by Suzi Love
She stepped outside and Warren fell into formation behind her, speaking loudly enough to gain her attention.
“That sweet-maker would talk the ear off a cow. Talks even more than you, Lady Laura.”
She gritted her teeth and pretended not to hear him, as she concentrated on keeping her edible package held safely in front of her, and away from anyone who bumped into her.
Honestly, they might have rescued Warren from goal, and he might have been destined for the hangman’s noose, and he might be a common thief with no schooling, and he might have reached adulthood in the roughest part of the slums, and she conceded that he had been orphaned at a very early age—
But surely, even those things shouldn’t excuse him from displaying a modicum of manners, now he was in their employ. Someone needed to tutor the insolent servant. Someone needed to curb his tongue. Only not her, and not now.
She quickened her pace, retracing her path back towards the carriage through the thickening crowd, praying the raindrops hitting the brim of her bonnet did not forewarn of an imminent downpour. For the hundredth time, she cursed her own impetuosity. Her family reminded her countless times that her actions invariably landed her in predicaments from which she required rescuing.
She turned around. “Warren, we should make haste. Perhaps walking along the outside edge of these carts will prove faster.”
She slipped between the two nearest wagons, lifted her hems, and stepped across the gutter. Her gaze fixed ahead, not on any refuge that might swill beneath her feet, she reached the paved road and felt slightly comforted by the sound of Warren’s heavy breathing immediately behind her. As a footman Warren was far from ideal. As a keeper, his towering size and uncouth attitude made him perfect.
Her carriage came into sight, standing at the corner of the next crossroads. When she saw John standing upright on his box, turning this way and that, evidently on the lookout for them in the crowds, she expelled a sigh of relief. Not normally fussed by encroaching crowds or loud storms, something in the atmosphere today disturbed her. Either the approaching bad weather or her unshakeable feeling of impending doom set her nerves on edge.
Increasing her pace, she strode along, looking neither right nor left through the increasing rain until she reached the corner. John coachman recognized her, smiled, indicated that he’d descend to the side of the coach and open the door in readiness for her quick entrance. Lifting her hand, she waved her acknowledgement and started to call out a greeting.
The sight that entered her line of vision on the steps of the house on the opposite corner stopped her in her tracks. She stood like a marble statue, her limbs so heavy they could have been carved from stone. Warren, driven by his own forward motion, banged into her back and knocked her off balance.
She cried out, startled, but more shocked by the image still burning holes in the backs of her eyes. Warren’s large hands shot forward to grip her forearms and prevent her from toppling to the ground and being trampled underfoot.
At the same moment, John’s shocked voice rang out, “Lady Laura, oh my goodness! Lady Laura, take a care, I’m coming.”
Around them, the other walkers separated and then surged past and left her tottering in a small cleared area, Warren supporting her. Her legs refused to hold her upright and she breathed in panting gasps, as if she’d run a race. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Warren’s gaze swivel towards whatever had caught her attention.
Warren, and most likely John coachman, would see, as she did, the Earl of Winchester being farewelled in the open doorway of a large cornerwise townhouse.
The owner of the house wasn’t known to Laura, though whoever resided there possessed immense wealth, as the windows, standing to soldier-like attention in two neat rows, fanned out for a great distance down the sides of the two bisecting roads. It was a very large residence indeed. Heavy gold brocade curtains draped the windows, and all the exterior window sills were of a reddish colored wood, polished to such a brilliant gloss that the streaks of afternoon sunlight bounced off them and hit passersby in the eye.
Winchester’s back was too them, yet Laura knew it was he, in the same way she sensed his presence every time he entered a ballroom or galloped across the end of a park. Without conscious thought, she started across the street to greet her friend, thinking to offer him the comfort of her carriage as a dry haven from the increasing rain.
Her feet touched the pathway below the townhouse’s step, she settled her hems back over her ankles and looked up in time to see a lady. For she now accepted the fact that it wasn’t one of Richard’s many male acquaintances, as she glimpsed of swirling skirts around his legs and the blonde hair near his darker head.
When she’d first seen him from across the street, instinct had told her he was visiting a woman but she’d pushed the idea away, rejecting it as untrue, as he’d told her he wasn’t visiting any new mistress today. She might have called Richard many unkind names in their continual conflicts but never, ever a liar. No, this lady was not a new mistress. Most likely the wife of a business associate.
Feeling somewhat reassured, she took a few more confident steps across the walkway towards the bottom step, her intention being to wait until he’d completed his call and offer to convey him to his home. It would be only neighborly as they lived in such close proximity. She stopped at the bottom of the wide steps and clutched her parcel and reticule to her chest, hoping to keep them slightly drier in the shelter of her body, and waited.
Rather than Richard retiring from the lady’s side, the petite, blond-haired woman stretched upwards and pressed a lingering kiss on Richard’s cheek. Laura watched in stunned disbelief as he shifted the woman’s hand from his shoulders and lowered them to her side, yet not letting go of them. He kept them clasped in his gloved hands, swinging them a little at thigh level to emphasize whatever point he made to her as he bent his head and spoke near her ear.
“Oh, my goodness!” Laura’s hands squeezed hard against her chest.
Beside them, a gray-haired and exquisitely liveried butler waited with solemn patience to secure the doors. The butler’s gaze fixed on some invisible spot away from the couple, as if a renowned Earl and an elegantly gowned lady bid farewell on the doorstep every day. Perhaps they did in this household, but certainly not in the majority. A most bizarre happening.
Laura lost track of time. Things happened in slow motion after that. Half- awareness informed her that Richard turned…walked down the steps…towards her. But her unwavering gaze stayed locked with the motionless figure in the doorway. The now visible title-holder stared down at where Laura, her almost-visitor, waited on the street.
Even from where she stood, Laura clearly saw her brows lift in surprise and her mouth open. The lady raised her nose in a gesture of disdain. A smug, fox-cunning smile spread across her adversary’s face.
The Countess of Newbery.
Chapter Sixteen
“Lady Laura!”
“Milady. Lady Jamison.”
Cries came from two directions at once. Richard startled, lifted his head. Oh, Lord, no! His gut clenched and he gripped the railing as his knees shook.
Laura had barely flinched when shot at —twice—yet now, her expression of horror told him someone had inflicted much worse damage to her person. Him! He’d wounded her this way. She’d seen him leaving Gloria’s house. She’d witnessed Gloria kiss and cling to him. God knew what she thought, what she imagined.
Those calls of Laura’s name. One from in front of him. Warren arrived in a panting mound of distress to surround Laura’s heaving body with his own bulk and shield her from foot traffic or eager viewers in coaches.
One from behind him. Richard swung around in time to glimpse Gloria’s profile, as she turned to her butler and the open door behind her. In time to glimpse an emotion that sent gooseflesh racing over his skin. Despite their prolonged conversation, despite her begging entreaty for assistance, despite her desperate avowals of innocence, Gloria’s face radiated
triumph and glee and an unholy excitement.
Hell! What had he let loose? Surely he couldn’t have been so deluded by feminine tears and pleas?
In front of him, Warren had taken Laura’s arm and was leading her across the street. She appeared dazed and disoriented, as the footmen needed both hands to steer her in a straight path to her waiting coachman. The sight of the open carriage door and the thought that she’d walked away without a word, a question, or a scold, finally freed him from his frozen state.
“Wait, please, wait,” he called, raising his hand and running after them. He dashed onto the street without checking and nearly went under the hooves of a fast-turning curricle as it rounded the corner. The young buck driving it called a few words of abuse, but he made no effort to respond or to apologize.
Go to Laura
Explain to Laura.
The refrain pounding through his head blocked out everything else as he weaved between the jostling wagons and carts, and raced to reach her carriage before the door closed. From somewhere offside of him, Brian and Tony ran to catch him up, calling as they ran, but he didn’t dare stop.
Tell Laura. Tell Laura. Tell Laura. It beat faster and faster in his brain, until his mind fogged and his vision turned red. From a few yards away, he heard Warren call to the coachman to start off, and realized that Laura was seated, the door was fastened and she was leaving him.
“No, no, wait. Please, Laura, wait,” he called, and waved in desperation as her face went past his view and the coachman maneuvered her equipage into the stream of traffic. “No, no, no,” he moaned, over and over, as he dropped his hand to his knees, gasping for breath. He shook his head as his breath hitched on an almost-sob.
Brian and Tony joined him, both in the same out-of-breath state, both having raced from their positions as observers. Their disguises as street sweepers had been good at three this afternoon but now, disheveled as they were, they could easily have taken up their brooms permanently with no one being the wiser.
Brian touched his back in a tentative but comforting manner. “So sorry.”
“Terrible timing,” Tony added. “When I saw the Earl’s country conveyance coming around the corner and stop, before driving towards the mews, I imagined it would be he discovering you with his wife. Especially when she stepped outside, in full view of the street.”
“Newbery arrived home? While we stood on the steps?”
“Can’t say for certain if Newbery himself saw you, but it was definitely his coach that arrived. Great lumbering thing, loaded up with enough goods and chattels for a battalion, the way he always travels.”
“Hell!”
“Yes, didn’t think you’d be pleased. Had visions of the Earl shooting you in the bollocks.”
“Brian, you know I had no intention of becoming involved in any sort of relationship with Gloria again. We spent the entire time conversing. Nothing more.”
Brian held his hand up, palms out. “Whoa, my friend. It’s not me you need to convince of that, it’s Lady Laura. When she ran past me, she looked like someone had shot an arrow through her heart.”
“Her face resembled a bleached sheet.”
Richard bent down to pick up the white paper at his feet, the bright-colored ribbon having caught his attention. As soon as he lifted it higher, he recognized its contents, as he was a frequent customer at the same sweet shop along the road. He unfurled the crushed paper and examined the contents. What he revealed made him feel like the worst rogue who’d ever walked the earth. Toffee. The type that Aunt Aggie favored.
He knew now why Laura had been on this particular corner. Yet he had no reasonable explanation for the appearance of Newbery, considering Gloria had told him, several times, that her husband was safely out of the City. His views on life made him too skeptical to believe in coincidence.
“Dammit! I have to go to her. Explain. And you two will come with me. Describe your part in this afternoon’s surveillance. Why you were there. What you saw. Instinct tells me Gloria played me for a fool today, the question is why.”
“You think she expected Newbery to return around three, when you were with her?”
“Not just expected, arranged for him to return and discover us together. Although we did not leave the drawing room the entire time.”
“It makes little difference which room you were in. It only matters that you are starting up again with your former mistress.”
“Someone went to a lot of trouble to make it seem that way. And Gloria, well, she possesses beauty and delights in a wide variety of sexual activities, but she is incapable of developing a long term plan of any kind, and even less capable of applying normal methods of organization. She’s laughed often about Newbery despairing of her reckless spending, and of her incomprehension of even the simplest of household accounts.” He shook his head.
“No, if this was a trap set for me, Gloria needed someone else to lay it for me. She was only the bait.”
With Brian and Tony accompanying him, Richard hurried around to the stables in the mews behind Newbery’s house to fetch his horse. As he waited for his cousins to change clothes, he questioned a groom, one of Newberry’s men, on the recent comings and goings of the Earl and the Countess. For a few gold coins, he was rewarded with excellent information. Pieces to fit into their puzzle. Pieces that might very well be the key to solving it.
At Grosvenor House, Winchester addressed Thompkins, the Jamison’s butler, in his most formal tone and asked to be announced. He hoped the formality might jolt the servant into doing what he wished, though he held no real hope for it, as the servants here followed their own strange code of behavior. Loyalty to the Jamisons stood as number one, and possibly numbers two, three, and four, on their list of duties. Other than that, they tended to do what pleased them.
Obviously it didn’t please Thompkins to allow him to see Lady Laura so, in a gesture of pure bluff, he announced that he and his cousins would sit in the drawing room and wait until the lady was free. They waited in silence for fifteen minutes, each second minute of which he checked either the mantle clock or his fob watch.
“She intends avoiding you,” Tony remarked.
“Don’t imagine she’ll speak to you today, or next week, or next month,” his brother added. “And it seems the other members of the family are also sending you to Coventry.”
They both rose. “It may be better if you do the initial explanations alone. If the Lady ever agrees to listen to you.”
His cousins departed, leaving him to pace the room alone. Anxious, guilty, and above all, aggravated. He strode to the door, inactivity driving him insane. Warren hovered in the hallway.
“You there,” Winchester adopted his Earnest Earl expression, “where is Lady Laura?”
The man regarded him with a hostile look, and Richard could well see why he’d been a valuable part of a criminal group before the Jamisons had removed him from the temptation of stealing on the streets.
“I’ll never allow you near our wonderful ladyship, no after wot you done to ′er.”
“Now see here–”
The footman shook his head. “No point in going all hoity-toity with me. Used to respect you, we did, the servants here at Jamison House. Knew you was family to the Duke. Knew you helped those street-workers with their accounts, same as our good ladies do. Thought you had more sense.”
Hell! Now a footman was making him feel even worse, heaping mound upon mound of guilt upon his head. As he deserved every word, every curse hurled at him, he stood there and took it.
“If you’re going to carry on with that piece of strumpet again, and believe me when I say that makes no matter if a woman takes money for what she does or not, some are harlots no matter what class they was born into.”
He sniffed and ran his footman’s uniform sleeve under his grubby nose.
“Least you could’ve done was go about it quiet like, behind closed doors, and not on the steps of that Countess’s house for every man and his bloody dog to s
ee. Humiliatin′, that’s what ′tis for my lady.”
Christ! His shoulders slumped and his fists clenched.
“After you gone and told her you weren’t bedding that man-chaser no more, and my lady, well she don’t say nothin′, but a man’s got eyes in his head, and he knows when a woman thinks something special about a man. Don’t like to see her upset like this. Crying like her heart is broke in two.”
Richard rubbed at his chest, trying to ease the pain over his heart.
“Won’t speak to her sister, nor her aunt.”
He pushed past Warren and strode towards the staircase to the upper floors. Glaring at the footman he said, “Don’t even consider trying to stop me.”
Warren grinned, his missing teeth turning it into an evil lopsided leer. “′Bout time you did the right thing.” He slapped Richard’s back and turned away towards the kitchen.
Richard was momentarily stunned, but eager to grasp the opportunity to make things right between him and Laura. Leaping up the stairs, he strode straight to the bedroom he knew to be hers and knocked on the door. No answer. Nothing but the sound of sobs, non-stop wretched sobbing. He opened the door and hesitated. This was wrong. As a gentleman he should not enter a lady’s boudoir. Yet he wouldn’t leave without speaking with her.
“Laura.” Nothing but sobs from the heaving mound of shoulders exposed from the top of the bedclothes. “Laura, it is I. Winchester.” Silence. “Please, sweetheart, it’s Richard. Speak to me.”
Each time he spoke, the sobs hitched, then recommenced. He closed his eyes and prayed for guidance. A soft sigh sounded beside him and a wrinkled hand came to rest on his sleeve. Aunt Aggie. He started to from his apology, but she stopped him with a finger to his lips.