“Of course not, silly. The captain seemed the most honorable of the three. I never thought he would turn craven.”
“But you loved each of them?” Ellianne supposed such a thing were possible, although she could not imagine herself being struck with Cupid’s arrows more than once in a lifetime, if that, certainly not thrice in one month. Lady Valentina must have mistaken girlish infatuation for the truer, permanent emotion.
The young lady laughed. “Heavens, love had nothing to do with it. My father would have married me off to a cabinet minister who was too old to dance the reels and too fusty to waltz. Can you believe it? Captain Brisbane was handsome, at least.”
“But you did not love him?”
“Oh, I was fond enough of the man. I never expected to marry for love, you know. Most girls don’t, especially when their fathers want to consolidate lands or fortunes or power. I always hoped love could come later. It never could have with that stodgy old lord my father chose because of his influence at court.” She twirled around, to the dismay of the maid working on her hem. “I think I love Charlie already, and we are not even married. Isn’t that grand?”
“Very…grand. And how lovely for you.” This was marriage among the quality? Ellianne pitied the poor girls traded away like broodmares. Marriage was bad enough, but marriage without love? How could a woman share her home, her bed, her very body, with a man she did not love? Ellianne’s stomach turned at the very thought. She wanted none of it.
“Wellstone has some silly romantic notion, I suppose,” Lady Valentina was going on, to the seamstress’s edification and Ellianne’s embarrassment. She was not used to treating the servants as if they were wallpaper, simply there, without ears or thoughts. Lady Valentina was oblivious to the fact that whatever she said would be repeated in servants’ halls throughout London. “Wellstone told Papa that he won’t live off a rich wife, and won’t step into parson’s mousetrap until he can support a woman in comfort, but do you know what I think?”
Ellianne knew she was about to find out. She had to admit she was curious about any assessment of Stony’s character, especially from the viewpoint of a young lady from his own circles.
“I think no man is ready to take a wife until the right woman tells him he is. I believe Wellstone would marry in a flash, money or not, if he found a woman to truly love.”
“Do you?” Ellianne forgot about the maid. “Do you really?”
“I do, and so does Charlie. Oh, he’s waiting outside.”
“Charlie? That is, Lord Charles?”
Chapter Twenty
Ellianne wanted to leave town. Stony wanted to tie her to her desk in the book room to keep her from leaving because…because he wanted her to stay, that was all. He could not or would not put a name to the wrench in his gut at the thought of missing Miss Kane. “You can’t go.”
“But I hate it here.”
The day after the Aldershott ball, Stony had come to persuade Ellianne to go for a curricle drive out to Richmond. Instead she kept staring out the window, where a boy was leading Stony’s horses back and forth, talking of going home to Fairview in Devon.
“A lot of newcomers feel the same,” he said, seeing more than his plans for a long drive out to Richmond evaporate like that morning’s mist. “The noise, the bustle, the perpetual fog. But you’ll get used to it. Everyone does.”
“Does everyone get used to being stared at and discussed as if they were a bill of fare at a hotel’s restaurant?”
He could only shrug. “Gossip is unavoidable wherever you go. The rumormongers simply make it into an art form here. You are new and exceptional, out of the ordinary. Of course they all want to get a look at you, gather tidbits about you to share with their neighbors. But I thought you said you did not care about the scandal sheets.”
“And I don’t.” She waved her hand through the air, dismissing fashionable London’s favorite pastime. “It’s the bad manners I deplore, the sheer rudeness of people speaking behind one’s back, when one’s back is not turned.”
“Not everyone is that awful.”
“No, some of the shallow, selfish, mindless pleasure-seekers are worse. They have no values whatsoever, and are of value to no one but themselves.”
“If you mean that coven of devil’s spawn last night, that was my fault. I should have protected you better.”
“Against what? Shoddy morals? Men who make overtures without the least affection? Why, two men proposed marriage to me last night, and I never caught their names.”
They’d catch more than they bargained for, if Stony found out who they were.
“No, I shall never get used to the loose behavior here, or the way marriages are arranged, then disregarded by the husbands—and the wives also, sometimes—as if the wedding vows were merely a legal transaction, a transfer of funds.”
“Not every married man, or woman, forsakes their oaths. I admit there were some choice spirits at the ball last evening, imbibing too much, finding those dark alcoves and willing partners, but not everyone at the Aldershotts’ was a philanderer or a Paphian.”
“Of course not, but enough were. I would be happier at home at Fairview. So would Aunt Lally.” Stony was willing to surrender his plans for Richmond, but that was all. “You cannot leave London. What about your sister?”
“I have to keep believing that she will send word as soon as she can, so I should be home to receive her message. Mr. Lattimer will keep looking here, of course. He says it was your suggestion that has Runners retracing every possible route between London and home, looking for a red-haired lady.” She gestured to her bonnet dangling from its strings off the back of a chair. It was not the horrid black scuttle one, but it would hide enough of her head and her flame-colored hair. “He does not hold out much hope.”
“He is a clunch. Your sister could not have vanished into thin air. And we have other avenues to pursue. You said Isabelle took her jewelry. She could be selling it when she runs out of money, or someone might have stolen it from her, so she cannot make her way back to Fairview. She might make it to London, though, so you ought to be here. Lattimer is having his men take your descriptions around to jewelers and pawnshops and fences, but they might need you to identify her belongings, so you cannot leave.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the jewelry? Mr. Lattimer never mentioned that.”
“There was no need to get your hopes up until we found something. And Gwen hasn’t given up looking for associates of Lady Augusta’s. She has enlisted Strickland, heaven help her, because he seems to have known your aunt best. You cannot leave until she has exhausted every possibility.”
“That’s all fine, but there is nothing for me to do now but wait. I could be doing that at Fairview. I swear I spoke to every unfledged miss in London last night, without learning anything.”
“No, the high-sticklers were not there with their innocents. Hundreds more were at other balls last night, so you have to stay. And remember we discussed that a gentleman could recognize your likeness as easily as one of the young girls could.”
“They all saw me at the theater, and no one said anything.”
Stony was running out of arguments, so he just repeated, “You cannot leave!”
“If it’s about your pay, I—”
“No, dash it, not everything is about money.”
She gave a halfhearted laugh. “Tell that to your fortune-hunting friends, or the gamblers who already have my initials in the betting books at White’s.”
“Who the devil told you that?”
“Not you, although I thought we’d agreed to be honest with each other.”
“Honesty has nothing to do with upsetting you over trifles. But that is not the issue here. You have seen the polite world at its least mannerly, but London has far more to offer than crowded ballrooms and rakes. I know you have seen the sights and the shops, but stay and let me show you the rest. Let me prove that not every Londoner is a gossip or a gambler or a grasping parasite. You’ll fi
nd much to enjoy, I swear, and you deserve some pleasure, too. You’ll have forever at Fairview. London is here, now. Please don’t go.”
Ellianne let herself be persuaded, not by Stony’s logic, but by the look on his handsome face. His unvoiced words, the unspoken plea, touched her as no rational arguments could. It was as if he’d torn up another of her charts, her master plans, with “Please don’t go” written in his clear blue eyes.
*
They drove to Richmond after Ellianne spoke a few words to her aunt and fed the dog the pansies Stony had brought. Her aunt said nothing, as usual, but as they were leaving, the parrot made its usual bawdy comment from the other room: “A maze, my arse.” Lord Wellstone, Miss Kane, and Timms all pretended to be hard of hearing, which was easy for the old butler, less so for the red-faced Ellianne.
The drive to Richmond was as lovely as the viscount had promised, with spring in its bright green glory. Wellstone was concentrating on his horses at first, navigating through the heavy traffic. With his groom up behind, they could not speak of weighty matters anyway, so Ellianne relaxed, without her aunt’s grumbling, Gwen’s chatter, or innuendo-filled flirtations.
For once she refused to worry about the bank or her investments or the charity school, or even Isabelle. What would be, would be, she thought, almost resigned to waiting, now that she had done everything she could. Of course, her resignation did not keep her from imagining her sister behind every hedge in the maze, or at the pretty little inn where they stopped for nuncheon. She stopped looking back, rather than have her hopes dashed time after time.
Wellstone was the perfect host—he even had the maze memorized so they did not get lost—and saw to her every comfort. It was not his fault that his closeness raised her temperature from balmy spring to sultry summer. She raised her parasol so he wouldn’t notice her flush. But then she couldn’t see his laughing eyes or his bright smile or that flashing dimple. She lowered the parasol. This was going to be one of her favorite memories to cherish; let it be complete. And let him pretend to have bad eyes as well as poor hearing.
Stony never once went over the line so carefully drawn between them. No matter if he found her blushes adorable when he lifted her into the curricle or handed her down. No matter if he was aware that she was aware of him as a man, not as a friend or an employee. No matter if all he wanted to do was hire a room at the inn and take her hair out of its neat braids and bury his face in it and bury himself in— No matter.
He was a gentleman, and she trusted herself with him as with no other. He’d burn in hell—worse than he was burning now, if possible—rather than betray that trust.
They were both getting to be experts at pretending.
*
The next night, Stony convinced Ellianne to attend Mrs. Harkness-Smythe’s card party. The hardened gamesters like Blanchard would not be there, not for the paltry stakes permitted. Nor could any would-be Romeos get up a flirtation, not under Mrs. Harkness-Smythe’s eagle eyes. She took her gaming seriously, and her strict sense of propriety more so. Besides, Stony claimed Ellianne for a partner.
“Are you prepared to give your winnings to charity?” she asked him when they were seated.
Lord Strickland grumbled. He was at a nearby table partnered with Gwen, who could barely remember the rules, much less what cards had been played. Mrs. Harkness-Smythe glared him into silence.
Stony smiled at the baron, but whispered to Ellianne, “Help me win and I’ll show you.”
They did win, despite Stony’s mistakes when he was watching Ellianne’s face instead of his opponents’ discards. The next afternoon he drove her out of Mayfair again, but in a different direction. Here the houses were not set apart with parkland, and the carriages were not all crested. The streets were congested with donkey carts and drays and men with barrows and women toting babies and bundles. Beggars huddled in doorways, but the passersby were too hurried, and too poor themselves, to help. Litter was everywhere, and odors were also.
“Here is yet another side to London you should see before leaving,” Stony said as he pulled up in front of a three-story brick building that was in better condition than its neighbors, but still had a boarded window and tiles missing from the roof. A roughly lettered sign on a gate proclaimed the place the Wellstone Home for Young Women.
“You support a charity home?” Ellianne asked in disbelief as the groom went to the horses’ heads.
“Why not? You have a training school and a hospital and I don’t know how many orphanages Gwen mentioned.”
“But you don’t have the funds!”
He gestured toward the door, where young women—no more than girls, really, barely in their teens—were pouring out, calling his name. “They had less.”
“But why?” Ellianne could not fathom why he hadn’t made a donation somewhere, why a top-of-the-trees gentleman concerned himself with these waifs from London’s stews and slums.
“Why? Because they came to London to find work, and there was none for them. Or their families tossed them out to make room for the younger children. Or their parents died of drink and disease. Who knows how they all landed in the streets.”
“I meant, why did you take them in?” She waved her gloved hand at the building, the girls, her out-of-place escort. “Why here?”
“Oh, I won the house in a card game,” he said, as if such magnanimity were an everyday thing. “No one would buy it in the condition it was in then, to my regret. So I decided to put it to good use, rather than let the rats and dry rot take it.”
Ellianne was still shaking her head, her mind spinning with the knowledge that Wellstone, who had so little he had to betray his class by going to work, gave so much. Her own charitable contributions seemed less generous in comparison. Stony was going on, telling her how the girls were taught to read and write so they could find honest work, part of their earnings coming back to the home for the next crop of girls. They had nothing so ambitious as her training schools, he confessed, but perhaps she could offer some suggestions. Or financial assistance, he added with a smile, tossing the leather pouch containing their last night’s winnings to a smiling black-clad matron who met them at the door.
After a tour, and after hearing from the girls that their Stony had hung the very moon, Ellianne promised to return with a banknote and a list of ideas to make the home more self-supporting.
“Why girls?” Ellianne asked when they were on their way home. “Why not orphaned infants, or boys, or a hospital for wounded veterans?”
The need was endless, he explained, and his resources laughingly limited. His heart went out to the girls, though, because they seemed the most vulnerable. Without the Wellstone Home, they had nowhere to go and nothing left to sell but their bodies. “No one should be forced to that. No one.”
Ellianne could not tell if he was speaking of his own experiences or not. She only knew that she could not go home now, not until Stony’s girls had fresh pinafores and more instructors and new mattresses. She’d go make a chart of what needed doing.
*
As long as she was in Town, she might as well continue with her plan to be seen. A ball at Rockford House should have every member of the quality in attendance. If no one recognized her as Isabelle’s relative there, she would have to conclude that her sister had made friends outside polite circles.
Stony was prepared this time. He found a sturdy cane, not any elegant walking stick, but a thick, polished tree limb. Then he found a small pebble to put in his shoe. Then he found a limp.
Finding a cause for his affliction was more difficult. He was too young for the gout, too old to be climbing trees. Claiming he’d fallen off his horse would have branded him an oaf; a carriage wheel running over his toes would have made him a fool. He decided that his horse had stepped on his foot. No, a runaway horse that he was trying to stop before it injured someone. That sounded wondrously heroic, but too much of a lie. In the end he decided to smile when someone asked and say it was a minor injury, a nasty
sprain. Ellianne’s aunt did not put much stock in his story. Neither did the too-predictable parrot: “Limp leg. Limp brain. Limp lord. Limp rod.” They hurried from the house as fast as the pebble permitted.
At the ball, he could walk but not dance. He could sit by Miss Kane but not promenade with the hostess’s niece. He could go in to supper but not to fetch punch for every thirsty miss who batted her eyelashes at him. In other words, he was a limpet. Stuck to Miss Kane like a scrap on one of her charts, he was. He was not budging, and she was not leaving his side. No disappearing to the ladies’ withdrawing room, he warned. He needed her protection from the solicitous mamas and their so-available daughters. There was to be no going off with strangers, no finding a quiet room where some prowling tomcat could pounce on her. He was taking his escort duties far more seriously this time.
Ellianne was almost giggling like one of the little moppets at his charity home by the time he finished his lecture. She stopped smiling when Lord Strickland approached them, looking for Gwen, who was dancing with the comte.
“Gads, she didn’t kick you too?” the baron asked, too loudly.
Stony accidentally dropped his heavy cane. His would not be the only sore toes by the morning. Then he kept the area near them clear by twirling the gnarled wood, as if it were a wizard’s wand. It worked, or his rudeness did.
“No, Durstan, the lady does not dance tonight. Can you not see she is wearing black gloves?”
Then: “No, Sir Poindexter, that seat is taken.
“No, the lady is not thirsty, Lord Hathaway, but perhaps your wife is.
“No, Miss Kane is not playing cards this evening, Major, but she will be pleased to accept donations for her favorite charities.”
Ellianne was relieved that she did not have to face all these men on her own, that Stony’s solid presence kept them at a distance. She did feel, though, that she could have spoken for herself, that she was no shrinking violet. She did not want him to think of her as another of his little girls, to be protected from the world. Besides, what if one of the men had news of her sister?
A Perfect Gentleman Page 20