She did her best to sprawl, and forced herself to drink some ale, which was pretty disgusting. She pretended to take bigger draughts than she did and wiped the back of her glove over her mouth.
Someone slid onto the stool opposite, a wiry man with darting eyes. “I hear you’re looking for jewelry.”
“If it’s the right quality and the right price. What have you got?”
The man laid his fist on the table and opened his fingers very briefly to reveal an emerald ring and what looked like a bracelet set with diamonds and sapphires.
“I’m looking for rubies,” Frances said.
“I can get you rubies.”
“When?”
The man thought about it. “A week, maybe.”
“Too long. But thanks.”
The man shrugged and stood up. “Please yourself.”
Surreptitiously, she glanced at the timepiece hidden in Joe’s coat pocket. It had already been half an hour since she had left the hotel. She began to realize that this would not be a quick quest. But she could not stay here all day. Ariadne would send the watch. And she needed to feed Jamie.
She waited another quarter hour, thinking deeply, but no one approached her. Dissatisfied, she rose and walked back up to the counter.
“I’ll come back tomorrow morning at ten,” she told the landlord gruffly. “There’s another sovereign for you if you arrange a meeting with anyone who has what I want.” She looked him in the eye. “I like rubies.”
The landlord just stared at her. But there was nothing else she could do. She made her way through the fog of smoke to the door. Just as she raised her hand to it, it opened. And she looked up into the face of her husband.
*
She recognized him this time without any difficulty. Even through the gloom of the taproom, he saw her eyes widen with undisguised horror, and the blood drain from her face, leaving it white and sick.
It wasn’t the reaction he’d hoped to inspire in his wife when they met again. But then, it had never entered his head that he would meet her at all in such an establishment, let alone dressed like a street urchin in boys’ clothes. He had only come in for a change of scene and a mug of ale to help him think and plan his next move.
But one could never predict Frances, and she had made the move for him.
After the first stunned instant, rage overwhelmed him, fed largely by fear for her. And, if he was honest, by that expression of horror in her face. Never had he thought to find such a look directed at him. Not from her.
He wrenched his gaze from her face to the table by the door. His stare must have been ferocious for the fishermen there shuffled up the bench to the next table.
“Sit,” he snarled at his wife, who stepped back and dropped onto the stool as though he had struck her. He slid onto the bench opposite and leaned across the table. “What in God’s name are you doing in this place?”
“I didn’t know you were in Blackhaven,” she blurted. “I didn’t know.”
“That, madam, is patently obvious. I ask again, what are you doing here?”
A thousand expressions seemed to chase each other across her eyes, before her lashes swept down, veiling them. And when she raised them again, he could read nothing except a certain desperation that she couldn’t quite hide.
“A wager,” she said.
He curled his lip. “With Ariadne Marshall?” When she nodded, he looked around him in exaggerated expectation. “And yet I don’t see her here.”
“Of course you don’t. But she’ll send the watch if I’m not back in ten minutes. I have to go.”
At least she had taken that much care. But his blood still ran cold when he thought what could have happened to her in this place. She made to rise, but he shot out his hand and seized her wrist. She stilled, gazing not at his face but at his detaining fingers.
“What did you wager?”
She shrugged. “Ari’s diamonds. I’ve won them for a night.” She swallowed. “Let me go, Alan. I’ll come up to the castle tomorrow and tell everyone everything. And I’ll do whatever you want.”
He released her as though she’d stung him. I’ll do whatever you want. A submission, a sacrifice to his undoubted rights. He wanted to drag her back right now. He wanted to push her away and never see her again, only his heart would crumble into a million pieces. It was already cracking.
She jumped up with painful relief and bolted out the door. He rose and followed, to be sure no one impeded her. By the time he reached the step, she was running up the road to High Street, fast. She didn’t run like a boy.
Torridon backed inside and sat staring at the table.
A wiry man slid onto the stool Frances had just vacated. His eyes darted around the room. “Got any jewelry to sell, your worship?”
“My worship? I’ve never been called that before. And no, why would you imagine I did?”
“Young shaver there is keen to buy rubies. But I’ll take anything. Or if you want to buy—”
“I don’t want to buy or sell,” Torridon interrupted, staring at him. Desperate to buy rubies. In this place, stolen rubies. It all began to make sense to him. Sort of.
His companion sloped away again. After a minute or two, Torridon stood and walked over to the counter. Feeling the need of it, he ordered brandy instead of ale.
“Young lad who just left,” he said to the landlord, who made no sign he knew who Torridon was talking about. “I might have something for him. Do you know where I can reach him?”
The landlord shrugged. “He said he’d be in tomorrow morning at ten.”
Torridon smiled grimly.
*
Frances fled through the hotel kitchen and up the back stairs, desperate to reach the safety of her rooms. She was almost at the landing when one of the clerks shouted down. “You there, where do you think you are going? Come here!”
Frances bolted up the last few steps, through the passage door, then all but fell into her own room, closing the door behind her as softly as she could before sliding her back down it to sit on the floor.
Ariadne gawped at her. Frances put her finger to her lips.
“Thank God,” Ariadne murmured, paying that little attention. “Did someone see you?”
From the passage came the sound of someone panting, then footsteps scurrying along the corridor toward the main stairs.
“Yes, but he’s gone.”
“Then we are in the clear.”
“Not by a long chalk. We are quite in the basket now.” Frances hauled herself from the floor and went through to her bedchamber, where Jamie was sleeping peacefully. She came back and threw herself onto the sofa beside Ariadne.
“Didn’t you find a trace of the rubies?” Ariadne asked sympathetically.
“No, not yet, but I did find my husband!”
Alarm surged into Ariadne’s face before she had time to smooth it away. “Oh dear. Did he recognize you?”
“Oh, yes. And oh, Ari, he was so angry.”
“I expect he was,” Ari said with a trace of humor. “I don’t care for the man, but be reasonable, my love. Any husband is unlikely to be conciliatory having found his wife in a dangerous tavern dressed as a boy.”
Frances gave a choke of laughter that was close to tears. “You are right, of course.”
“I suppose he is on his way here?”
“Oh God, I hope not!” She frowned. “No, he can’t be. He might guess where we’re staying, but he can’t know. And I doubt he would risk scandal by asking for me here. I said I would see him at the castle tomorrow. If I haven’t found the rubies by then, I’ll just have to tell him everything without the sop of his returned heirloom.”
“So you didn’t tell him the rubies were stolen?”
“God, no. I doubt he knows I took them with me from home. But I’ve left word at the tavern for anyone who has rubies to sell to meet me there tomorrow morning. Hopefully, I will have them back by the time I go the castle.”
“Pertinent question, Frannie. Wh
at are you planning to use to buy back the rubies? I understand that you won’t need to pay anything like their true value. But I still doubt whatever is left of your pin money will be enough.”
Frances hit her forehead. “I am an imbecile! I so rarely pay for anything over the counter… but a thief is unlikely to send me a bill!”
“Or Torridon to pay it, if he did,” Ariadne interjected.
“Oh the devil, just when I thought I might get clear…” Frances buried her face in her hands.
Ariadne put an arm around her. “Fear not, my dear, we still have the diamonds. Sell them. Swap them.”
Frances lifted her head. “Oh, Ari, I couldn’t, not just to buy what I allowed to be stolen.”
“Why not?” Ariadne said brightly. “You would do the same for me. And it isn’t really about the rubies, is it? It’s about your marriage.”
Frances gave a twisted smile. “It is important to me. He is important to me.”
“I know. Though I have said it before and I’ll say it again, he does not deserve you.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Frances agreed, though for different reasons entirely. She sprang up. “I had better change out of these clothes and ask Joe if I can keep them until tomorrow.”
Ten minutes later as she returned to the sitting room in her morning dress, carrying Jamie, she said impulsively, “Ari, do you think Russians are wealthy?”
Ariadne laughed. “What an odd question! Of course, some of them will be rich. I believe the nobility live in huge palaces—well the ones Bonaparte did not destroy. Moscow was burned to the ground, was it not?”
Ignoring the question, Frances said, “Would you mind if I used your diamonds as security against a loan from a friend?”
“I’ve already said, use them as you wish,” Ariadne replied. There was nothing in her face and voice to show she disapproved, but Frances, morbidly sensitive, was afraid she didn’t like the idea.
“You know I will move heaven and earth to get them back for you.”
She shrugged, lazy amusement seeping from her eyes. “They are yours, Frannie.”
“For one night. I have hopes it will be no more. May I borrow Lawson to carry a message to the castle?”
“You may borrow her to dance at the castle if such is your desire,” Ariadne drawled.
Frances giggled, her good humor restored by a plan that might just work. With Jamie on her knee, she sat at the desk and wrote a short note which she folded and sealed while Lawson waited patiently at her shoulder.
“I would like you to take this up to the castle,” she said, “and deliver it to the Russian gentleman who is staying there. That is, I think he is Russian, but he is certainly foreign. He is tall and dark and amusing, and he wore a scarlet domino to the ball. You must only give this into his hands, and discreetly. If necessary, tell Mrs. Gaskell the housekeeper – in private – that it is from Lady Frances, and she will help you. But no one else is to know anything about me or this message.”
“I am a lady’s maid, my lady,” Lawson uttered, affronted. “Not a messenger boy.”
“I know,” Frances replied steadily. “I am asking you as a favor, not giving you an instruction.”
Lawson glanced at Ariadne who was studiously reading. Perhaps it entered her head that her current mistress was in financial difficulties and might not be paying her for much longer. Or perhaps she was persuaded by her love for Jamie. Whatever her reasons, though she sniffed, she took the letter, seized her shawl from her own chamber, and departed.
*
Mrs. Gaskell had been housekeeper at Braithwaite Castle since the current earl’s father had brought home his bride. Devoted to the family, she missed Lady Frances since her marriage, and found her eyes misting whenever she thought of Lady Serena’s imminent departure with her husband to Devon. She had helped both of them out of childish scrapes in the past, and told them off for them, too. So, when Harry the footman first came to her and said a maid had arrived with a message for a Russian gentleman, she suspected Serena had been up to mischief at the ball.
“Thing is,” Harry explained, bearding her in the housekeeper’s room along the passage from the kitchen, “we told her there’s no foreign gent staying here, but she won’t go away and insists on seeing you.”
Mrs. Gaskell couldn’t help liking the idea that the young ladies still relied on her. “Bring her here, then Harry, and I’ll deal with her.”
Harry beckoned toward the door and a very respectable, stern looking lady’s maid entered as Harry went out.
The maid approached her, clutching an epistle in her hand. “I have a message from Lady Frances,” she said, a trifle grimly.
Mrs. Gaskell raised her eyebrows in astonishment. “Lady Frances? Not Lady Serena?”
“Lady Frances.”
“Well!” Mrs. Gaskell frowned. “I am at a loss. There is no foreign gentleman currently staying at the castle. And we are not expecting any more guests. Even the family are preparing to leave. Is Lady Frances quite well?”
“Quite. The gentleman is tall and dark,” the maid said, as though repeating a lesson. “And amusing. Apparently. And he wore a scarlet domino to the ball.”
Mrs. Gaskell’s jaw dropped. And then she laughed. She remembered quite well who had worn the scarlet domino. “Bless them.” Pulling herself together, she held out the hand for the note. “Thank you. I know now whom she means. I shall give it to him directly.”
But the woman snatched the letter back. “If you please, ma’am, her ladyship was quite particular that I should deliver it only to the gentleman. Discreetly.”
More intrigued than angry, Mrs. Gaskell nevertheless drew herself up to her full, not very considerable height. “My good woman, you must take my word that a strange maid chasing around the castle after this particular gentleman would cause just the sort of talk her ladyship would most dislike. You are clearly aware her ladyship trusts me. I will give the letter discreetly to the gentleman.”
The maid hesitated, then shrugged as if she had had enough of the whole affair, and thrust the letter at Mrs. Gaskell, who hid it immediately in the folds of her gown. Having shown the maid out again, she told Harry there had clearly been a misunderstanding, and sent him back upstairs to his duties.
Mrs. Gaskell was aware that Lord Torridon had gone out early. She worried that he looked so moody and tempestuous. She worried even more that Lady Frances was not with him. At least the family did not seem remotely anxious. They said Lord Torridon was merely stopping over on his way south. Which was reasonable. And it was equally reasonable that Lady Frances should write to her husband. Only why the secrecy and the strange maid? And why call him foreign? He was Scottish, of course, and not English, but one didn’t normally call Scots foreigners, and how it got muddled into Russian was quite beyond her.
She went about her upstairs duties, choosing those that took her to areas around the front hall. She was arranging fresh spring flowers at various points when Lord Torridon was finally admitted. While he gave up his coat and hat, she walked toward the staircase, reaching it at much the same time he did.
“Good afternoon, my lord.”
He nodded curtly, but gestured her to precede him. She did so, but having checked there was no one else on the stairs who could see them, she fell back to ascend beside him, and held out the letter.
“This was delivered by hand,” she murmured. “It purports to come from Lady Torridon.”
His gaze flew to her face, then dropped to the letter, which he quickly took and pocketed. “Does it, by God? Thank you.”
“If I can be of assistance,” Mrs. Gaskell said delicately, “please call on me.” And she hurried on upstairs.
*
Impatiently, Torridon flung into his own bedchamber and dismissed his valet before tearing the seal on the letter and sinking down on the bed to read it. He didn’t know quite what he expected, Some explanation, perhaps, for her bizarre, dangerous, behavior. A request to come home, perhaps. Even – his heart beat hard
er at the thought – a word of love.
But it was quite other.
My dear sir,
I am the lady to whom you provided such kind assistance at the recent ball. I have no right to call upon you for further help. Only my belief that you offered such with sincerity, and my conviction that you are worthy of a lady’s trust, has convinced me to write to you now.
I am in the sad position, through my own foolishness and carelessness, of needing to conduct a not entirely reputable piece of business. As such, I humbly request to draw upon your protection and your funds. If you have access to a sum of approximately five hundred pounds, I believe that would answer. I can provide you with security until I pay the money back. If you are able and willing to help, please meet me at the Blackhaven Tavern at ten of the clock tomorrow morning and I shall explain all. In the meantime, I can be reached at the Blackhaven Hotel, under the name of Mrs. Alan, if you would be so good as to reply.
However, please be assured that if you find yourself unable to help in this case, for whatever reasons, I shall remain your grateful if desperate friend,
The Lady in Blue.
P.S. If you come to the tavern, I shall not look as you expect.
Torridon’s lips twitched at the last line. How was it, however much she infuriated or bewildered him, she always made him laugh?
Clearly the letter was not written to her husband, whatever Mrs. Gaskell imagined, or how she had come to that conclusion. The letter was to the Russian stranger who had danced with her at the ball and beaten off the drunken louts who appeared to have threatened her mischievous little sisters before she had defended them.
She was magnificent in her own way. But now, what the devil was she about? What could she want with five hundred pounds at the tavern? Except to buy stolen goods. The rubies she had been so interested in. He was right. The rubies had been stolen and she was desperate to find them and buy them back before he discovered their loss. So desperate that she risked herself at the tavern and tried to borrow money from a stranger.
The Wicked Wife (Blackhaven Brides Book 9) Page 9