Edith Layton (18 page)

“Indeed? How bold of him. These are dangerous times. Political tides may still be shifting. Odd. He didn’t strike me as an adventuresome fellow.”

“He has a cousin in Italy. He’s on his way there.”

“I
taly
?” Ewen laughed lightly. “Easy to say, but I sincerely doubt he’d actually go there. Are you sure? Napoleon is cooped up on a little island now, but that island is off the coast of Italy. Your dear baron seems
the sort to hesitate to set foot in the same country, much less on the same continent.”

“But of course he’s in Italy. Someplace on the coast—Livorno? Yes, that’s it. Then he said he was going to Piombino to meet up with his nephew on his grand tour or some such. He didn’t want to go, to be sure. But the boy broke his leg, and his great-uncle asked him specifically to see what the situation was. He’d hardly make all that up, would he? So, is that sufficiently far away for you?”

When he didn’t answer immediately she wondered if she’d overdone it and insulted him, and so she added in a heated whisper, “I don’t know why you hesitate. I doubt you have anything to fear from him in any way. Although,” she said coyly, “only time and experience will tell me that, of course.”

“Fear him? No. Say rather I fear the consequences, because I dislike scenes. Intensely. So, Italy, is it?” Ewen mused. “Still, two days,” he said doubtfully. “He might not have crossed the Channel yet. What if he decides to come home? The stuff of a fine farce, exactly as I said.”

“I tell you, he’s gone! That is to say,” she said through clenched teeth, reining in her annoyance, “I received a note from him yesterday telling me he’d made the crossing safely. I don’t expect to see him for at least a month—perhaps two.”

“Indeed?” He looked down at her. Small, beautifully curved, white-skinned and dark-haired, with those sapphire eyes. Her gown was so sheer he could see the dark puckered tips of her conical breasts. Small, sharply etched breasts, a small sharp chin, sloe-eyed and cunning, she’d be wild in his arms, he knew; he’d heard it often enough from many men. She was foxlike in face
and habits. Her lovers said she was insatiable. And very versatile.

He smiled at her. “How sad for you. You’ll miss him sorely. But you’ll be comforted by your delightfully cool house, no doubt.”

“No more games,” she said in a harsh whisper.

That did get his attention. He laughed. “But no more gossip either, my dear. It would look bad if I left with you now. But if I went out now and you left later…”

“A fine idea. Good evening, my lord,” she said with a triumphant smile. She turned on her heel and walked away from him. She was too much of a lady to wiggle, but her hips swayed as nicely as any barmaid’s as she left him, because she knew he was watching.

But so was someone else.

“And so?” the elderly, balding gentleman asked Ewen a few moments later as they were both collecting their hats and canes from a footman.

Ewen didn’t answer right away. That didn’t bother the old gentleman. He left the overheated house with Ewen and strolled down a few streets with him in silence until they turned a dim corner and walked to where the old gentleman’s carriage was waiting for him. There they stopped. After looking around casually but carefully, they spoke at last, in low voices.

“Yes. The baron’s abroad,” Ewen finally said, as though they’d been talking all along. “On his way to Italy. Probably to meet with Herr Berger
and
Monsieur Ricard, as we thought, and then to Elba, as Rafe heard. He’s not expected back for at least a month.”

“Good, good,” the old man said thoughtfully, nodding. He looked up at Ewen. “Now, that was simple enough, wasn’t it? For you, at least. It was so easy for
you to get information that would have taken us days and many costly bribes to ferret out. And we’d have risked the baron’s knowing we were making inquiries. I suspected he was just fool enough to tell her. But why not? She’s usually more circumspect—she has her wits about her except when her glands are involved. She told you immediately, as I thought she might. Your reputation was the making of us. This was simplicity itself. Why did you fight me so?”

“I’d better things to do.”

“Hard to believe. Look at the other reward you get for your labors,” the older man chortled. “A night in the arms of one of the fairest charmers in all of London town!”

“I don’t care for crowds.” Ewen said coolly.

“But she’s beautiful, lad!”

“Beauty is easy. In this case, in every way.”

“Ah. A young man’s answer.”

Ewen’s smile showed briefly. “No. It’s only that I prefer a challenge. The reputation you speak of is for being a rake, not an opportunist. There is a difference.”

“Why so touchy? I remember a time when you thought
rake
a fine description of yourself. It served us well—and you, too—in other ways, as I recall.”

“You’ve forgotten what I told you? I suppose you must have, though your memory is usually more accurate than mine.”

The older man looked down at his walking stick. Ewen’s voice matched his twisted smile, and there was a hint of hurt in it. That shocked him. He hadn’t thought elegant Viscount Sinclair could be hurt by what any man said—especially about him and any woman. But the Ewen Sinclair he used to know so long ago could be hurt. And had been.

“Forgive me, Ewen,” the older man said softly. “I’ve known you since you were a boy. and your father since he was one, too. You did tell me. I did remember. I suppose I thought you were jesting.”

“Why shouldn’t you?” Ewen shrugged. “Given my past and what you obviously believe to be my future.” He cut off the older man’s feeble protests. “And you were not that far wrong, after all. Because if a rake is a man who passes over what’s easy and instead exerts every effort to win someone different, unique, with depths that are his alone to discover, then I must still be one, I suppose.”

“No. That’s not a rake, that’s a connoisseur. And a wise man. My apologies. So! The fair Lady Claire sleeps alone tonight?” the older man added, seeking a lighter note. He shook his head. “Gad! That’s like throwing back a thirty-pound salmon after you’ve landed it. Were I only ten years younger…hmmm. Considering the lady, best make that fifteen. Still, though you have the years for it. you do have the right of it. too.”

“Then I may go?”

“Go? Certainly. It’s late, and you’ve told me what I wanted to hear. Good night to you, then.”

“I meant go home,” Ewen said patiently.

“Home? Have you forgotten everything?” the old man asked gleefully. “Aha! Lady Claire must be more potent than you admit!”

“I live to amuse you, sir.”

“Forgive me, lad,” the older man said without a trace of regret. “At my age I prefer to believe the worst; it enlivens things wonderfully. Seriously, though—no. If you mean to leave London, I’m afraid you can’t yet. Don’t look at me like that. We need you to advise us. The mission isn’t done. Rafe isn’t safely on his way
home yet. You know that. Be patient. It won’t be much longer. This was only a diversion I thought of as a reward, a panacea for your restlessness.”

“The only cure for restlessness is travel.”

“Soon, lad, soon.”

Ewen’s messenger usually came at noon, as regularly as luncheon was served in well-organized Brook House. But now it was past three. Bridget had had a forkful of lunch and a mile of pacing, and the messenger still hadn’t arrived.

“Maybe his horse broke his leg,” Betsy said helpfully. “I seen that once and they shot him.”

“Hard on the messenger,” Bridget muttered as she patrolled the salon. Every so often she glanced into the big, bright courtyard room. But nothing moved there, not even the palm fronds.

“No, they din’t shoot him.” Betsy giggled. “They shot the horse, he was screaming so much. It were awful to see.” she said with horrified relish. “Such a lot of blood! The horse’s head was streaming blood, and his legs, they—”

“I understand,” Bridget said hastily. “I was only joking.”

“Maybe he fell offa the horse, then,” Betsy offered. “I seen that once, too.”

Betsy had seen too many things, Bridget thought grimly. But she merely said, “Doubtless he’s just delayed.”

“So we ain’t gonna leave today?”

“I don’t know,” Bridget said, glancing at the mantel clock again. “It’s getting late. If he doesn’t come in an hour, we won’t be able to go until tomorrow morning. It stays light long this time of the year, but there’s no
sense setting out if we can only get in four or five hours of traveling. If we’d put our cases in the carriage, we’d be able to leave right away. But we haven’t, so loading them in and saying our good-byes will take up even more time.”

She hadn’t wanted to actually put her things in the coach and take formal leave of Brook House until she’d heard from Ewen. Now she regretted that. But now she was also so wound up she was ready to walk to London—or Wales. So when the butler came to the salon she spun around and looked at his hands. She expected to see him bearing Ewen’s latest message on his silver tray.

He carried no tray. He wore no expression. “My lady,” he said stonily, “there’s someone to see Miss Betsy.”

“Send them in,” Bridget said.

He hesitated, obviously struggling for the right words. “The person to see Miss Betsy,” he finally said stiffly, “is not the sort of person the Viscount would ordinarily permit in his salon.”

“If it’s a dangerous person,” Bridget said, alarmed, “then Betsy can’t see him anyway.”

“Not dangerous. Perhaps the better word would be
unfit
,” the butler said stiffly.

“She can’t see that sort of person either. What can you be thinking of?” Bridget demanded, so upset that for the first time since she’d laid eyes on the butler she didn’t watch her words with him.

He looked at her with respect for the first time, too. “That is correct,” he said, “ordinarily. But it is, I believe, imperative that Miss Betsy see this person.”

“No more riddling,” a tired voice said from behind the butler. “I’m here. She can see that with her own eyes, can’t she? Want to toss me out, Miss Bridget?”

The bright light of the courtyard room was behind the visitor, so it took a second for Bridget to recognize her. It took Betsy no time at all.

“Gilly!” she cried, flying across the room to fling herself into her sister’s arms. “Gilly! Gilly! It’s you!”

“None other. Here now!” Gilly said, holding her sister away after giving her one hard hug. “Don’t want to get the dirt of the road on that fine dress, do you? The road and more, besides. I hopped a coach or two and rode in a farmer’s cart, so I stink like a horse and look like a haystack.”

She did, Bridget thought. Gilly’s ill-fitting men’s clothes were covered with dust, her boots with dirt—at least Bridget hoped it was only dirt. Her face was so grimy it was hard to see who she was, much less what sex she was, even if anyone could see it clearly under her battered floppy hat. She looked less like a man than she had in London, but nothing like a woman, either.

“Look at you, though!” Gilly said, holding Betsy away and staring at her. “Fine as fivepence. They treated you good?”

“See for yourself! I got four other dresses good as this, and a fine gown to do nothing but sleep in besides. There ain’t a rat in sight nowhere. Nor nobody sleeping in the hall or under the stairs in this whole house, neither. Ain’t nobody living rough outside round here—there ain’t even got gutters here, Gilly! I eats regular as that clock there chimes, and they lets me play and I’m learning to cook, and there’s kittens and horses in the barn, and oh, Gilly, there’s a brook I can put my feet in and—”

“And hush! I can see you’re doing fine. Hold your tongue now, do. For I’ve come to say a hard thing and you have to listen close. No time nor sense in putting
sugar on it, so I’ll say it flat out. It’s time for you to come home, Betsy.”

Betsy fell silent, her eyes wide. But not as wide as Bridget’s. Even the butler stared.

The quiet in the room didn’t stop Gilly. “I want you to thank Miss Bridget kindly, and take what they lets you, and then come back home with me,” she told her sister sternly.

“Oh, Gilly!” Betsy said, her lower lip quivering.

“I don’t understand—I think we need to talk about this,” Bridget said.

“I don’t think we do,” Gilly said harshly.

“You may go,” Bridget told the butler, who reluctantly backed away. “What’s happened?” she asked Gilly as soon as he’d left. She was confused, shocked, and worried. The more she came to know Betsy, the more she realized she and Ewen had saved the child from a disaster, not just the slums. To send her back now—especially now that she’d seen a brighter new life—would be more than cruel, it could be deadly.

“You go get your things,” Gilly told Betsy, “whilst me and Miss Bridget talk. What can she take with her?” she asked Bridget.

“Nothing, for you haven’t told me a reason for taking her away, and it’s ‘my lady’ and not ‘Miss Bridget’!” Bridget said angrily, because the look on Betsy’s face was so painful to see.

“Nah. No, it ain’t, and there’s the reason, missy,” Gilly said harshly. As Bridget gaped at her Gilly prodded Betsy. “Now hop it,” she said, “and don’t you dare cry, mind? Me and Miss Bridget will have us a talk whilst you’re gone. It’s past time, and more, for that.”

Bridget stood still as stone. Betsy backed away and
then, sobbing, ran to her room. Gilly stood, her dreadful hat in her hand, looking at Bridget. But before she could speak, the butler returned. This time he carried his silver tray.

“My lady,” he said, offering Bridget a note. He’d obviously heard everything Gilly had said; Bridget had only a moment to glance at him, but she saw the contempt in his eyes. She snatched up the note and unfurled it, her hands shaking badly, her nostrils flaring. It was from Ewen; she knew his bold writing. Just holding it made her feel steadier. Reading it did not.