Corey McFadden (9 page)

In fact, the more she considered her situation, the better she liked it. A free ride to London on a nasty night was a stroke of good luck. And since she would be arriving very late with almost no funds, a clean bed in the earl’s townhouse would be welcome, a base from which to operate, so to speak. Only now did she begin to contemplate the enormity of the evening’s events. Alone in a carriage with a well-known rake, on her way to London to learn if she was indeed a near-pauper, and almost raped and ruined in the bargain! She could add in the fact that her head felt as if it might be cracked right through, but at the moment, the carriage accident seemed the most fortunate part of the evening. Her injury would buy her shelter and sympathy, and right now she desperately needed both.

There was, of course, the small matter of coming up with some sort of plausible explanation for the Earl of Radford as to who she was and why she was out on such a night. Perhaps she could stick rather closely to the truth and avoid tripping herself up later. She would say she was a serving boy running away, but not from the immediate Bedfordshire neighborhood as the earl would know every family for miles around. Well, the truth would only go so far, she thought. She certainly couldn’t tell him her master took indecent liberties with her! Maude blushed in the dark. She had only a sliver of understanding that that sort of thing was even possible between men, but she had no intention of getting into any such discussion with the Earl of Radford.

Well, unbridled cruelty would have to do, nasty beatings, that sort of thing. While beating servants was not uncommon, wanton violence was not condoned and any servant had a right to leave if he or she wished. Maude suppressed a sigh. It would have to do for now. And after all, she only had to get through this evening and perhaps a bit of the morning. She had every intention of presenting herself at Messrs. Booth and Parks’ establishment, first thing tomorrow morning, or at least as soon as she figured out where it was.

The throbbing pain in her head merged with the beat of the horses’ hooves and the patter of rain on the roof of the carriage. Without knowing it, Maude drifted back into an uneasy slumber.

Chapter Five

“All right, lad, you needn’t try to walk just yet. We’ll carry you inside.”

Radford gestured out of the carriage window to the footman standing in readiness. Maude lay silent, huddled in the dark corner of the seat. Her head still throbbed and she was glad of the offer of assistance. She had not yet spoken to the earl; the longer she could put it off, the better. Perhaps he would just leave her to sleep and there would be no need of explanation at all. She could certainly be away early in the morning before he arose.

Martin, the footman, was too well-trained to show even a flicker of surprise when he caught sight of the mud-spattered ragamuffin lying big as life on his lordship’s coach cushion. What did catch him off guard, though, was his lordship’s order that the unspeakably filthy baggage be picked up and carried into the house.

With just the slightest hint of a mine-is-not-to-reason-why glance at the heavens, Martin said “Very good, my lord,” and unceremoniously swept Maude into his arms. “And where shall I place the young man, my lord?” Martin asked, his voice dripping disapproval.

Radford grinned to himself. Servants were so much more status conscious than their masters could ever be. “I think in the kitchen for the moment, Martin. I shall need Mrs. Formby’s advice on the boy’s injuries.”

“Yes, my lord.” Mrs. Formby wasn’t going to half like this muddy bundle dumped in her nice kitchen!

Martin strode quickly through the front doors of the townhouse. Maude caught only glimpses of cream-colored walls and crown molding as she was bounced along toward the kitchen. Her head ached with every jolting step and she would be glad to sit quietly again. She was deposited firmly into a hard-backed chair. Struggling to sit up, she looked around to take in her surroundings.

The kitchen was a large room, still warm from the fire of the evening meal. She was seated at a long, much-scrubbed wooden table, clean as a whistle. In fact, everywhere she looked, Maude saw signs of an almost painful tidiness. There were rows of gleaming pots and kettles hanging according to size from an iron rack in the center of the room. A handsome mahogany sideboard, as fine as anything in Maude’s home, stood against one wall. On it, arrayed like soldiers, were the kitchen dinner service and an impressive china tureen standing guard in the center. In a bowl on the table was a pile of apples someone must have taken a polishing cloth to. Did they actually cook here, Maude wondered, or was it a museum?

The answer strode briskly through the hallway door. Mrs. Formby, no doubt, and a more formidable housekeeper Maude had never seen. Her silvered hair was drawn back into a tight bun, not a hair out of place. Her face was round and plain, with a no-nonsense look about her mouth, now set in a thin line. Her hands, folded neatly across her well-corseted middle, were plump and white, her nails trimmed and painfully clean.

But her brown eyes, alert and questioning, were not cold. She was dressed in black bombazine from head to toe, save for a pristine, starched lace white collar around the neck of her dress. Maude had an irreverent thought of the collar standing straight up at attention on Mrs. Formby’s dresser all night while she slept. Behind her came Lord Radford. Even he looked a bit deferential.

“Here’s the lad, you see, Mrs. Formby. I apologize about the mess, but the carriage wheel knocked him into the mud . ..” the earl trailed off.

Maude wondered whether he didn’t rather fear a hiding.

“Hmmph,” was Mrs. Formby’s only response.

Maude felt herself the object of scrutiny. She almost forgot to breathe as she stared back at the housekeeper. Never had she so longed for a nice, clean, presentable face and gown! She wondered whether the queen herself had so regal a bearing. Mrs. Formby reached over and tilted Maude’s face toward the light. With a surprisingly gentle touch, she brushed back the damp auburn ringlets that crowded Maude’s forehead.

“A nasty blow the child’s taken,” she pronounced. “What was that fool Hobbs doing with the horses that he should run the boy down?”

Maude’s sense of justice took over where perhaps caution would have been the wiser course. “Please, ma’am. It was so dark and raining so hard. He couldn’t see me... and I couldn’t see him either,” she finished quickly, before the blame could swing round to her.

“Hmmph,” was the only response again as Mrs. Formby continued her examination. “Well, the boy can talk some sense, and sit up by himself, so I don’t suppose there’s any permanent harm done. I shall see to the matter, my lord.”

“Er, yes, to be sure. Thank you, Mrs. Formby.”

The earl was dismissed and he knew it, Maude realized as she watched his hasty retreat into the hall. Well, she wouldn’t have to face him again tonight in all likelihood.

“What’s your name, boy?” Mrs. Formby demanded.

Name? Name! She hadn’t thought to give herself a name! “M-M-Mike...” she stammered as swiftly as the name could form in her brain. “...Ma’am,” she added quickly. The queen couldn’t hold a candle to this woman!

“Mike what, child? You must have a last name.”

She was relentless, and Maude swallowed hard. “Ramsey, ma’am,” she said, congratulating herself for coming up with something close enough to Romney that she might remember to answer to it.

“Very well, Mike Ramsey, that will do for now. Tomorrow I’ll see to finding out about where you belong and to whom. Tonight we’ll give you a nice, warm wash and put you to bed.” She gestured imperiously to Martin to reassume his burden.

A wash... a nice, warm wash . .. Maude was so groggy with the pain and the strain of the evening. Now what was it about a wash? Wash! Oh Lord! She couldn’t let anyone wash her. They’d see immediately that she was female!

Martin was plodding inexorably up the back stairs in Mrs. Formby’s wake with Maude in his arms. They came at last to the attic level, and Martin stood by while Mrs. Formby fished at her ring of keys and unlocked a door. They stepped over the threshold into a trim little room with a neatly made cot, a small chest of drawers, and a ladder-backed chair. No dust, nothing out of place.

“If you please, Mrs. Formby, I shouldn’t wish to put you to any trouble. I’ll give myself a wash and go to bed. I can manage now, I can.” Maude looked up pleadingly as Martin lowered her into the chair.

A glimmer of approval flared in Mrs. Formby’s cool glance. So it’s a good soldier she wants, thought Maude, filing that idea away for future reference.

“That will do very well, Mike. You do seem able enough to manage a wash yourself, and most of the staff are abed at this hour. Martin will bring you water, soap, and linen. But, mind you, make a thorough job of it. I’ll not have these bed linens soiled because of careless washing.”

“No, ma’am,” replied Maude with some reverence. At the moment she’d rather die than leave dirt anywhere in this house.

Mrs. Formby turned and sailed from the room with a glance at Martin which said “And be quick about it!” as clearly as if she had spoken aloud. Martin hurried out behind her.

Maude sagged with relief as the door closed behind her, It looked as though she’d be safe for the night. She suddenly realized how exhausted she really was. Nothing seemed to matter so much as getting into that narrow, neat little bed. After a thorough wash, of course.

* * * *

Two floors below, in a sumptuous chamber, the Earl of Radford was being fussed over by his fastidious valet. He’d had to change completely, so drenched had he gotten on his hapless journey. But he would not be terribly late to White’s, certainly no more than was fashionable. Sitting in a chair and absent-mindedly pushing his leg as his valet pushed from the opposite direction to get his new boots on him, he pondered how to handle his growing suspicion that the Duke of Sommesby, in addition to his other perversions, was a card cheat.

Last night, as smooth as an adder, the duke had won two thousand pounds from young Brompton, a virtual fortune. The boy was a fool, of course, to have wagered so high. Still, it was odd how the cards had run so consistently in the duke’s favor only at the end of the evening when it most mattered. At other times Sommesby was an indifferent player at best.

But there had been one or two other occasions when Sommesby could seemingly do no wrong at the card table, and unless Radford was much mistaken, there was an odd, unsavory pattern to these occurrences. There had been Thomas Atherley a few years ago. A bad business, that. Like Brompton, he had been young, just into his inheritance, new at cards, and full of a puppy dog-like eagerness to be a man among men. And like Brompton, he had won at first, small amounts, but enough to pump up his adolescent ego and sense of belonging.

Then, as the evening grew late and the brandy flowed freely, Atherley had grown less cautious, more boisterous, and had begun to lose steadily, small losses growing into horrifyingly large ones. Radford had been playing at a different table on those two occasions. Other gentlemen laid it to a run of good luck for the duke and to the inexperience of the boy, but Radford wasn’t so sure.

Radford himself had been barely twenty-one and a newly made earl when he had sat across the card table from the Duke of Sommesby for the first lime. He remembered the evening with a painful clarity that only a particularly humiliating experience could elicit. The man had worn make-up, a fashion fading rapidly at that time, and a small black patch on his cheek. His naturally florid, brandy-bloated face had been white with rice powder, and he had been dressed like a popinjay, in pastel satins and white lace straining across his paunchy middle. But it had not been his appearance that had been so memorable about the Duke of Sommesby. It had been something else—something Radford could not at that time put his finger on. The duke had been clever and brittle, but it had not been warmth or friendliness that lit his eyes. It had been rapacious hunger.

Radford, with all the presumption of adolescence, had prided himself on his skill at cards, learned as much from the stablehands as from his father’s gentlemen friends. The game had gone swimmingly at first. Like Atherley and Brompton, Radford had won in the beginning. He had drunk his brandy, glass for glass with the duke, and had laughed uproariously at the duke’s snide witticisms.

Gradually, almost unnoticed, the other players had drifted away, until, in the very small hours of the morning, drunk and befuddled, Radford played alone with Sommesby. Had he been more alert or more seasoned, he would have noticed the change which had come over the duke. While earlier in the evening, the man had been affable, almost to the point of silliness, paying more attention to the comings and goings in the room than to his cards, now he played with the concentration of a hooded cobra. Too besotted by liquor to follow the cards carefully, Radford had played on, barely registering that his winnings had dwindled to nothing and the losses had begun. He was five hundred pounds down and headed blindly for perdition when his savior had appeared at his elbow in the form of his late father’s best friend.

“My boy, I’m afraid I must beg a favor from you,” Lord Carruthers had begun. Radford had barely heard him. “My horse has gone lame and I’m feeling quite ill. I wonder if I could trouble you for a ride home.” Radford had turned at this and had stared almost uncomprehending at Carruthers. “There’s a sharp pain in my chest, son. I wouldn’t bother you otherwise.”

Radford had looked down at his cards and across at the duke. Unable to recall having actually looked at him for hours, he had been startled by the look of barely controlled fury on the duke’s pasty-white face. Radford had not seemed able to tally in his mind his losses, but he had been sure that a few more hands would put him back on top. Why, the man had played like a buffoon all night. Surely his small run of luck would break. Carruthers had placed a heavy, insistent hand on his shoulder when he had hesitated. For a moment they had stared at one another, Radford so befuddled, torn by what he knew was his duty to his father’s friend, and his desire to play just a few more hands and leave the game a winner as he had begun. “I need your help, son,” Carruthers had said again, quietly this time.