Miss Dauntless, page 18
“If I am to escort you from the premises,” he said, “I must be composed, Matilda. Bodily and otherwise.”
“Composed?”
He put her hand over his falls. “Composed. On my dignity. Lord Tremont, not a randy swain panting at your heels.”
Matilda gave him a squeeze and withdrew her hand. “Marriage to you will try my dignity sorely, Marcus. I’m looking forward to it.”
“As am I.” His smile was mischievous, but as he escorted her to the tea shop, he was every inch the proper gentleman. Matilda was his decorously devoted damsel, and she enjoyed the meal very much.
Even so, she worried, just a little. Harry—if he was alive—was indeed a creature of endless self-interest, and divorce would be impossible unless Harry agreed to the scheme.
Which, given the coin Marcus could wave before him, he’d have every reason to do.
“The time has come to put the cat among the pigeons, Harry Merri… dew.”
The hesitation was understandable, but must not be repeated. Harry hadn’t used the Merridew name for several years, and he hadn’t missed it, but that’s who he was at the moment, or most of who he was. Harry Merridew, with Harry Merriman lurking at his elbow. As he strolled along the walkway opposite the tea shop Tilly and her earl had patronized several days past, he admitted that he’d been a poor sort of husband to Matilda.
If dear Tilly took the time to reflect on the matter, she’d admit that he’d done her a great favor by setting her free.
She thus owed him a great favor, and that necessitated acquainting her with a few particulars—such as the fact that she was not a widow in truth. Tilly had not liked surprises, poor thing, and a warning shot across her figurative bow was only courteous. Let her contemplate the joy of wedded bliss with the lordling for a bit, and she’d likely be more amenable to parting with the house—and some coin.
The job at the soldiers’ home allowed her to indulge in hot chocolate and fresh buns. She was doing well for herself, despite the dowdy weeds, and that eased the twinges that Harry called his conscience these days.
He moved along with foot traffic, adopting the walk of a gent in contemplation of good news. He was cheery, tipping his hat to the dowagers and shopgirls, but not too quick. Good news took the worry off a fellow’s shoulders and put a little swagger in his step.
He had made his third pass across from the tea shop when Matilda and young Tommie entered the shop at precisely ten o’clock, the same as they had the past two Tuesday mornings. The lad had grown, as all lads must, but still… Tommie was a child now, not a baby, and that realization made Harry sad.
Tempus fugit and all that.
Matilda, for her part, had matured from girl-just-out-of-the-schoolroom dewiness into the more substantial appeal of a grown woman.
“You chose well, Harry Merri… dew,” he muttered. From Matilda’s walk, from the way she gripped Tommie’s hand, from the businesslike swish of her pale skirts, Harry perceived that his wife had landed on her feet. Widowhood agreed with her as marriage never had.
But then, she’d been carrying the baby early in the marriage and contending with new motherhood thereafter. Perhaps now…
“None of that, Harry-me-lad.” He consulted his broken watch and appeared to await some friend or acquaintance while he loitered outside the corner pub. The neighborhood was on the way up, a nice blend of shops and well-maintained town houses, with a crossing sweeper minding the intersection and the walkways free of mud and snow.
Put him in mind of the Bristol of his halcyon youth, though sea breezes had given the port cleaner air than London would ever boast.
After forty-five minutes, Matilda and Tommie emerged, a little bundle clutched in Tommie’s mittened paw. He’d wheedled a bun or two from his mama and probably hadn’t realized that days of good behavior was the price he’d pay for his prize.
Ah, the innocence of the very young. Harry gauged distance and speed with a pickpocket’s expert eye, then started in Matilda’s direction. He kept his gaze on the street’s wheeled traffic, turning his head only at the last minute as he brushed against Tommie’s package of buns. Tommie, unprepared for the collision, lost his grip on the parcel.
“Oh, I do beg your pardon, ma’am, young sir.” Harry crouched down, handed Tommie his package, patted the boy on the head, and gave Matilda the barest instant to take in the features of the husband she’d thought dead.
He touched the brim of his hat with a single finger, winked at his wife, and sauntered on his way.
“Come along, Tommie,” she said, sounding admirably calm. “Charlie is waiting to share those buns with you, and the breeze is picking up.”
Well done, Tilly. She marched off, no glance over her shoulder, no hastening away in fright. She’d never been easily intimidated, much to her old pater’s frustration. Harry had admired Tilly’s spirit—Miss Dauntless, indeed—even as he’d dreaded the fights she’d picked. She was a gifted verbal brawler, was Tilly, and didn’t believe in kissing and making up.
That was all behind them now. Tilly was apparently well set up these days, and with some judicious horse trading and a little common sense, Harry could land on his feet right beside her. She’d eventually learned to see reason, and Harry had nothing but sweet reason to offer her now.
Well, reason and a Banbury tale or two.
“Mama, who was that man?” Tommie asked. “He wasn’t watching where he was going.”
Matilda wanted to snatch Tommie up and run, but that would only alarm her son. Besides, Harry—who was alive and in the very pink of health—might well be watching from some shadowed doorway.
“He was a fellow who needs to be more careful.” Harry’s life in a nutshell, but ye gods, what of the woman who had married him—and was still married to him?
Though, of course, Harry would say he was always careful. He’d been carefully watching Matilda’s comings and goings, he’d carefully plotted how to confront her, and he’d carefully chosen somewhere she could not make a scene and he could make an easy escape.
“He smiled at you,” Tommie said. “I think he liked you and was trying to make friends. MacIvey likes Mrs. Winklebleck, so he plays his fiddle for her. He should ask her, ‘Do you want to be friends?’ But Tuck says MacIvey’s shy. Mrs. Winklebleck isn’t shy. She could ask him first.”
Matilda wanted to clap her hand over Tommie’s mouth and silence his chattering.
I must think. All the moments of her marriage when she’d spoken without thinking, acted without thinking, reacted without thinking kept her marching along the walkway. The only thought she could form was to get to safety and away from… him.
“We must leave them to sort that out for themselves, Tommie. Mrs. Winklebleck might be shy about making friends, even though she’s merry by nature.”
How admirably calm she sounded. A mother’s gift, to dissemble for the sake of her child.
“This isn’t the way home,” Tommie said, glancing around.
“We are paying a call on Lord Tremont.” And, please God, let him be home.
“I like his lordship. He is teaching me to whistle, but so far, I can only whistle when I draw in my breath. I want to learn to whistle when I let my breath out. Biggs whistles like that. He can sound like a bird when he wants to, and he can whistle much louder than me.”
“Than I. Much louder than I can whistle.”
How easily Tommie had made new friends among the soldiers and staff. And how cunning of Harry to choose one of few moments when none of them was on hand.
Harry, who was damnably, unapologetically, robustly alive.
“Lord Tremont is a good whistler,” Tommie said as the town house came into view, “but Biggs is better. When I grow up, I will be as good a whistler as Biggs. Will there be berry tarts on his lordship’s tea tray, Mama?”
“We just had hot chocolate with whipped cream, Tommie. I do not plan to put his lordship to the inconvenience of a tea tray.”
I simply plan to tell him that we cannot marry, that my scoundrel of a husband is alive, and the dearest man in the whole world can never be mine unless we do, indeed, face the scandal and expense of a divorce.
“You don’t need to hold my hand so tightly, Mama.”
“Sorry.” Matilda eased her grip, barely, and led Tommie up the steps. Please let him be home, please let him be home. Her heart was racing, and the rich hot chocolate she’d enjoyed had turned traitor in her belly.
Matilda knocked, and after an eternity of less than ten seconds, Tremont opened his own door.
“Mrs. Merridew, good day. Tommie, greetings. Won’t you come in? It’s half day, and the house is as quiet as a cathedral. I can well use some company.”
The measured sound of Marcus’s voice, his air of calm, and his graciousness were a tonic to Matilda’s nerves. She handed off her bonnet and gloves and dealt with Tommie’s jacket—his new jacket. Rather than surrender his booty, Tommie passed the parcel of buns from one hand to the other.
“The breakfast parlor is across from the library and still warm,” Tremont said. “That side of the house gets the morning sun. Shall we allow Tommie half a bun while we partake of half a brandy in the library?”
He knew. Despite the good cheer in his voice, despite the hospitality he exuded, Tremont somehow knew that Matilda was in difficulties.
“Please, Mama?”
“Half a bun, Tommie, and you mustn’t let it spoil your luncheon.”
“I promise, Mama.”
Tremont made a fuss out of setting Tommie up with a little plate and table napkin, though an atlas retrieved from the library was needed to boost the boy’s seat at the breakfast table.
“I won’t spill a single crumb on the table,” Tommie said, picking up his half a bun. “Or on the floor, Mama. I promise.”
“I’ll be back to inspect in a moment,” Matilda said. “Call out if you need anything. We’ll be right across the corridor. Please remember that it’s polite to knock before you come in.” Lest you find your mother in a sobbing heap on the floor.
Tommie nodded vigorously, his mouth being too full to reply.
Tremont accompanied Matilda to the library. “You’ve seen a ghost, haven’t you?”
“I wish.” She took up pacing before the blazing hearth. “Harry bumped into us on the street, tipped his hat, and sashayed on his way. He is alive and well, to appearances, and it was him, Marcus. The perishing bounder winked at me. That was his warning, and if you don’t hold me right this minute, I will fly into a thousand pieces and never put myself back together again.”
Tremont obliged with a secure hug. “He frightened you.”
“He terrified me. He has been terrifying me since the moment I realized that he’s not who and what I thought him to be. Harry smiled at me, Marcus. He wanted me to recognize him and wanted me to know he’s been watching me. That’s what he does when he’s setting up a scheme. He watches, like a cat at a mousehole, and then along comes the poor mouse…”
She shuddered at the memory of that friendly wink. “He was always two steps ahead of me, and now I feel as if I’m leagues behind him.”
“You are not,” Tremont said, rubbing a hand over Matilda’s back. “We are not. We’ve flushed the fox from his covert, and now the chase is on.”
Matilda stepped back. “That’s why you set patrols on the house? To provoke Harry into showing himself?”
“A confrontation was only one of his options, but I’m glad he chose it. We suspected he might be underfoot, and now we know the truth. That’s a stronger position, tactically, and he handed it to us without anybody firing any figurative shots.”
Matilda felt some wonderment that Marcus could think logically. Also, horror that Harry was alive. Dread, because whatever lay ahead would mean suffering for somebody—very probably her—and anger. Old frustration, new rage, and everything wrathful and frustrated that lay between those two poles.
“This is a war game to you?”
“This is no sort of game at all, Matilda. Harry’s appearance means you are married, and as you can have only one legal husband at a time, Harry becomes a problem. The best tool I have for solving problems is logic. Therefore, I apply it when I’d instead like to apply my fists. Would you care for a brandy? You’ve had a shock, after all.”
Papa had always said ladies did not take strong spirits. To blazes with you, Papa. “Please, and you will join me, because you’ve had a shock as well.”
“Half a shock. A fellow like Harry Merridew will come to a bad end sooner or later, but under the circumstances… Later was the more likely possibility.”
Matilda sipped some very good brandy that warmed her insides and let the fire in the hearth warm her from the outside. Another thought warmed her heart: Tremont had not fled in dismay when he’d learned that Matilda was married. He had not despaired. He had not even been much surprised.
And thus, relief joined the other feelings racketing about in Matilda’s soul. Harry was back, and that was bad, though as Marcus had said, better to know now before she’d innocently committed bigamy, better to deal with the truth.
Harry would want money, and then he’d go away. She finished her brandy, and when Tommie scampered into the library, Matilda was discussing the terms upon which she would sell the house and doing so with every appearance of calm.
“Merridew is probably running out of coin,” Tremont said, warming his hands before MacKay’s roaring fire. “Two weeks ago, he or his minions were snooping about the house. Last week, he accosted Matilda on the street. This week, he’s purporting to be a buyer interested in relieving Matilda of her only tangible asset.”
Matilda had received Harry’s letter yesterday, delivered by a street lad to the soldiers’ home and purported to be from a Mr. Harrell Merriman. The note had been cordially businesslike, a pitch-perfect overture to a widow regarding a financial matter.
Matilda had recognized the handwriting, and for some reason, that fact had bothered Tremont far into the night. She should, of course, recognize her husband’s hand. Harry had probably been counting on her ability to do so.
“Brandy?” Alasdhair MacKay asked. “Whisky? Don’t tell me to ring for the damned tea tray. Dorcas’s brother is supposed to call later. Michael’s visit will necessitate swilling an hour’s worth of scandal broth while he drones on about the archbishop must this and the Bishop of London demands that.”
When MacKay’s burr thickened, he was in the grip of strong emotion. “You don’t care for your brother-in-law?”
“I like the man well enough, but he’s not cut out for the clergy, and… I know what it is to be stuck in a bad situation. Dorcas worries about him.”
And thus, MacKay worried as well. “Whisky, then.”
MacKay poured two generous servings and passed one to Tremont. “Slàinte.”
“Slàinte mhath.” Tremont nosed his drink, then took a sip. MacKay, by contrast, had bolted his at one go, then poured himself another half serving. The chill of approaching winter—or of the brother-in-law’s duty visit—would be stoutly warded off.
“Without meeting Merridew,” MacKay said, “how do you know this buyer is him?”
“I am not absolutely certain, of course, but one plans for the worst possibilities. Matilda reports that Harry changes his alias as often as you change your socks, though he tends to use the first name Harry or its variants. The men have seen a fellow walking past the house—on the street and in the alley—more than once. This man limps, and Bentley claims the limp is familiar.”
“Former Private Benjamin Bentley?”
“Is that his first name?”
“He’s a good man,” MacKay said, gesturing to the wing chairs before the fire. “Never lost his head in the heat of battle, knew how to handle a team. If he tells you a fellow’s limp looks familiar, then believe him.”
“I do.” Tremont sank into a comfortable chair whose back had been warmed by the fire. A green and white plaid pillow provided just the right support to make the chair’s embrace a bit of heaven. “If the men see the limping fellow again, they will approach him with a few questions. Matilda says Merridew did not have a limp, though he might have acquired one on the occasion of his supposed death.”
MacKay took the second chair with the sigh of a man whose backside was greeting an old and dear friend.
“What do you know of that death?” he asked.
“Very little. Matilda has a letter from the proprietor of the Hungry Hound, an inn just south of Oxford on the Oxford Road. The innkeeper expresses his condolences on her loss, alludes to a sudden illness, and begs that she remit a sum certain for the departed’s expenses, which he elucidates to the penny. He further informs her that Harry’s bill has been paid by the same good, Christian folk who arranged for the deceased’s remains to be carted to London and that she can make repayment to them at a specific address.”
“What about that strikes you as odd?”
Oh, everything. “I can understand an old friend paying the shot for a man felled by lung fever or food poisoning, but to pay as well to have his remains crated up in a coffin and carted all the way back to his widow in London? Burying him in Oxford would have been costly enough by the time they’d paid for the coffin, the service, the gravedigging, the bell ringing, and so forth.”
“Shipping bodies is expensive,” MacKay said. “You are right about that, and Merridew’s impoverished widow was expected to pay for the lot of it.”
“Even if you were a generous soul seized with a spontaneous charitable impulse toward a stranger, would you rely on the stranger’s widow to cover those costs? And if the innkeeper was also paid—as the letter implies—then why was the innkeeper corresponding with Matilda at all? Why wasn’t she contacted by these Good Samaritans directly and condoled on her terribly sudden loss?”
MacKay wrinkled his nose. “Because somebody wanted Matilda sending that money not to the innkeeper, but to that other address, where the Good Samaritans supposedly dwelled. This all begins to smell of a scheme. Is there even a Hungry Hound on the Oxford Road?”
