A Private Gentleman (15 page)
Read A Private Gentleman Online
Authors: Heidi Cullinan
mouth before a soft voice led him back to the sidewalk, then to the narrow,
unpainted door—and into a scene of blissful calm and tranquility.
The sofa was sagging and threadbare, but a warm quilt lay across it, as well
as a pillow. The fragrant scent of rose-hip tea filled the room, as well as a hint of lavender. No gaslight hissed comfortingly in the walls, but the fragrant oil of a
lamp bathed the room in a soft glow. Thick if faded curtains kept out the noise of
the street as best as could be done, and the soft
click, click
of knitting needles from a gray-haired lady at the window soothed the jagged edges of Wes’s soul.
He found himself immediately upon a sofa. “Hush,” she said. “Rest now.”
Wes tried, but his gaze kept darting around the room, trying to take it all in.
There were three other people present, one napping on a chaise, one in the corner
with the curtain pulled back, staring blankly out into the chaos of the street. The
one in the window was a female, but the one in the chaise was indeterminable in
gender and covered with another quilt. The third was a young man staring at a
chessboard on the floor in front of the small stove, which kept the room cozily
warm and a teakettle’s water heated.
Miss Brannigan poured Wes a cup of tea and handed it to him, then picked
up the quilt and draped it around his shoulders. “There, my lord. Sip that slowly.
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It isn’t hot, but your stomach likely isn’t up for much just yet. When you’re
feeling up to it, I’ll fetch you some stew. And dumplings.” She reached down to
speak softly to the boy, who nodded without looking up. Once Miss Brannigan
stood and turned away, he moved a pawn on the left side of the board before
returning to quiet study.
Wes tried to stammer an objection, to explain to her he was not a street child
to be coddled, but she pushed the cup to his lips, overriding his objection. He
kept sipping dutifully until she took the cup away, smiling at him in approval.
“There you are. Well done.” She was studying him carefully now. “I’d
wondered if you were an addict when we met at the Gordons’s, but of course I
couldn’t mention it there. Your eyes, though. You were using that night, weren’t
you?” She didn’t wait for an answer, only lifted the tea to his lips. Wes drank. “Is
the stutter why you seek the opium? At least, why you sought it originally?”
Wes lifted an eyebrow. Then he nodded.
She flattened her lips and sighed. “And likely a doctor told you to do it. How
I’d like to smack them all upside the face and give them what for. Well, take
heart, sir, that there’s a much better remedy and by means far less destructive
than opiates.” She paused, seeming to wait for something, and when Wes kept
quiet, she leaned forward and spoke in a stage whisper. “This is the part, sir,
where you ask me to beg your pardon and demand to know where I get off,
etcetera.”
Wes couldn’t stop a smile, and in truth, he almost laughed.
She smiled back and reached for his hands, clasping them between her own.
“I can help you. I know you don’t believe me, that you think I’m just some
mad American woman you should run from, but I swear, I can help you. I can
see you are a kind, good man, and the world is far too short of them as it is.
Please, do not throw your life away to opium. You are not yet lost to it—do not
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give it any more of you than it has already taken. I don’t care that you’re a lord.
You’re human, you’re flesh, and that’s all it takes for it to claim you and turn you
into nothing more than a wraith. Don’t let it, Lord George. Don’t let it.”
Wes stared back at her, oddly moved and completely unable to respond.
He was saved by a distant shout and thud. Miss Brannigan let go of him and
rose, hastily murmuring an apology as she opened a door in the far wall and
headed up a flight of stairs, leaving Wes alone.
He waited a few minutes, digesting it all as he sipped his tea. He watched
the woman staring at the street and listened to the one beneath the quilt softly
snore. He kept an eye on the boy at the chessboard. He’d found that if he looked
too long at him directly, the boy would turn away, huddling tight into himself.
Once he relaxed, however, he made three more moves, playing both sides of the
board. He played the pieces correctly, as best as Wes could tell, but he used no
strategy, and Wes couldn’t tell which side he was trying to urge to win, if any.
Don’t let it claim you.
You are a kind, good man.
Let me help you.
Wes’s hand shook around the cup.
He wasn’t an addict. He knew that. And yet he was so moved by her speech.
Why? Why did he yearn for whatever it was her eyes and her gentle touch
promised? Were he normal, he would have thought he was in love with her. But
he knew better than that. What was it, though? What else could it be? Was it just
that he, like all men, wanted salvation?
But he was
not
an addict.
When five minutes passed and Miss Brannigan still had not returned, Wes
put the teacup down, pulled his notepad out of his pocket and began to write. He
wrote to her, on and on and on, filling four pages front and back. The boy at the
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stove had stopped playing and watched him, but Wes didn’t look back, only kept
writing until footsteps came upon the stairs and the door burst open.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, her face flushed. Her dress was dirty too, stained
with footprints and—good heavens—splatters of what had to be blood. This
seemed not to bother her, however, and she sat across from him in a ragged
chair. “Now. Where were we?”
Wes smiled politely and handed her the stacks of paper.
Frowning, she began to read, but she spoke occasionally, usually without
looking up. “Yes, I know physicians are wise creatures, but they don’t always
know all the tricks. And”—she paused for more reading—“ah. Good, I see you
already know about slowing down. And visualization.
Good.
But I wonder if
they’ve told you about singing—Oh!” She smiled widely and glanced up at him.
“Bravo! You’ve accepted that it can’t be cured, not completely.
Very
well done. It might however, disappear entirely one day with those you are very comfortable
with.” Her shoulders slumped. “Social anxiety as well. Ah. I see why you turn to
opium.” Another pause as she read, but then she gave him a look that by rights
should have come over the top of a pair of glasses from a displeased tutor. “It
doesn’t matter that a physician prescribed the opium to you. Outside short-term
use for pain, it’s little more than a way to check out from the world, ultimately
permanently, if not from the drug then from the debauchery that tends to come
with it.”
She lowered the papers to her lap and angled herself in her chair to point
over her shoulder toward the door. “That den is full of dead lives, my lord. Very
few of them took their first dip into opium on a lark. Pain, agony, desperation,
desolation—every person flying into diamond-studded clouds in that place
began as someone with a true life. Now they live for that drug. Mothers, sisters,
friends, husbands, wives, lovers—now they are addicts only, every one. It’s my
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mission to see no more of them. Today, sir, it’s my mission not to see you become
one of them. You may think me silly or ridiculous or managing or whatever you
like, so long as you think it on this side of the street or riding away from this
place.” She rose, tossed his notes into the stove and came back to stand beside
him. “Now. May I interest you in some stew?”
Bewildered, Wes could do nothing more than nod. She bustled off happily
toward the kitchen, and for a moment he simply sat there, stunned by the
intensity of Miss Penelope Brannigan. Who the devil
was
she? How did she know such things? Was she brilliant, or was she mad?
Was she
right
?
Then Wes saw the clock on the mantle, startled at the time, and stood.
He pulled out his wallet, emptied it of all but what he would need for a cab,
and withdrew his pad of paper.
My name is Lord George Albert Westin. But please call me Wes.
He removed the slip of paper and placed the note on the table, glancing once
more around the room, but only the boy paid him any mind, and once he caught
Wes looking at him, he turned away.
Wes turned away as well, moving silently across the room and out the door,
where fortune favored him at last with a cab coming up the street toward him,
empty. Hailing it, he climbed inside, stammered the Dove Street address to the
driver, then settled back, wrenching his mind off the odd encounter with Miss
Brannigan and onto his impending engagement with Michael Vallant.
Albert was late.
Michael sat in the front room of the Dove Street house, feet tucked up beside
him on the sofa, trying to look bored instead of anxious as the day servants
cleaned around him.
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It was a difficult task, waiting. To begin, Michael had nothing to do. He
hadn’t brought anything to read, never dreaming he would need to pass so much
time. He’d also never been in the sitting room at this hour of the day, drapes
pulled wide as every pillow was cleaned, every stain scrubbed, every carpet
aired. Michael hadn’t realized the room looked so dismal and tawdry until now.
To make matters worse, Rodger was hosting one of his balls that night, which
meant more people than usual were passing through on their way to prepare the
ballroom. Which meant they all saw Michael sitting there, waiting.
And waiting.
The only consolation he had was that Rodger had gone off on business, too
distracted to do much more than ask Michael five times if he was all right, if he
wanted a bodyguard, if he was sure he wanted to do this. Michael had said,
“Yes, no, yes,” though he suspected he and Albert would be shadowed by one of
Rodger’s men regardless.
Assuming Albert ever arrived.
“More tea, sir?” a maid asked him, appearing beside the sofa. She hovered
uncertainly, as if she wasn’t even sure she should ask. There was generally no
one to tend to during the day.
“I’m fine, thank you,” Michael replied, smiling thinly. Though as soon as he
spoke the words, his stomach gurgled unhappily, and he wondered whether or
not he should ask for a sandwich. Generally he ate a meager breakfast as he rose
and a small meal at about this time, and he had barely choked down toast and
tea this morning. Perhaps it would be best to eat, in case food was not on Albert’s
agenda. He turned around to call the girl back—and then the door to the sitting
room opened, and there he was.
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Tall, dark, flushed and harried-looking—there stood Lord George Albert
Westin in the doorway. He made a small, awkward bow as he approached
Michael, and he trembled slightly as he handed Michael a note.
Michael accepted it somewhat awkwardly, though he supposed he would
need to get used to such things with Albert. He began to read, but as Albert
stood there, still looking a walking wreck, Michael stopped and motioned to the
space beside him.
“Please, sit. You look as if you ran here from Covent Garden.” He paused,
then added, “You didn’t, did you?”
Shaking his head as he sat, Albert waved impatiently at the small pieces of
paper he had shoved into Michael’s hand.
Michael sighed. “Very well. I’ll read. But please relax, or I won’t be able to
digest a single word.”
Nodding, Albert sat back, endeavoring to look like a gentleman relaxing.
Smiling despite himself, Michael read Albert’s note, which was written in a
dashed, unsteady hand.
Please accept my sincere apologies for my late arrival. A meeting this morning
detained me, and in lingering longer than I should have I encountered further difficulties
which required me to return to Mayfair to fetch something before arriving here. In
hindsight, I should have sent a messenger to explain myself. My conduct was most rude,
and I hope you shall be able to forgive me. It shall be my most strident goal to keep such
an event from ever happening again. Your humble servant, Albert.
Michael put down the paper and turned to Albert, startling to see how pale
and distraught he appeared. Without thinking, his hand went to Albert’s leg,
resting on his knee. “Albert! For heaven’s sake—you were simply late. Oh, yes, I
was cross, but now you’re here, and—” He stopped and shook his head, smiling
wryly. “Well, you take all the fun out of being upset about your tardiness. Please.
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