He decided to try a new tack. Spotting a respectable-looking linen-draper’s, he had Mina purchase a dress length and some ribbons. She refused to buy anything but black, although the clerk tried to show her a new burnt-orange watered silk that would have looked lovely with her hair and eyes. Lowell thought a gold muslin would become her, or peach. Black it was, though. While the clerk was wrapping the package, Lowell handed him an extra coin and quietly asked if he knew of any good seamstresses in the neighborhood, as he did not wish his companion to waste her time cutting and sewing.
The clerk looked at Lady Sparrowdale, winked, and said, “I’ll wager you don’t.” He mentioned two or three names, none of them Radway.
“What was that about?” Mina wanted to know when they were back on the street.
Lowell placed the parcel under one arm and offered her the other. He thought about lying for a moment, but decided against it. The lady had to know what her presence meant in this neighborhood, in his company. “He assumed you were my mistress.”
Mina stopped walking. “He what?”
“Well, Kensington is where a great many gentlemen house their amours. It is away from the eyes of the beau monde, but not too far for visits. The ladies like the bourgeois respectability, with tree-lined streets and children playing nearby, and the men like how the neighbors mind their own business, as we are finding. So when a fellow is seen with a pretty lady at his side, buying gewgaws like ribbons, the merchants suspect an affair.”
“But I am a widow! I am not—”
“Bachelor fare. Of course not. I know that, but the clerk did not. What husband goes shopping with his wife? Dashed few. And we do not look like brother and sister, so the clerk’s mind found the easiest connection. A man and a woman together are either related, by blood or by marriage, engaged, or engaged in an affair.”
Mina could feel the warmth in her cheeks. “How embarrassing for you, that the man could think that you would . . . that I was your . . .”
He had to laugh. “Embarrassing? The fellow was nearly drooling with envy. Don’t you know, such a comely conquest raises a fellow’s consequence. Why, I’d be bursting with pride,” he could not help teasing, just to see the pink tinges come and go in her face, “if the chap’s suspicions were real.”
Now her cheeks were on fire. “You must not say such things. It is forward.”
“It is honest. You are an attractive woman, Lady Sparrowdale. I would be less than a man not to recognize that.”
“Are you . . . are you flirting with me?”
“Of course not. I work for you, remember?”
Mina pretended to stare into a shop window so she would not have to look at Lord Lowell until she felt less discomposed. He had to be making fun of her, she thought, this handsome man with his elegant bearing. Gentlemen wanted her for her money, nothing else. Hadn’t Sparrowdale told her that often enough, and her father before him? She was plain and skinny. And the window she was staring at contained corsets. Mina quickly moved off down the block, Lord Lowell following.
“I apologize if I gave offense,” he said when he caught up with her again. “But it is best if you know what people will think when they see us together. In fact, in this neighborhood, it will serve our purposes better if they do think that, rather than that we are prying into matters better left secret.”
“Yes, I can see that.” Still, Mina insisted on going alone into the next few dressmaking establishments, asking if they employed a needlewoman she had heard of named Radway, one she could trust with her fine new length of black satin.
No one had heard of Perry’s grandmother.
Across the street, his lordship asked a tobacconist if he knew of any seamstresses willing to repair a torn shirt. He asked the apothecary if any neighbor ladies darned stockings, and he told the barber he fancied his monogram on handkerchiefs, if he could find a willing embroiderer. They all looked at the well-built gent with his Weston-tailored coat and gleaming top boots. They all suggested he find himself a wife, if his mistress was too lazy.
At the end of the block of shops, Lowell handed Mina back into the curricle. It was growing late, and the duchess would be worried if they were not back by dark, and dinner.
Mina would gladly have missed dinner, to keep going. She sighed, loudly.
“What, disappointed?” Lowell asked. “We cannot cover all the avenues in one day, but we can come back early in the morning. Street vendors are out then, and they know everyone.”
“I suppose I will have to wait. I was hoping we would have found Perry by now, and could start looking for the others.”
“Well, you will not make much of an investigator if you become discouraged after one afternoon. Sometimes these searches take weeks, not one afternoon.”
She had been waiting four years. Another hour was too long.
That evening, dinner was made lively by the duchess’s trying to convince Mina that her attendance at a harp concert later could in no way be construed as disrespectful to the recently deceased. The younger widow was adamant, however: She was not in London for socializing. She had not been invited to the musicale. And she did not like harp music.
“Stubborn chit,” Her Grace muttered as she led her guests from the dining room, but she was not offended. In fact, she seemed pleased that her guest had backbone, pleased enough that she decided to stay home too.
“You must not, on my account, Your Grace,” Mina said. “I could not continue to enjoy your hospitality knowing I was depriving you of your entertainment.”
“Bosh, my dear. I despise harp recitals too. I’d much rather stay in and play at cards. What say you, Dorcas? Are you game?”
Cousin Dorcas was already shuffling the deck.
So was Lowell, at his club. He hoped to gather gossip about old Sparrowdale, but he also wished to spread a bit of information himself. His old friend Aldershaw gave him the perfect opening.
“I say, Lolly, I saw you driving out with a female this morning. Not your regular colorful bird of paradise, either. This one was more like a crow.”
Ears perked up, the way Lowell knew they would. He was known to have exquisite taste in women as well as in clothes.
“Actually,” he replied into the expectant quiet now surrounding the whist table, “she was more of a sparrow. Old Sparrowdale’s widow, in fact. Her cousin was a bosom bow of my mother’s, so they are staying in Mersford Square.” There, Lowell thought, satisfied. Rumors and mushrooms both sprouted best in the dark. He wanted the lady’s identity out in the light, so there would be no whispers and innuendoes. To make sure, he shuffled the deck into an arching cascade of cards, and said, “I had to show her around a bit, was all. My mother’s guest, you know. Had to do the pretty.”
They all knew his mother. Half of them cringed, remembering rapped knuckles from that indomitable grand dame’s lorgnette. The other half, it seemed, remembered the young widow.
“Lady Sparrow is staying with you?” Aldershaw asked. “I’d say that is something to crow about, indeed.”
Lord Lowell shrugged and dealt the cards. “She is staying with my mother. It has nothing to do with me, beyond the occasional escort duty. The lady is in mourning, so won’t be going out much, thank heaven.”
“Lud, with all the pots of gold old Malachy Caldwell left the chit, I’d lock her in my house too,” Lord St. Martin said, while Viscount Compton declared Lowell a lucky dog.
Lowell sorted through his hand. “She has a dog too, a pesky little mongrel that sheds hair on a fellow’s inexpressibles, and an old maid cousin who makes lace.” He hated to disparage Miss Albright and Merlin, but it was far better that the fellows thought him disinterested in the widow and her entourage. “You will be seeing a great deal more of me at the clubs.”
“In that case,” St. Martin said, “you’ll be seeing less of me. I intend to camp on Merrison’s doorstep until the widow is mine, along with her fortune. Is she still a mousy little thing?”
Lowell played a card. And bit his tong
ue. “She is passable.”
“Hell, what heiress ain’t?” Compton wanted to know. Then he turned to St. Martin. “And don’t go counting your sparrow chicks ’til they hatch. My pockets are as empty as yours, so I’ll be making a push for the widow myself.”
Aldershaw made a rude noise. “Lady Sparrow is never up to your weight, you great ox. You’d crush the girl on your wedding night.”
“As long as she signed the marriage lines first, who cares?”
Before Lord Lowell could object to the vulgarity and the cruelty, the much smaller St. Martin held up his glass in a mock toast. “Well, the little ladybird will fit me perfectly, and her fortune will too. And who said anything about marriage?”
Lowell had had all he could stand. It was one thing for word of Lady Sparrowdale’s presence to get around Town. It was quite another for her name to be bandied around the men’s clubs. Next these muckworms would be making wagers on who would win her and her wealth, or who would bed her. He threw down his cards. “Forgive me for spoiling your game, gentlemen”—he did not specify which game—“but Lady Sparrowdale is neither a ladybird nor a high flyer. She is a guest of my mother’s.”
“Does that mean you are staking your own claim, Lowell?” Viscount Compton wanted to know.
“No, it merely means that, as a guest there, Lady Sparrowdale has the protection of Merrison House, the same as, say, my sister would have. Or one of your sisters. I would not see her importuned by down-at-heels hell-rakers, nor her good name sullied. I am afraid I will have to insist on the proper respect due to a lady, and one who is in mourning, besides.”
Lord Lowell was not handy with his fives, although he was physically fit. Without his spectacles, he could barely see a fist before it connected with his jaw. Nor was he proficient at swordplay, since his glasses tended to fall off with every lunge or parry. He was, however, a deuced good shot with a pistol. Besides, everyone liked him. Lowell was a good friend, always ready with a loan when the dibs were in tune.
The card players all nodded, understanding about protecting sisters and upholding the honor of one’s house.
It was St. Martin who asked, “But we can still bring her bouquets, can’t we?”
Chapter Twelve
Cousin Dorcas went to bed that evening some twenty pence richer. Mina would have followed, but the duchess asked her to stay behind a moment to share a last cup of tea.
“Old ladies do not need as much sleep, you know,” Her Grace said, ignoring the fact that Dorcas had been yawning over the cards for the last hour while the duchess tried to recoup her losses.
“You will have to go out sometime, you know,” she said while Mina was pouring out the tea.
Mina suddenly forgot how much sugar the duchess preferred, and had to ask.
“It’s plain speaking, I know,” Her Grace went on. “Old ladies can be forgiven that, too. But you cannot stay holed up here forever.”
“I was out all afternoon, Duchess”—which was how Lord Lowell’s mother had announced she wished to be addressed. Her Grace was not going to waste her breath on “Miss Albright” or “Lady Sparrowdale” either. They were Dorcas and Minerva before the first hand of cards that evening.
“Bosh. I do not mean that haring around with my son on whatever quest it is you have. And no, Lolly never discusses his cases with me, so you do not have to worry on that count. I mean showing your face at social gatherings, and I do not refer to balls and Venetian breakfasts, so don’t spout that tripe about mourning. If the members of the ton do not see you, they will start guessing about you and why you are in hiding. They will likely assume you are afflicted with your husband’s condition.”
Mina set her teacup down with an audible thunk. “I do not care what any of them think.”
“You’ll care well enough when you start looking around for a new husband and all the decent men run away. Fortune hunters and basket-scramblers will be all you have to choose from.”
“That is no matter. I do not intend to marry again.”
“What about children? Dorcas told me how grief-stricken you were at the loss of your son. My sympathies. I lost two infants myself, which made Lolly and his brothers and sister that much more precious to me. You are young now, but you will want others before it is too late.”
“I do hope to have children, a houseful.” She knew that if Dorcas had mentioned Mina’s lost son, she would also have mentioned Sparrowdale’s sons. Besides, if Mina found any of the children, she needed a place to bring them until she had a house of her own. The duchess had to know. “In fact, Lol—Lord Lowell is going to help me.”
“My son is going to help you start a family? I am delighted. Of course, I would prefer to attend the wedding first. An engagement announcement would do, I suppose, if you were in that much of a hurry.”
Mina cursed the blush that flooded her cheeks. She also cursed interfering old ladies, and their spectacled sons, for putting her in such an uncomfortable position. She should have stayed at the hotel and taken her chances with Roderick. “I do not mean children of my own, Duchess.”
“Of course you don’t, silly chit that you are. I was merely teasing. A mother’s dreams, don’t you know. Well, you would, if you do not destroy all your chances.”
“Your Grace?”
“Dorcas, not Lolly, mind, told me about that debt of your husband’s that brought you to London. His bastards, not his vowels, and how you plan to adopt as many as you can. Do not do it, girl.”
“Should I leave them in the gutter, then?”
“No one’s saying you cannot do right by them. Lud knows you can afford to, if half the rumors are true. But that’s not the same as taking them into your home. They will ruin your life.”
“They will give it meaning.”
The duchess tsk-ed at the idealism of youth. “They will make you a byword. Not even a fortune hunter would have you then, with so many baseborn children to share your bounty.”
“Good. I would rather have children who need me, than a man who needs my money.”
“Children grow up and go away. What will you do then?”
“What did you do, Duchess?”
“Impertinent chit. Still, I like you. I would not see you dwindle into a lonely old age with naught but letters from the ungrateful brats, and your silly dog.”
Merlin had not left the duchess’s side, waiting for the tidbits from the tea tray she passed down to him when she thought Mina was not looking. Now Her Grace scratched behind the little dog’s ears and stared at the fire in the nearby hearth. “My husband strayed once, you know. Well, of course you do not, but nearly everyone else in London knew at the time, I was that furious. I was outraged when I discovered Mersford had carried on an affair during the months I was away, tending to my dying mother. He broke off the relationship, of course, as soon as I returned, but there was a child. The mother left him on our doorstep. I could have brought him up here, and thought of it, such a sweet little chap he was. Brighter than my own firstborn, I am sorry to admit. But what kind of life would he have led, under the bar sinister? I made sure the boy was well provided for with a respectable family instead. He is a renowned barrister today, a friend and advisor to Merrill, my son who is now duke.”
“And what of your husband? Did he have nothing to say?”
“After saying he was sorry? And saying it every time I invited the boy to Merry’s birthday celebrations or vacations to Brighton? What could he say? He never strayed again.”
“My husband was not so honorable.”
“Your husband was a cad of the first order. Do not let him continue to rule your life. Do what is right for the children—but do what is best for you, too, Minerva. You deserve some happiness.”
Mina sat there long after the duchess had sought her bed, thinking. How could she know what was best for Sparrowdale’s children? She had to find them first, see if they were situated in pleasant homes. She had never thought much beyond gathering them, if they needed her. She needed them.
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And later, when they had gone off to families of their own? She could always take in other orphans, Mina supposed. She could even start a home for unwanted children of the aristocracy. If having Sparrowdale’s bastards around put her beyond the pale of polite society, taking in their indiscretions ought to see her ostracized once and for all. Good, Mina thought. She did not want anything to do with a world that venerated wastrels and wickedness, yet disdained honest workmen. So what if she was sunk so far beneath contempt that no gentlemen offered her marriage? Then she would not be put to the effort of refusing them.
Mina did not want a husband. An image of a gentle smile intruded into her thoughts, and—no, she did not want a husband. Having children to love would be enough.
She was still in the drawing room, idly turning the cards for Speculation, losing every game for lack of attention, when Lord Lowell returned home.
“Did you learn anything tonight?” she asked after he brought a decanter of wine and two glasses over to the card table.
Lowell had learned that he had an unexpected spark of chivalry where this female was concerned, and an even more unwelcome streak of jealousy. He’d been furious when his friends spoke so coarsely of the widow, the way they spoke of opera dancers and orange-sellers. When they talked of courting her, though, Lowell had wanted to strangle St. Martin with his own neckcloth, cut down Compton, and annihilate Aldershaw.
He was amazed at how angry he got, the man who prided himself on rational, deductive reason, not raw emotion. It was not as if he wanted to marry the woman—or any woman—so why did he care when those rakes mentioned calling on his Lady Sparrow? Because they were only interested in her money, that was why. They had never seen her, to admire those deep brown eyes and that clear, rosy complexion. They had never spoken to her, to understand either her intelligence or her righteous principles. No, they wanted her fortune. Lady Sparrowdale herself was a minor inconvenience on the way to the bank.
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