jenny.”
“Mama,” Jenny whispered, as if in real agony now. “People will hear! Please stop!”
“Well, there, I bear no grudges,” Mrs. Smallwood said with blatant untruth. “For I have other gentlemen in my sights.”
Kate’s original motive in inviting the Smallwoods to tea had been to wean Bernard Muir’s affections off herself and onto someone more suitable, at least in age—namely Miss Smallwood. But as Mrs. Smallwood continued to chatter away about all her daughters’ suitors and their respective incomes, Kate felt increasingly strongly that Jenny should not simply be shipped off to the highest bidder before she was even old enough to recognize love. Or lack of it.
It was fellow-feeling, of course. At seventeen, Kate had been given to a much older man for political alliance and settlements, a man who should never have been allowed control over a dog, let alone a wife. At least her parents had known Crowmore, though they might have cared too little about his habits and vices. Mrs. Smallwood appeared to know nothing about these suitors apart from their income. She resolved to speak to the older lady in private, warning caution and even offering assistance.
However, just as she leaned forward under cover of Gillie’s conversation with Jenny, Lord Vernon materialized at their table, bowing with his usual supreme elegance.
“Lady Crowmore,” he said formally, to show, no doubt, that he was on his best behavior. “May I join you?”
Kate was about to send him about his business in no uncertain terms, when a much better plan popped into her head. She could kill two birds with one stone and the risk was minimal.
“For five minutes,” she allowed, flippantly. “Before we banish you from our sight once more. Lady Wickenden, are you acquainted with Lord Vernon?”
“Good lord, are you Wickenden’s bride?” Vernon exclaimed, taking Gillie’s hand. “All London is agog to meet you, I assure you!”
Mrs. Smallwood sniffed, attracting Vernon’s attention.
“Mrs. and Miss Smallwood,” Kate murmured. “Ladies, Viscount Vernon.”
Mrs. Smallwood, who seemed to carry in her head the estates and incomes of the entire population of the country, regarded him with undisguised interest. Vernon’s affairs were shambolic due to his penchant for wine, horses, and gaming, but as the Earl of Boulton’s heir, he was due to inherit a considerable fortune along with the earldom.
“My lord, do sit here,” she gushed. “There is plenty space between myself and my daughter. We were just discussing the Winslows’ ball on Saturday. Does your lordship go?”
“I can’t say I’m acquainted with any Winslows,” Vernon excused.
“Mr. Winslow is the local squire,” Kate explained. “And I believe the ball is a much-anticipated social event.”
“Dear Lady Wickenden will be chaperoning my daughter.”
“Well, if you’re all going, I shall scrape an acquaintance somehow and beg an invitation,” Vernon said firmly, his gaze on Kate.
“I may not go,” Kate said perversely. “I haven’t decided yet. But you should beg Miss Smallwood for a dance right away. If her card is not already full, it soon will be.”
While Gillie glared at Kate, Vernon seemed to notice the young girl for the first time. Always one to appreciate beauty, he promptly begged for a dance. “Preferably a waltz, if they allow it here.”
Mrs. Smallwood began to denounce the waltz as improper, which Kate thought rich considering the intimacy she seemed happy enough to sell her daughter into. Vernon defended the dance in his lazy, good-natured manner.
“What are you doing?” Gillie hissed at Kate behind her hand. “You cannot throw Jenny to that man!”
“I won’t need to,” Kate said cynically. “Her mother will do it. He won’t seduce her, you know. He’s not that big a cad. But I thought his admiration might make Bernard sit up and take notice.”
Gillie leaned back in her chair and lowered her voice even further. “You’re using him to make my brother jealous of Jenny’s favor? I’m not sure I want him pursuing her! She is very good-natured, of course, but she is a trifle … fickle.”
“Well, so is Bernard,” Kate pointed out. “You’re righ
t, of course, they are too young, but at least they’re both kind, decent people.” She didn’t say that Bernard could use the Smallwood money, being penniless on his own account. Or that marriage to Bernard would keep Jenny out of the clutches of wealthy lechers and other unsavory characters her mother seemed to have lined up for the post of husband to the Smallwood heiress. She could see Gillie already mulling it over in her mind, though she still looked doubtful.
“Don’t worry,” Kate said. “People rarely do what you plan for them! And I am a terrible matchmaker. I merely throw the opportunity out there.”
“But you hope also to keep both my brother and Lord Vernon from bothering you,” Gillie said shrewdly.
“Well I know you concur with at least one of those aims.”
“There is no way I can answer that without appearing to insult you,” Gillie observed at last.
“I shan’t hold it against you,” Kate drawled.
To her surprise, Gillie smiled at her. “Actually, I think you’re trying to do good things and look out for people. And I suspect you’re more likely to hold that observation against me.”
Kate laughed. “Not if you keep it to yourself. I have a reputation to maintain.”
Chapter Eleven
Jeremiah Tugg had finally acknowledged that just watching the hotel and waiting for opportunity to kill Lady Crowmore was just not going to work, even with the fighting vicar out of the way. So, he’d been smart. He’d hung around the stables and asked questions, not of the lady’s groom but of the native stable staff and others. He knew that she’d ordered her horse brought round to the hotel at six o’clock that morning—which was ridiculously early for most nobs, but he wasn’t going to waste the opportunity when he finally had it.
High Street was quiet. Even the coffee house was closed. And when the groom walked the horses down the road, riding the big black one and leading the smaller white one, there was no sign of the hotel doorman or any other staff.
Tugg, lounging at the corner of the alley next to the hotel, lifted his hand and made a forward gesture. Immediately, his three colleagues, Snoddie, Barrow, and Leman slid past him and out into the high street.
Barrow, being least villainous in appearance, approached the groom head on, asking for directions. Suspecting nothing, the groom dismounted—and was immediately coshed on the back of the head by Snoddie. He fell like a stone, and Snoddie and Leman dragged the inert groom round into the alley.
While Tugg kept watch, and Barrow somewhat nervously held the restive horses, Snoddie and Leman wrestled the groom out of his coat. Tugg hastily donned it and emerged from the alley, picking up the groom’s fallen hat as he went and clapped it on to his head.
Barrow grinned, handed him the horses’ reins, and sped off down the alley to help keep the groom quiet—by killing him if absolutely necessary. Tugg wasn’t a great believer in killing, not if he wasn’t paid for it, and as it stood, only the lady’s death was being bought.
And there she was. He could see her approaching the hotel door alone. A maid scrubbing the floor stood up to let her pass, and obligingly opened the door for her. Tugg could barely contain his smile.
*
Kate had decided to ride early for two reasons. Through boredom, she’d gone to bed early the night before. But more importantly, she’d thought thus to avoid any effort of Lord Vernon’s to accompany her. She planned, in fact, to ride on the beach, as she’d privately let slip to Gillie before they parted yesterday evening, in the dubious hope that Gillie would pass it on to Grant. Her urge to see him, speak to him, just to be with him, was like an insistent pain. He was bad for her. They were bad for each other, and yet she craved his company like opium.
Peter was on time. She was glad to see him through the glass hotel doors, holding the horses still. She was vaguely surprised he didn’t walk them up and down, for Gladiator was tossing his head arrogantly, constantly tugging at the groom’s arm, and Snow was pawing the ground, shifting as though trying to stand on Peter’s toes.
“Mind your feet, ma’am,” the maid cleaning the floor said as she stood up and opened the door for her. “It gets slippery when it’s wet.”
“Thank you,” Kate said and stepped up to the door.
“Kate!” called a familiar voice behind her as footsteps ran across the foyer. She closed her eyes in frustration. “Hold up there.”
She opened her eyes and went out, pretending not to hear him. With luck, she could be mounted and away before it came to a confrontation. But a vehicle suddenly appeared in front of the hotel, stopping abruptly enough to make the carriage horses snort and whinny with displeasure. Startled, Kate’s horses pulled back from the vehicle, dragging Peter with them. At the same time, a man leapt out of the coach and grabbed Peter.
Kate had just time to register that the man from the coach was Tristram Grant, before he rammed the groom’s arm behind his back and all but threw him at the carriage, where he was received by none other than Lord Wickenden. Had they taken leave of their senses?
She started toward them, instinctively grabbing the reins of the horses. Peter, in a last-ditch attempt to avoid being dragged into the coach, grabbed on to either side of the door and threw back his head to shout. Only it wasn’t Peter.
It was the bully who’d once threatened her with a dagger.
She stopped dead, staring. Grant leapt up into the coach behind the ruffian, shoving him inside. Just for an instant, the curate glanced back and met her shocked gaze. And then the horses leapt onward and he slammed the door.
“What the devil?” Vernon uttered beside her. “That wasn’t … he looked just like—”
“Your brother?” Kate said, frowning as Grant hung out of the door once more, yelling something at the alleyway to the side of the hotel. “It is.” Drawing the horses with her, she hastened toward the alley.
A man lay prostrate on the ground to the left. Three more were just vanishing around the corner at the far end.
“Peter!” She ran the rest of the way to her groom, releasing the horses who showed no signs of going anywhere without her.
As she knelt in the dirty alley beside him, Peter groaned and opened his eyes. “W-what happened?” he demanded, trying to throw himself into a sitting position, and then grabbing at his head with a cry of pain.
“Hush, be still. Thank God you are alive, but they must have hit you. There’s blood on your head.” She investigated it, scowling over the injury.
“I don’t understand, my lady,” Peter said.
“That makes two of us,” Vernon said. “Why is my brother here?”
“He’s the curate,” Kate said, deftly removing Peter’s clean necktie and dabbing his matted hair with it.
“My God, is he really?” Vernon sounded entertained, and then affronted as he repeated, “Really? Then why the devil is he abducting people off the street?”
It was ridiculous, insane, and dangerous, but suddenly she wanted to laugh, because her heart had never been so light. Her voice shook with it as she said, “I think he might be trying to solve my Dickie Crowmore problem.”
*
Grant was, in fact, attempting to solve all the major problems he knew of. He’d nearly missed his chance, too, with Kate choosing to ride so early. He’d received word of that only just in time. Even now as the coach took off with their captive secured, it made his blood run cold to think how close this villain had come to Kate. The feeling drowned even his natural jealousy when he saw Vernon beside her once more.
“Well, we’ve got one of them,” Wickenden observed. The pistol he held inches from the prisoner’s chest was perfectly steady. “What do you want to do with him? Strangle him? Throw him off the cliff?”
Grant breathed deeply, calming himself. “Oh no. We’ll take him to the barracks and introduce him to Major Doverton as the source of their information about the escaped prisoner. I should think just looking at him would be enough for Doverton to forget the charges against me. If it isn’t, this fellow will just have
to say he was paid by someone.”
The bully grinned ferociously. “I was. Indirectly. But I’m not saying so to no major. Nor magistrate neither.”
“Well, perhaps I will just beat him to a pulp,” Grant said to Wickenden.
“Thant’s no talk for a vicar,” the ruffian said severely. “You’re too handy with them fists for a man of God. It’s my belief you ain’t one neither.”
“Then you’d be wrong. But I’d advise you to do as I suggest.”
“Why would I?” the man demanded aggressively.
“Because if you do, I might speak for you and urge the major to release you as—er—a mere ignorant tool. At this point, you have nothing to lose by telling the truth. Because you don’t—you really don’t—want me to get to other charges, like the attempted murder of a peeress of the realm. We have plenty of witnesses to that.”
The ruffian glared at him.
“What’s your name?” Grant asked, swaying with the carriage as it turned uphill toward the barracks. “Tugg, is it?”
The man’s eyes widened. “How did you know that?”
Because he’d had enquiries made at the tavern, which was the only possible place people like Tugg could possibly stay around here. Unless they were prepared to live rough.
“I have my methods,” Grant said grandly.
Wickenden’s lips twitched, though the pistol remained steady.
Tugg scratched his head. “So you’re saying you won’t accuse me of murder if I just admit to informing against you about the prisoner?”
“Informing against me falsely and maliciously,” Grant corrected.
“Because some stranger paid me,” Tugg expanded. “No doubt some other toff who don’t like you.”
“No doubt,” Grant said.
“And that would be it? You’d let me go?”
The Wicked Lady (Blackhaven Brides Book 2) Page 14