After showing the Hutchison sisters to the door, Higbee pronounced them prettily behaved misses. “Not at all above themselves like some of the gentry.” He shot a meaningful glance at his employer. “And most of the nobility.” Higbee’s money was still on Selcrest’s bedding the lass, not wedding her.
Happily unaware of the machinations at Selcrest House, Johna was happy with the tea, with the meeting, with the arrangement. Their new benefactress was definitely an Original, which could only work in their favor. And, to Johna’s relief, Lady Selcrest’s son minded his manners in his mama’s presence. Johna still remembered the tingle of Selcrest’s arms enfolding her, the thrill of his warm lips on hers, the cad. He’d promised to keep his distance, and seemed to be keeping his vow, the cad. No matter, Phillipa was going to have her Season.
*
Any fool could have predicted a success. Money, looks, and the Selcrest cachet could easily whitewash a checkered past when the females were also personable and eager to please. Besides, the dowager and her butler weren’t the only ones to notice the sparks flying between Selcrest and the Black Widow. White’s betting book required a new page. Every hostess wanted to provide this latest spectator sport at her do. Invitations started trickling into Albemarle Street, then turned into a veritable deluge of requests for the ladies’ presence at routs and ridottos and rides in the park, balls and breakfasts, and balloon ascensions. They even received vouchers to Almack’s, that pinnacle of social aspiration. Handsome, intelligent, and wealthy gentlemen left cards from daybreak to dinner, and the floral deliveries left scant room for them to sit down in the few scattered moments when the sisters were home to receive callers. The gentlemen were short and tall, dark and fair. They were peacocks and poets, soldiers and sportsmen, students and statesmen. Surely among them Phillipa could find one man to make her happy.
Everything was perfect, just as Johna had planned, except for one minor detail: Phillipa had already fallen in love.
4
“I won’t have it, Selcrest, do you hear me?”
“Everyone in the cursed ballroom can hear you, dash it. You’re creating a scene. Do you want to ruin your sister’s chances after we’ve all worked so hard?”
Johna and the viscount were one of the few couples waltzing at Almack’s. The patronesses did not approve of younger girls indulging in the wicked dance. Married ladies and widows, however, were considered experienced enough not to be led into indiscretion by a man’s hand on their waist. Hah! Selcrest had been waiting all night in hopes of just such an opportunity. Instead of melting in his arms, though, his partner was boiling mad. Instead of the gossamer butterfly he’d hoped to whirl around the dance floor till her senses were disordered, he held a buzzing, stinging wasp. Deuce take it, she looked like she wanted to box his ears. “Smile, confound it, everyone is watching.”
“Not everyone,” she replied through clenched teeth, her mouth fixed in a grin that would have done Grimaldi proud. “Half of them have run off to change their bets. What do you mean, not dancing all night and then singling me out for a waltz?”
“I meant to honor my mother’s guest with a dance, that’s all. It would have been discourteous, else.”
“Fustian, you were hiding in the card room all night because you were afraid to face me earlier. Now you’ve set the cat among the pigeons, and after you were the one preaching discretion and decorum. You have to know what the gabble-grinders will make of this.”
“They’ll make note that I had one dance with the most beautiful woman in the room.” Or they would, he thought, if she weren’t as rigid as the carved figurehead on a ship.
Specifically intending to avoid bringing attention, to avoid giving credence to any rumors, Selcrest had left for the card room after escorting his party through the receiving line of curious doyennes, dowagers, and dragons that made up Almack’s patronesses. What harm could one dance do though, he’d thought, especially if he also stood up for a contra danse or such with Phillipa? The more he thought, the more that one dance with Lady Ogden took on the aspect of a drink of water to a man parched by the desert sun. He lost three hands in a row to Lord Carville, thinking of holding her in his arms. Then he’d heard the strains of a waltz. They would have had to tie him to the mast, like Odysseus, to keep him away from the widow in silver tissue with its black border and scattered sequins.
Johna almost relented to savor the compliment and the feel of Selcrest’s firm touch on her skin through the thin layers of her gown’s fabric. Almost. But the viscount twirled her about so that she was facing the gilt chairs set along the edge of the dance floor. Phillipa was quite properly sitting out the waltz at Lady Selcrest’s side, surrounded by her usual coterie of beaux, with the Hon. Denton Spenser standing behind her chair—with his hand on her shoulder!
“Two dances they’ve had. Two. And now this…this blatant public display! If your gallows-bait of a brother thinks to force me into countenancing such a connection, he’s even more of a fool than I thought, and that’s saying a lot.” She’d stopped dancing in the middle of her diatribe, so other couples were bumping into them.
“That’s saying too much about my brother, madam, and too much for this company, dash it.” He dragged her off the floor so fast her slippers almost left skid marks on the highly polished surface.
*
By the time he found a secluded alcove in the fishbowl of Almack’s, Johna was panting and smoke was almost pouring out of her ears. She stamped her foot, only accidentally stomping on Selcrest’s instep. “I didn’t go to all this effort just to see my sister wasted on a half-breeched basket-scrambler.”
“Smile, damn it.”
“Smile? When my only relation in this entire world is about to ruin her life after I married that awful old man just to provide her the chance for something better?”
Merle stepped in front of her, his back partially shielding them from the avid watchers. “Do you think I want this any more than you do? My brother aligned with a—”
Johna crossed her arms over her chest. “Go ahead and say it, sirrah.”
“With a female too young to know her own mind, is what I was going to say.”
“Oh, but Phillipa assures me she does. We’ve met every sprig and noble spawn on the town, bucks and beaux and all manner of gentlemen. She won’t look at any of them, and it’s almost November.”
“And Denton’s never been serious about a female before. He’s actually stopped complaining about having to attend those tedious picnics and afternoon dancing-lesson parties. I thought he was sick.”
“Lovesick, more like, the moonling. You have to do something!”
“Me? You’re the one who let the chit read those romance novels. Just what do you expect me to do about your sister’s infatuation?”
“End it! Let Denton join the army. He’s been wanting to this age and more. In fact, if you didn’t keep him on such a tight rein, he wouldn’t have tried slipping his lead in the first place. The nodcock even confessed to me that he believed you would buy his commission if he caused enough aggravation.”
“He is a fool.”
Johna unthinkingly took Merle’s hand in earnest entreaty. “Let him go, sir. Let him grow up, make something of himself besides the Viscount Selcrest’s brother. Separated, they’ll get over this silly calf-love. My sister will find a young gentleman who won’t gamble away her dowry or break his neck on some untried hunter.”
“Confound it, my brother is not the villain you make him out to be. He is merely full of the usual high spirits, sowing his wild oats.”
“Let him sow them in Spain where they might do some good ending this stupid war!”
Merle suddenly realized he’d been staring at the skimpy bodice of the widow’s gown as her chest heaved with her passionate plea. Worse, he’d been holding Johna’s hand for the last few minutes, in front of half the ton. He couldn’t decide whether to drop it like a hot coal, or bring it to his lips. Gads, his wits went begging every time he was near the i
mpossible creature! For sure his backbone turned to porridge in her blue-eyed gaze because he heard himself say, “Very well, I’ll ask around about commissions in a decent regiment.”
“Good.” Johna patted his hand. “See that you do, or I will purchase the ninnyhammer’s colors myself.”
*
The more she thought about it, the more Johna liked the idea. Perhaps the Selcrest coffers weren’t as deep as rumored. Perhaps the viscount saw Phillipa’s dowry as good riddance to his expensive brother. Perhaps he would have kissed her hand if they’d been less in the public eye. Great heaven, she had to get disentangled from the entire family! Denton was not a bad sort, at heart. He was just young and unsettled—and his handsome brother was unsettling.
Why couldn’t Phillipa have thrown her bonnet at any other man in London? Johna would have seen her wed and gone home to Berkshire in two shakes, with no temptations, no lingering regrets. If her sister married Denton, Johna would be thrown into the viscount’s company for the rest of her life, and thrown into a bumblebroth every time he gave her that seductive smile. By heaven, she would not be seduced! Johna didn’t even want to be married again, not after the first time. Marriage wasn’t the remotest possibility, of course, for Selcrest would never lower himself to marry her, the arrant egotist, so his uppity lordship could just go to the devil—and take his brother with him.
Johna couldn’t make arrangements with the devil, but she could with the War Office, if that was how one went about starting a young man on an army career. Her solicitor would know the procedure and the expense. It was time she paid a call on Mr. Bigelow anyway, concerning her own expenses. The Season had been more costly than she’d figured, what with both sisters needing new gowns for every occasion and changing ensembles four times a day. Johna had also purchased a fashionable barouche for drives in the park, which meant she then needed the most elegant and thus extravagantly priced pair of matched bays at Tattersall’s. The horses required an additional driver, more grooms, and higher stable fees. There was also the lavish ball in Phillipa’s honor that Johna and Lady Selcrest were planning for late in the Season, just before everyone left town for Christmas at their country estates. With even the highest sticklers sending their acceptances, Johna’s respectability and Phillipa’s eligibility were finally being recognized. Johna meant to give them a party they wouldn’t forget.
Between her outlays here in London and the staggering sums her manager at Hutchison Manor deemed crucial for the estate’s recovery, Johna was noticing her bank accounts dwindle. They seemed to be shrinking at an ever faster rate.
*
“That’s because you are earning less income, my lady,” Bigelow explained, as if Johna couldn’t figure that out for herself by comparing one month’s statement with the next. She didn’t care for the patronizing little man, but supposed one solicitor was as prosy and prejudiced against her gender as the next. Johna only wished he’d get on with it, instead of dragging out ledgers and bank slips.
She had left Phillipa behind, not wishing to discuss army business in her sister’s hearing, nor financial matters. Lady Selcrest had agreed to chaperone a group of young people on a visit to the British Museum this morning if Johna didn’t get back in time. The dowager was a delightful companion, their social savior, and a fond chaperone. Fond of whom, though, was Johna’s concern. The widow didn’t want Denton and her sister disappearing behind any marble statue. Everyone knew what those old Greek and Roman gods were up to, by Zeus. So Johna was in a hurry.
“Please, Mr. Bigelow, just get to the heart of the matter. I know how much I am spending, and it should be well within my income without disturbing the capital. Suddenly it is not. I wish to know why.”
“You do? Ah, of course you do.” Bigelow closed the ledger and picked up a quill and a penknife. He concentrated on his new task until Johna cleared her throat. “Actually, my lady, it’s quite simple. Without your husband’s touch, some of his investments have not been earning the same profit.”
“Which investments might that be, sir? The consols pay a fixed rate, the shipping ventures were for speculation, and we sold the foundry at great profit to those steam-engine people.”
A tremor in Bigelow’s hand caused the penknife to gouge a furrow in his desktop. “It’s the gaming parlor that’s losing money.”
“Excuse me, I thought you just said gaming parlor.” The solicitor coughed. “Why yes, and very profitable it used to be, with Sir Otis at the helm. Made his fortune that way, he did.”
Johna sat forward on her seat. “A gambling den? I own a gambling den?” All she could think of was Selcrest’s hearing this news. He’d have her tossed out of the belle monde so fast her new horses couldn’t keep up. No scandals, he’d said. No improprieties. The only thing more improper than owning a gaming hell was owning a bordello. Johna might as well tie her garters on Bond Street as let it be known that she was financing her sister’s debut with the profits of such a place. Lud, how did she get into this coil?
“Mr. Bigelow, how is it that you let me be ignorant of this fact, when I specifically mentioned that I wished everything aboveboard?”
“Ahem. I, ah, didn’t want to bother your head with too many details. New widow and all. It was an emotional time, and I was trying to spare you more agonizing decisions. And you mentioned costly renovations and repairs. I was right: you did need the additional income.”
“I wonder how much additional income you were earning from this arrangement that you let it continue.” Johna was seething by now, that this greedy little man with his thinning hair and trembling fingers, this toad, might lose her everything.
Bigelow could hardly pick up the pen. “But, but that was my percentage, for handling the bookkeeping for the Black Parrot.”
“The Black Parrot? That’s known to be one of the worst hellholes in London, where young men are regularly cheated out of their fortunes and estates.”
“Not always. They were often permitted to mortgage them back, on loans. That was how your husband made such a profit.”
“That was how he destroyed my father, charging blood money! I will shut down that cesspool before one more life is ruined.”
“Oh, but you can’t. The proprietor holds a lease.”
“I don’t care if he holds a gun to your head, I shall not own a havey-cavey establishment.”
Bigelow was starting to develop a twitch in his right eye. “Perhaps Marcel will be able to purchase the building from you. He used to cook for Sir Otis, you know, excellent French cuisine. I had the pleasure of dining with Sir Otis on a number of occasions. Marcel wanted to go into business for himself, so Sir Otis helped finance a gentlemen’s club, with supper and a card room. Then it seemed that the gambling became more profitable than the cooking. And the money-lending was most profitable of all. Unfortunately Marcel doesn’t seem to have the touch for that. Blancmange, yes. Interest rates, no. I do not know how much Marcel will be able to pay you for the building and for your share of the business.”
“I will not sell it. I will shut it down. Today. Get your coat.”
He had to wear it open. Buttons were beyond his shaking grasp.
5
The lawyer was shivering, and not just from the cold. He didn’t dare reach into his pocket for the silver flask of comfort, not with those blue eyes fixed so accusingly on him. The widow was worse than the old codger, Bigelow thought. Ogden had been greedy; this female was righteous. One was predictable; the other made no sense whatsoever to the self-serving solicitor. Well, if the lady couldn’t see where her best interests lay, Bigelow could. That was his job, after all, protecting his clients from risky ventures. Charging into the Black Parrot like Joan of Arc, intent on displacing a corrupt cook, wasn’t just risky. It was suicidal.
As he scurried out of his office, therefore, Bigelow managed to whisper an urgent message into his clerk’s ear: “Find Viscount Selcrest. Tell him his lady is at the Black Parrot.” Bigelow had heard the rumors and believed them to be tr
ue. No man could not be interested in this black-haired beauty who was an heiress besides. And passionate, to judge from her outrage. A downy cove like the viscount would know how to take the female in hand, out of a gent’s business.
Who knew when Selcrest would get there, though? Marcel had a true Gallic temper—and a criminal past. Trust a makebate like Ogden to latch onto a convict no one else would hire. They said he’d stabbed his former employer because the man complained his roast was too well done. Then again, perhaps Marcel and the widow could compare recipes, like what was in that pudding she served Ogden. The devil take it, Bigelow would rather stand between a wolf and its next meal than get between these two. His father was right: he should have chosen the military instead of the law. He’d have lived longer. Bigelow kept shaking.
So did Johna. Was she out of her mind, she asked herself, going into the bowels of London with no more protection than her spastic solicitor? She’d been concerned about gossip when she sent her coach home, along with the driver, the footman, and the maid who would have noted her destination. Johna insisted Bigelow hire a hackney, to protect her reputation. Lud, she should have worried about her life. This section of town was dark and dirty, filled with the reek of poverty. No one would know where she was going so no one would know if she ever got there.
Johna wished she had a pistol. She wished she knew how to use a pistol. She vowed to learn tomorrow, if she lived that long. No, she’d look on the bright side: it was still morning. Surely villains waited for dark to go about their evil business. After luncheon, for certain. Johna could get this imminent catastrophe averted and still be home in time for the jaunt to the museum, or a fit of apoplexy, whichever came first.
The hired coach pulled to a stop at the entrance to a shadowed alley. “Oi’ll bide ’ere an ’arf an ’our, then ye’re on yer own,” the jarvey told them, shaking his head at their foolhardy errand. He spit over the side of the carriage to punctuate his disdain for corkbrained Cits like Bigelow, bringing his gentry mort to a dive like this.
Greetings of the Season and Other Stories Page 10