Never a Duke, page 23
“Woodruff said he knew who I was, Walden. He made allusions to Newgate, and he sits on at least one committee that oversees the prisons. I had the sense he’d read every official document attached to my criminal past and was prepared to see them all published in the Morning Gazette.”
Walden had never asked Ned about his childhood. What Walden knew was bad enough: a brother hanged at too young an age, theft undertaken simply to keep body and soul together…and then Newgate and the possibly lethal prospect of transportation.
“Woodruff cannot have read any documents relating to your past,” Walden said. “I haven’t read those documents. Nobody has.”
“Why not?” Ned finished his drink and ambled back to the sideboard with his empty glass. “I would certainly like to know what the constables and magistrates had to say about me.”
“Jane asked that I arrange to have those documents destroyed, Ned. I left Newgate on good terms with the warden and at least one of the guards, so no record of your incarceration exists. Not yours, Davies’s, or any of the ladies who left that place with us. I thought Jane would have told you this. She was insistent.”
“No record?”
“None. Not in the magistrate’s office, not in parish records, not at the prison. In any case, you weren’t using the Wentworth name at the time, so connecting those misdeeds to Lady Rosalind’s suitor would be impossible.”
Ned moved toward the door, pausing before leaving. “So Woodruff was bluffing? Making empty threats regarding my past?”
“He had to be.”
“Interesting.”
Ned left the office and Walden took the seat behind his desk, though he was fairly itching to discuss the whole exchange with his duchess.
Chapter Fourteen
“You know the girl who arrived last night,” Catherine said, keeping her voice down.
Francine shuffled the deck and passed Catherine half the cards. Lately, all the women had taken to speaking quietly, and Hiram barely said a word.
“I think I recognize her,” Francine replied. “She looks like a lady’s companion I’ve exchanged a few words with. She’s lost weight if that’s the case.”
Calliope Henderson had lost more than weight. When Francine had passed the time with her at the milliner’s or glovemaker’s, Miss Henderson had been friendly, inordinately so given that a companion ranked above a lady’s maid.
Miss Henderson had claimed that her cheerful disposition was part of why she’d been hired, and that the last thing a widow needed around her were long faces. Calliope wasn’t cheerful now. She hadn’t so much as spoken since Hiram had ushered her into the parlor last night. She’d sat reading or—more likely—simply staring at a book.
At breakfast, she’d barely eaten. She’d sipped at the weak tea and nibbled her toast, gazing at nothing in particular.
“Who knows where they were keeping her before,” Catherine said. “That dress hasn’t seen an iron or a washtub in a fortnight at least. Poor thing has probably been ill-used.”
That Catherine could allude so calmly to rape chilled Francine as the thin blankets and leering guards had not.
“If we’re to be shipped off to brothels, I wish they’d get around to shipping us.”
“Set out your cards, Francine,” Catherine said. “We’ll learn soon enough what they plan to do with us.”
Francine made herself begin placing the cards one by one facedown on the table. “How soon? Has Hiram told you something?”
Catherine shuffled her half of the deck, her movements deft. “I know that the last time the house was full up, all the other women were sent somewhere else the next day. I heard something about the count having to match, and that’s when they told me to go back upstairs. Hiram said I wasn’t the kind to give them any trouble, just my luck.”
Hiram was watching them, his gaze brooding. He generally regarded Catherine with frustrated longing, but this morning, his homely face was sad. Pitying, even.
“You think they’re getting ready to ship us off?”
“This is not a charitable institution, Franny. They are getting ready to do something.”
The windows were never open in this godforsaken dump, but Francine heard boots on the walkway below.
“Stay where you are, ladies,” Hiram said, going to the window and peering down. “Nobody so much as twitches until I tell you to.”
The front door creaked open one floor below, and masculine voices drifted up. Three men, at least. Francine’s meager rations threatened to rebel.
“I’m scared, Kitty.”
“No point being scared, Franny. Don’t fight them, and they eventually leave you in peace.”
Catherine sounded composed, but she’d stopped dealing her cards, and she was watching Hiram as if he were her last hope of salvation.
“I want to jump out the window,” Francine said. “I have a really, really bad feeling.”
“You’d have a worse feeling with your brains splattered all over the cobbles. If they wanted to hurt us, they’d have done it by now.”
That was not reason. That was desperation trying to sound logical. “They’ve hurt us already,” Francine said. “Lied to us, snatched us away from our posts, forced us to stay here.” Apparently done worse than that to Calliope Henderson.
Boots tromped up the stairway, and Calliope seemed to grow smaller without moving.
Catherine put down her cards and gathered up those that Francine had spread on the table. “For the love of God, shut your mouth, Franny, and keep it shut.”
The men were now at the door to the parlor, and Hiram conferred with them. Francine had the thought that they couldn’t toss her into the Thames in broad daylight.
“Ladies, lend an ear,” Hiram said. “Time to collect your things and bid this palace farewell. You’ll be veiled and bound, but nobody needs to get hurt. Just do as you’re told, and we’ll all get along.”
“I don’t want to do as I’m told,” Francine muttered.
Catherine didn’t answer, but was instead engaged in some visual battle of wills with Hiram. The other women rose and shuffled toward the door, while Francine considered the drop to the cobbles beneath the window.
“Come along, Kitty,” Hiram said. “Time to go. They won’t hurt you if you behave.”
Catherine rose. “Francine is right. We’ve already been hurt, Hiram, and I hope you suffer the nightmares of the damned.”
The first to leave the room was the new girl, Calliope. Tears streamed down her pale cheeks, though she made not a sound. Did she even know she was crying?
“Take the cards with you,” Hiram said. “They’ll help you pass the time.” He gathered up the deck. “Go on with you. Set a good example for the others. They look to you for that.”
He held out the deck of cards, and Catherine took them. “Every time I play a game, Hiram, I will think of you and curse your name.”
He smiled crookedly. “See that you do. Step lively now. You’ve a busy day ahead. A very busy day and a great adventure.”
“Come along, Franny,” Catherine said. “We won’t soon forget the stink of this place.”
Hiram laughed and winked, and Francine all but ran from the room rather than be left alone with him.
* * *
Rosalind took a breakfast tray in her room rather than risk further annoying Papa.
Or Lindy.
Or George.
Or herself.
She had tended to more than a little correspondence the previous day, though, and wanted her letter to Aunt Ida on its way. She waited until Papa would be reliably off to smoke and gossip away the morning at his club, then took herself down to the front foyer.
“Your ladyship was busy with her pen,” the butler remarked when Rosalind added her letters to the stack for Papa to frank. “Will you or Mrs. Barnstable need the carriage later today?”
Rosalind was very tempted to call on Ned at the bank. He’d not elude her there, but she’d have to take Mrs. B with her.
“I might, when Lord Woodruff returns from his club.”
The butler was a staid old soul, a fixture from Rosalind’s girlhood, and she had learned to read him of necessity.
“What is it, Cranston?”
“Lord Lindhurst has ordered the carriage for his afternoon social calls, and Mr. George has an appointment at the hatter’s this morning. The carriage might well be in demand, your ladyship.”
Of course, two reasonably healthy young men could not be bothered to walk five streets to their appointments.
And Cranston could not simply tell her that, once again, she’d be on foot if she needed to go out.
“Then I won’t need the carriage after all.” She spied a sizable parcel sitting beside the umbrella stand. A sealed note had been tucked beneath the string securing the parcel’s wrappings. “I thought that would have been delivered by now.” More annoyance, to think the package she’d ordered delivered to Ned yesterday had sat in plain view in the foyer all this time.
“I’ll have it sent around immediately, your ladyship. We were a bit at sixes and sevens while you were catching up on your correspondence. Mr. George and Lord Lindhurst had a difference of opinion, and Lord Woodruff intervened or tried to. I’ll take care of your package if I have to deliver it myself.”
“Your personal attention to the matter would be appreciated. It’s important to me.”
Cranston bowed. “At once, your ladyship, and I apologize for the oversight.” He collected the package and marched off toward the stairs.
Rosalind’s general ire with the day acquired an edge of despair. Ned could not very well answer a note he hadn’t received, and if he were prudent, he’d never marry into a family like Rosalind’s.
Papa was a pompous old boor who might well see Ned ruined. Lindhurst was a boor in training to the extent a simpleton could aspire to such status. George had no prospects and was content to scribble and drink himself into a nightly stupor.
The glorious sons of Albion, indeed.
“While I am…” Rosalind fell silent. She was one part Damascus steel, one part ingenuity, and one part cool reason, all wrapped up in a big, courageous heart.
She was also vexed past all bearing, and torn between the certain knowledge that she must let Ned go and the equally firm conviction that she must not.
“Did the cat chew your slippers again?” Mrs. Barnstable came down the steps, looking obnoxiously cheerful in a lavender sprigged muslin ensemble.
“Something like that. I hope supper last night wasn’t too unbearable.”
“You should have a word with Cook,” Mrs. Barnstable replied. “The roast was nearly inedible again, the meat was so tough. Your menfolk were too busy glaring daggers at each other, I don’t think they noticed the food.”
“What set them off?”
Mrs. Barnstable glanced about, though no footman was on duty at the front door so early in the day. “Lindhurst made an unflattering remark about a young lady. George leaped to her defense, and off they went, like a pair of boys scrapping in the schoolyard. Were you truly indisposed, my lady?”
“I was suffering an excess of paternal guidance. Papa is unhappy with me because I prefer the attentions of Ned Wentworth to those of Lord Dinkle.”
“Old Dinky isn’t a bad sort, though I admit Mr. Wentworth is far easier on the eye. Does Mr. Wentworth have the ability to keep an earl’s daughter in proper style?”
“Most assuredly.” Ned Wentworth had many varieties of wealth. He was honorable, smart, kind, resourceful, discreet, and much too lovely a man to suffer the fate Papa had threatened. He was also probably quite well heeled, about which Rosalind frankly did not care.
More of her willful departure from proper deportment.
“This talk of suitors reminds me of a question I wanted to put to you,” Rosalind said. “Did Francine Arbuckle have a follower?”
Mrs. Barnstable’s cheerful expression turned thoughtful. “Let’s continue this discussion in the family parlor, shall we?”
That was a maybe, if not a yes. Rosalind crossed the corridor and preceded Mrs. Barnstable into a room where privacy was guaranteed.
Mrs. B closed the door. “Francine Arbuckle was a good woman, my lady. She guarded your interests belowstairs and she did not gossip.”
“But?”
Mrs. Barnstable made a circuit of the room, smoothing a table runner, straightening a candle listing from its holder. Watching her, Rosalind realized that Mrs. B longed for a home of her own to tend, a home—however humble—such as she’d once had.
“But a life in service is lonely,” Mrs. Barnstable replied. “Servants take their consequence from the people they serve, and thus Higgins has greater standing than the footmen, but Lord Woodruff’s valet has greater standing than any save Mr. Cranston. Cranston’s authority is a matter of custom and also derived from the fact that he served the previous earl.”
Rosalind knew all of this. “You’re saying Arbuckle’s situation was difficult because I garner little respect in my own home.”
Mrs. B took particular care straightening a portrait of Lindy on the momentous occasion of his breeching. “Arbuckle had to be careful not to cross swords with the cook or housekeeper, and not to offend the maids. The male servants all regarded her as inferior, and I daresay any fellow offering her a sympathetic ear would have heard a complaint or two.”
Was anybody offering Mrs. Barnstable a sympathetic ear? “Francine had found such a fellow?”
Mrs. Barnstable took out a plain handkerchief and ran it along the mantel, then flapped the linen about, sending dust motes dancing in the morning sun.
“I cannot say for certain, my lady. I detected an air of happy secrecy in her eyes. She hummed when going about her duties, and she seemed less upset with the usual sniping in the servants’ hall. She was happier, and her joy had an element of…”
“Yes?”
“The same element I see in you when Mr. Wentworth is about.”
“If Ned Wentworth is ever about again, Papa will ruin him.”
Mrs. Barnstable tucked her handkerchief into her cuff. “Mr. Wentworth has apparently overcome much to get where he is, and I’m sure he holds his achievements dear. What will you do?”
In other words, Amelia Barnstable believed Papa’s threat was genuine. “I thought I would begin by discussing the situation with Mr. Wentworth. He should know Papa is his enemy, regardless of other considerations.”
“I understand that a banker’s reputation is his most cherished asset, my lady, but if Mr. Wentworth can be so easily cowed, is he truly the sort of man you want to spend the rest of your life with?”
“You think Lord Dinkle is the greater prize?”
Mrs. Barnstable’s smile was surprisingly winsome. “I like Lord Dinkle. He’s not too proud to ask a companion to dance—such as he can totter about—and he doesn’t take himself too seriously. Yes, he’s stout, but he does not have a wife to take his menus in hand, and gout and inactivity further complicate his health. He has known much sorrow, my lady, and yet, he doesn’t wear his grief on his sleeve. You could do worse.”
“You are the voice of common sense.” Not the voice of courage, though. Rosalind entertained the peculiar thought that common sense alone, however rational, was not adequate to address all challenges.
“If you do meet with Mr. Wentworth again,” Mrs. Barnstable said, “please be very careful, my lady. Somebody could well have lured young women to their doom in this very neighborhood, and I would not want you to come to harm too.”
“Mr. Wentworth is trying to find the missing women,” Rosalind retorted. “He would never wish harm upon an innocent.”
“But he hasn’t found them, has he? Your father might well see a connection between Mr. Wentworth and the missing women where none exists. For your own sake as well as Mr. Wentworth’s, please exercise the greatest of care in your dealings with him.”
Rosalind’s tea and toast threatened to rebel, because Mrs. Barnstable’s caution was appropriate. Ned was dark and dashing, he had an unfortunate past and knew people in low places, he was charming…
“A frank discussion with Mr. Wentworth has become urgent,” Rosalind said.
“A frank, discreet discussion,” Mrs. Barnstable replied, going to the door. “I was hoping to have a letter from my sister this week. I don’t suppose you’ve been through the morning post yet?”
And thus the subject was changed, and any hope of support from Mrs. B dashed. “I haven’t been through the post yet.”
“Let’s have a look, shall we?” She crossed to the foyer, took up the stack of correspondence sitting in the letter tray, and held up one slim epistle. “Here we are. Veronica is not the greatest wit, but she has a way of bringing to life all the personalities back in the village. If you do pay your aunt Ida a visit, perhaps I might look in on my sister while you’re traveling?”
“You heard Papa’s threats?”
She passed Rosalind the rest of the letters. “The whole household heard him. I’m sorry, my lady.”
Sorry, and already planning an expedient departure from her post, for which Rosalind did not blame her. “Fortunately, I love my aunt.”
“But you do not love the idea of more months ruralizing so far from Mr. Wentworth. As a widow, I can tell you this, my lady: Knowing that I would end up without children, without a home of my own, the nearest thing to a poor relation, I would still marry my Derrick and still be grateful for the few years we had together. He was my husband, my best friend, my confidant, and my conscience. My only regret is that he was taken so soon.”
She brandished her letter and disappeared up the steps.
Rosalind pondered those parting words and felt all over again the magnitude of the loss she’d endure if Ned quit the field.
Or if Rosalind sent him away, which would be the kinder course.
She had riffled through a prodigious number of bills and invitations before coming to a note addressed to her. The note hadn’t come through the post—no franking—but had apparently been delivered by messenger and slipped through the letter slot.
