Maura in London! This was exciting. His blood heated at the thought of it.
The next question was where in London? He put it to Digby. ‘Where would she go? What would she do?’ There were possibilities he could rule out. Maura wasn’t likely to be looking for a sponsor to take her on for the Season and Harding didn’t have those sorts of connections even if Maura was stupid enough to use them.
Seeking out any of her uncle’s few city friends would be tantamount to writing a letter home announcing her presence.
This line of reasoning also assumed she was safe and had the freedom to choose her next step. He hoped for his own selfish sake that Maura had not been swallowed up by the slums, or, worse, a brothel. Efficiency and speed were of the essence. He wanted her pure and untouched, tamed to and by his own hand.
‘If it were me, sir,’ Digby began after giving the answer some thought, ‘I’d go to ground. I’d hide so I couldn’t be found.’
‘Yes, but how? You’re a man, Digby, you could re-invent yourself in numerous ways. How could a woman?’
‘Work, sir. I’d have to find work.’
‘Check the dress shops, then. She can stitch so it’s not out of the realm of possibility she’s found work in a shop.’ He liked the idea of shops. It made sense.
‘Pack your bags, Digby, we’re going to London.’
‘We, sir?’
‘Yes, I am going with you.’ It was a rather impromptu decision on his part, but the more he thought about it, the more he didn’t want to wait for Digby to bring Maura home. He wanted to be there when Digby caught up to her, wanted to see her face the moment she knew the game was up. His pleasures had been deferred long enough. They could be in London in three days.
*
It had been a week and they still hadn’t discussed the schedule. As a result, the children were eating her alive, patience first. Each day they awoke, anticipating some timely interruption by Uncle Ree, and each day they went to bed disappointed. Today was turning out no differently. Maura couldn’t recall how many times she’d had to redirect William’s attention away from the nursery window and back towards his arithmetic lesson. Fuelled by a week of good weather, and the hopes Uncle Ree would pop in, the children were overly exuberant, and today they’d been an especial handful. After a week on the job, Maura was exhausted.
‘We’d better try that again,’ Maura scolded gently when William missed his multiplication tables. ‘Now, what’s seven multiplied by four?’
‘Twenty-one. No, twenty-eight,’ William corrected with a frustrated pout. He was as testy as she was. He crossed his arms in defiance. ‘I like doing arithmetic with Uncle Ree better than this old stupid stuff.’
‘I’m sure you do,’ Maura said calmly, but her patience was nearing its limit. It was on the tip of her tongue to suggest he liked arithmetic with his uncle because his uncle made him do it so seldom. But she couldn’t bring herself to disparage the man. All week, they’d talked non-stop about Uncle Ree and everything they’d ever done with him: how he played hide and seek in the house with them, how he always had the best presents at Christmas, how he taught them fun games. It was clear the children adored him.
But for all his heroics, ‘Uncle Ree’ had made precious few appearances since the park, and the children were missing him keenly. So was she, Maura allowed privately. There was an energy when he was around, a crackling in the air because one never knew what was going to happen next.
‘I don’t know why I have to know multiplication,’ William sulked.
‘A gentleman needs mathematics to run his home and his personal finances.
When you’re older, you’ll get an allowance and you’ll want to know how to budget your money so it will last until the next allowance day.’ Maura tried to explain the reasons on a practical level. It was a lesson her mother had taught her at an early age as part of learning to run a household. That gave her an idea.
Maybe tomorrow, she’d set up a ‘household’ for William and Cecilia and let them practise managing it.
William shrugged, unimpressed. ‘If I run out of money, I’ll win more like Uncle Ree. Uncle Ree showed me how.’ Of course he had, Maura thought uncharitably.
Along with being an excellent kite-flyer, Lord Chatham was a gambler. She shouldn’t be surprised at this latest revelation. Many gentlemen gambled, including her Uncle Lucas. But Lord Chatham should have exercised some discretion in passing the habit on to young children.
‘I’ll wager my pin money and be the richest girl in London.’ Cecilia looked up from making alphabet letters on a slate. ‘Uncle Ree showed me, too.’ That did it.
She was definitely setting up a pretend-household tomorrow.
She should also give them a strict lecture on the vices of gambling, but curiosity overrode Maura’s good sense. ‘Exactly what did your uncle show you?’
‘Odds.’ William brightened. ‘If there’s eight to five odds, it means you’ll make eight pounds for every five pounds wagered, with a profit of three pounds each.
So, if I wager ten pounds on a horse, I’ll make eighty pounds. If it’s six to five, and I wager fifteen pounds, I’ll make seventy-five; not quite as good.’ William went on for a while, spouting multiplication and ratios at rapid speed, a speed she had been unable to coax from him all afternoon.
Maura was torn between praising him for his complicated multiplication and lecturing him on the severe consequences of gambling, consequences she knew all too well on a first-hand basis. In the end, she settled for a soft scold. ‘Remember, this all assumes you will win. If gamblers won all the time, everyone would be rich and the gambling halls wouldn’t make any money.’
‘I’d win,’ William boasted, unworried about being on the losing end of a wager.
‘Uncle Ree told me what to look for in a good horse: long, thin cannon-bones in the leg.’
‘I hope when the time comes, William, you will wager responsibly. One should never gamble more than one can afford to lose.’ Her tone was sterner now. Did Lord Chatham have any idea at all about how impressionable children were at this age?
‘I know!’ Cecilia exclaimed in complete agreement. ‘There was this gentleman at White’s who lost a house in a card game and he didn’t have anywhere to live after that.’
‘White’s?’ Even she had heard of the elite club. ‘How would you know such a thing? That’s a gentleman’s club.’ If Lord Chatham was carrying stories of his nights out home to the children, she’d have to caution him against it. Such tales weren’t suitable for children’s ears.
‘We were there. Uncle Ree took us.’
‘You were there?’ Maura echoed. Maybe she should have been happy with the idea of just bearing tales.
‘After Number Four left, there was a break before Number Five came,’ Cecilia supplied. ‘Uncle Ree took us with him some nights. We’d stay in the kitchens and eat sugar biscuits, but cook would let us peek through the door when something good happened.’
Apparently something ‘good’ qualified as a man losing his house in a card game.
Cecilia looked downcast for a moment. ‘I hope we get to go again soon. I miss going and it will be even better this time because you’ll be there, Six.’
Definitely not. But she understood the children’s distraction now. They were missing their uncle. Since commissioning her to plan his dinner party, Lord Chatham had made himself scarce. There had been no further outings to the park or other interruptions. Consequently, the children were disappointed and she was tense. She’d spent the entire week waiting for him to suddenly materialise in the nursery or demand she eat with him.
When those things hadn’t happened, she told herself it was for the best. She was busy with the children and planning the party. She didn’t have time for any distractions and she certainly couldn’t hazard another run-in like the one in the study. Still, she couldn’t help but feel disappointed like the children and a little bit angry. He couldn’t haphazardly abandon the children at will. They weren’t to
ys to be played with on a whim and then tucked away and forgotten. She feared very much that was what had happened. Lord Chatham had spent a month playing father and now he was tired of it.
That decided it. If Lord Chatham hadn’t shown himself by the children’s bedtime, she would track him down and demand he listen to her. The children needed a schedule, one that included organised and regular time with him. After all their upsets, they needed stability they could count on.
*
By seven o’clock, Lord Chatham had not made an appearance, nor was he anywhere in the house, Fielding informed her. Lord Chatham had spent the day in meetings and had not returned home. He assumed Lord Chatham had changed at his club and gone out for the evening from there.
Maura would wait. She got out her needlework and a book, ready for a long vigil in the little sitting room off the hall. She would be the first to hear his footsteps when Lord Chatham returned.
*
He returned shortly after eleven. Maura set aside her needlework, her pulse pounding. She’d had four hours to mentally rehearse what she wanted to say, four hours to build up her righteous indignation over his disregard this week. Maura stepped out into the darkened hall behind him. ‘Lord Chatham, might I have a word?’
He paused, his shoulders sagging infinitesimally, but he did not turn. ‘Could it wait until morning?’ He was tired. Funny, but she never imagined him as tired.
He was always so full of life.
She would not be put off. Maura put her hands on her hips. ‘No, we must discuss the children’s schedule. It has already been put on hold a week and, as a result, I have had a positively dreadful day and the children, too. They miss you.’
Mentioning the children did the trick. He turned to face her, his broad shoulders shown to advantage beneath the dark cloth of his attire. There was no pretending he didn’t offer a formidable image even when tired. For a moment she thought he might fob her off again. Then his face broke into his customary wicked grin and his whole demeanour changed. ‘That gives us something in common. I have had a dreadful day, too.’
His grin widened as he stepped nearer to her as if he were about to impart a secret. ‘You’re in luck. It just so happens I know the perfect cure for dreadful days. You, Maura Caulfield, need a drink.’
Chapter Eight
‘I do not need a drink,’ she sputtered, stepping into the sitting room with him. ‘I need to talk about the children’s schedule.’
He’d managed to shock her with his invitation, but she’d come. He wasn’t surprised. Everything he’d seen so far about her suggested she didn’t back down from a challenge. Still, her day must have been rotten indeed if she’d waited up for him long after she would usually have been abed. The night was still early by his standards, but her mornings started sooner than his.
‘Yes, you need a drink. I know these things.’ Riordan poured them each a tumbler of brandy from the decanter on the side table and passed her a glass, overriding her protest. ‘To dreadful days, Maura.’ He raised his in a toast. ‘Sip it slowly or it will burn until you’ve become accustomed to it.’
She did, her eyes not leaving his in case he’d tricked her into something sinister.
He smiled and set down his glass, taking a chair across from the little sofa where she’d set up residence. ‘Now, tell me all about your day.’ Anything would be better than his meeting with the Vales and their cavalcade of legal experts.
Pessimistic old Browning hadn’t been wrong. They were willing to challenge Elliott’s will if need be. They’d suggested today that he could sign the children over to them immediately and they would drop their challenge to the will. At that point he’d gone over the table and shaken some sense into solicitor number one.
‘It’s the children really. They’re quite spoiled with outings and more toys than they can possibly play with. They’re good children, but they had trouble this week settling down.’ She took another sip of brandy. He watched the slim column of her throat work as the golden liquid slid down gently.
‘Sunshine will do that to a child.’ Riordan nodded.
‘As will well-meaning uncles. They kept waiting, hoping you would show up again this week. They were disappointed.’ She gave him a sharp look over her tumbler. ‘I also understand you are in the habit of taking the children to White’s.’
So she’d heard about that. He should have warned the children to be more circumspect. Riordan shrugged it off. ‘White’s is hardly a brothel, Maura. They were in the kitchens. They’ll survive.’ He cocked his head to one side, studying her. Her hair was still up and she was dressed for the day in a blue muslin dress.
‘The question is, will you survive?’
She looked tired. Faint lines of tell-tale dark circles were evident beneath her green eyes. He was remembering Maura dressed in a nightgown and robe with her hair down. It was late. She should have retired by now. Had she really waited up for him just to discuss the children? He poured himself a second glass. She was barely halfway through her first.
Her eyes followed his movements to the decanter. ‘Do you have decanters in every room?’
He nodded with exaggerated seriousness designed to bring a smile to her lips.
‘Yes, one never knows when the need for a drink will strike. I brought most of these decanters back from Venice.’
She did smile. It was warm and he felt himself start to bask in that smile.
‘You like Venice very much.’ He loved it when she smiled, how she laughed when she knew she shouldn’t. If only she would smile at him like that more often, but that necessitated being around her more often. He wasn’t sure that was wise just yet.
‘I do.’ He decided that would be his goal for the evening: to make Maura smile.
‘Arguably, they were the best years of my life.’
He watched her carefully. She took another sip, getting accustomed to the tingle of the liquor. She kicked off her slippers and tucked her feet up under her skirts. ‘Tell me. Tell me about Venice,’ she said.
Once the words started, he couldn’t help himself. He told her about his friends Ashe and Merrick and Jamie. How they’d set off for a grand tour, of their days in Vienna before they moved on to Italy. He told her how they’d played a prank during Carnevale by hosting a party in someone else’s house. ‘We even had invitations engraved with his address on them.’
‘He didn’t know?’ she asked, her face alight with laughter and disbelief.
‘Not until he came home and saw his palazzo ablaze with lights. He had a crystal chandelier, that when it was lit up, could be seen from the Grand Canal.’
Riordan was laughing now, too, remembering the hilarity of it. Most of the idea had been his from the start. The count they’d played the prank on had been a good-humoured friend. They’d joked about the incident for weeks. By the end of Carnevale everyone in Venice had been laughing about the best party having been given by a host who hadn’t even been there.
Maura wiped her eyes. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever done anything as outrageous as that.’ She gave a little hiccup. ‘Although, there was one time when my older cousins and I bought old Miss Templeton a subscription to a gossip sheet she claimed to abhor. We saved up for that subscription, but it was worth it. She was a righteous old biddy who was always morally better than everyone else and quick to say so. We knew it would mortify her to pick her mail up at the post office and see that scandal sheet in her letters. She’d know the postmaster had put it there and had seen her address.’ Maura winked at him. ‘The postmaster was a terrible gossip, too. It was all the over the village within hours.’
‘Why, Maura Caulfield, you have a naughty streak.’ Riordan laughed and refilled her glass.
She gave a pretty shrug. ‘Maybe a little one. Nothing at all like yours. Were you always a handful?’
‘Absolutely. I was the bane of my parents’ existence.’ He regaled her with stories of his youth, trees he’d climbed, silly boyish dares he’d undertaken until they were both l
aughing, tears running down their faces. ‘Once I sneaked down to the lake and stole the squire’s son’s clothes. He had to walk home naked. He got back at me, though. A few days later, I was out swimming and he stole my clothes. He left me a pile of girl’s clothes instead. At twelve, I was too embarrassed to walk home naked. Instead, I walked home looking like Bo-Peep. I was a big lad, too, tall and gangly for my age. The skirts barely hit my ankles.’
Riordan was laughing hard now, spurred on by Maura’s own mirth. ‘It served me right, and for my part I knew how to take a joke. But, heavens, I looked ridiculous. I probably should have gone home naked with my altogether on display. Can you just imagine?’
Maura took a drink and he went on. In hindsight, he should have waited until she swallowed before he told her the rest of it. ‘Anyway, all I needed were sheep so I stopped by Squire Matheson’s and helped myself to three of his prize sheep, tied some pretty ribbons around their necks and brought them home with me.’
The unthinkable happened. Maura laughed so hard the brandy came out her nose. ‘Oh! Oh! It burns!’ Maura waved a frantic hand in front of her nose, trying at once to wipe at the spill on her dress and to fan her nostrils.
He tried to play the gentleman, he really did. Riordan pulled off his cravat and held it to her nose, but he was laughing too much to be effective. He might have held his composure and treated the situation with the gravity it deserved—brandy out of the nose did hurt—but Maura chose that moment to sneeze out a series of high-pitched brandy-induced ‘achoos’ that sounded more like squeals. Hilarious squeals, and he was lost.
‘It’s not funny!’ Maura protested with no success, they both knew it was. He hadn’t had this much fun in ages. Riordan made no move to return to his chair.
He told her about the time he’d stood up on his horse and ridden the big hunter around in a circle. ‘It went well until we ran into a low-hanging branch.
How to Sin Successfully (Rakes Beyond Redemption) Page 8