Elisabeth Fairchild (13 page)

The atmosphere of a country fair enlivened Spa Field, sparsely treed, the last of the leaves kicking in the breeze. Set in the v of two roads, pubs and shops and houses lining the perimeter, street hawkers warmed the decaying pinch of autumn with lively cries: hot meat pies, hot potatoes, fresh bread and sharp cheese.

Banners and flags painted the crowd with brave color. Tricolored cockades bristled from every hat. The British, taking lesson from their French and American cousins, knew how to display their unified disaffection for the Crown.

A gilded, halfpenny peep-show box squatted like a three-eyed Chinese dragon across the street from the speaker’s corner. Its owner tootled his brass horn on occasion to draw further attention to his business.

The crowd, for the most part, ignored such distractions. Not even the old woman selling salop and gingerbread, drew a crowd. Her brass samovar gleamed. The smell of hot sassafras, the tinkling music of her spoon as she mixed in milk and sugar, tempted few to partake of her steaming brew. Harder stuff enticed this group. Ideas inebriated them, the promise of power, freedom, and a better life for themselves and their children. Radicals. Perhaps even ultra-radicals. Lydia would have encouraged her to leave at once.

Under a makeshift banner reading The Society of Spencian Philanthropists, a man mounted the back of a wagon and spoke in ringing tones. A few cheers rose in response from the crowd, a few cheeky comments, but for the most part they listened, these butchers, bakers and candlestick makers, tanners, tailors and weavers, aprons or elbows stained with the lifeblood of their trade.

A brewer’s apprentice, in round brown hat and brown jacket, brushed past, the smell of ale perfuming his passage. A muscular group of coal heavers, hands and faces black, heads covered with burlap caps, their clothes begrimed, sat wearily in the grass, passing a jug of ale and flirting with a young woman covered in brick dust, her hair in a kerchief.

A well-dressed figure, moved among the crowd passing out pamphlets. A tailor judging by the row of pins in his lapel.

“Who speaks?” Dulcie whispered to Roger--she must remember to think of him today as George Edwards, the name of his disguise.

“Hunt,” he said.

The Reform Party representative. Lydia mentioned him often.

Roger gestured to the pamphlet.” What does it say?”

“The making of a British Republic.” She scanned the inflammatory prose. “They want land nationalization and a single tax.”

He leaned over her shoulder to read, arm draping her neck possessively, his touch mind numbing. And yet, it was not the scene of their lustful abandon that she saw now. In a flash, a storefront, shop sign swinging in moonlight--torchlight--and then the torches flared high, everything on fire, and she felt a thread of panic, an emotion that faded as quickly as it came. She had not the slightest idea what it meant.

“Taxes are always an issue.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze, rattling the paper--as much as the vision--as much as his touch rattled her.

He playacted the lover, she reminded herself.

Her flesh knew not the difference. Pulse galloping, she handed over the pamphlet, and scanned the crowd, determined to ignore the pleasure of his careless contact--failing miserably. Every hair on her head, every inch of her body, longed for that gently sliding friction.

It would be nice--to share true familiarity, to be caressed, appreciated, loved. Odd, how satin or lace gained her no sense of it. And yet, this ugly muslin outfit did. Her milkmaid’s role offered unexpected freedoms. Dulcie Selwyn must never forward herself, but Bethany White might be free with body and hands, a dairymaid drawn to the danger of a radical political rally with her beloved artist.

Autumn’s exhalations, misting before her eyes, breathed life to a contagion of liberated feelings.

“Give me your impressions,” Roger returned her to their purpose. His arm slid from shoulder to waist in a spine-tingling movement.

Dulcie’s mind refused to think of anything but the heat and pressure of his hand, the weight of his arm at her waist, the sound and smell of him.  Blankly, she scanned the crowd.

“You must let go,” she said at last.

His brows rose.

“I have trouble seeing clearly when you touch me.”

“Ah!” One corner of his mouth lifted, that small movement, and the brief, knowing look in his eyes, enough to provoke a shiver of anticipation. His arm slid from her waist. He turned away, as if inordinately interested in the pamphlet in his hands.

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, pushed aside her regret, recalled that part of herself that he took with him. She wrapped herself not in his arms, but in calm. She imagined it filling her, from the top of her head, to the soles of her feet.

Steadied, she opened her eyes, attention focused. Voice low, she said, “These people are work weary, energies drained by hard physical labor. There is a sense of purpose among them, though. Driven by want, by need, by hunger.”

“No danger? No serious threat?” His color pulsed brightly. Her answer mattered.

She yearned for the missing heat of his hands, on her shoulder, neck, or waist. She felt the cold more now that he kept them away.

Body tensed, expectant, she said bleakly, “I will know when the speeches start. Hunt’s words will stoke the fires within.”

When Hunt stood at last, and launched into an unheated, unobjectionable reform address, tempers flared burnt orange and brick red. The crowd had waited through several boring speeches for the heart of his message. A heart that beat too weakly for their tastes.

“What about taxes?” someone shouted.

“Speak to the point,” another heckled.

Discontent, anger, even rage, wafted darkly about the necks and shoulders of the more fervent participants. Unnerved by the growing level of animosity, color smothered Dulcie like a dirty blanket. She kept her head up, collected her bruised emotions, and shoved aside waves of dizziness.

The Gargoyle guided her, pulsing like a beacon. So relaxed he looked, but for the keenness of his eyes, raking the crowd, delving and undeniable. His element, this. His job, now hers.

She tilted her head, allowed impressions voice. “The one in the blue vest, and his friend with the threadbare coat.”

Eyes closed, she shut out the crowd’s seething temper--raw, visceral, barely restrained. Darkness loomed--a growing potential for violence. “With the beard. Those three.” Her voice fell. She swayed, came close to fainting. Blackness closed in, cloaking light, threatening equilibrium.

Ramsay steadied her, his grip pushing back the darkness, lending strength to her knees. His eyes were bright with concern. “Are you ill?”

Dulcie forced a smile. “Revolted and exhilarated in the same breath. Never have I felt that what I see might prove so valuable.” 

The man in the blue vest hoisted a handmade flag. Mounting a wagon at the back of the crowd, he shouted, the strength and cadence of his voice turning heads--something about the Norman conquest and a mad king, slaves starving and a Regent who cared not a fig. The crowd shifted, separating between the two speakers, gathering a sense of impending motion.

The man shouted louder,  “If they won’t give us what we want, we must take it!” He leapt from the wagon bed.

The strength of his plea, coupled with the jaunty wave of his flag, set half the crowd in motion, marching after the flag in a rowdy gaggle. Hazy, red-tinged colors followed them, reminding Dulcie of the crowd at Carlton House.

“That lot means to do damage,” she predicted, voice strong.

“Come,” Roger took her hand and set off after the smattering of people drifting south toward Smithfield Market.

Her pulse raced to think her words pleased him. Her mitted hands warmed, fingers laced in his. She clung to the strength of him, to the potential that brewed not only at the heels of those they followed, but in their linked fingers.

Across the field, across the street they went before Roger halted abruptly.

Dulcie tripped, stride broken.

“What the devil is he doing here?” he muttered.

Without warning, he turned and kissed her cheek. The soft touch of his lips flooded her with beautiful color--with it came a tingling sensation, rippling outward. He was the rock, dropped in the stillness her pond. Then images flooded--a shopfront, windows glittering in torchlight, a sign swinging against a cloud-silvered moon.

Roger Ramsay was the man in the moon, his face looming suddenly large, breath and lips too warm on her flesh, skimming lightly the edge of her jaw.

She responded stiff-backed, arms rigidly resistant. “How dare you!”

He pulled her closer, strength and purpose undeniable, mouth transferred from cheek to chin, branding her flesh, stirring a frightening heat within. She struggled. The more she fought to free herself, the tighter he held her.

He whispered, not words of love, but the stern command,  “Hush! You draw attention.”

She pushed against his chest. “This was not part of our bargain, Mr. Ra--”

“Edwards!” He cut her off, sharply. “Don’t forget. Be still!” he hissed. “We are in danger of being recognized.”

Danger, yes--in her absence of vision, in the hard, fast beat of his heart. She watched the throbbing pulse in the hollow of his neck, below the loosely tied belcher. It was not a part of the male anatomy she was accustomed to seeing. Beautiful and vulnerable, she considered that divet of exposed flesh, vein pulsing.

His breath, warm in her ear, whispered, “Try to look less like a woman ready to run.”

Resistance abandoned, her chest sank to his, while his hands--his hands--one held firm the small of her back. The other clasped neck’s nape, pressing her cheek to cheek, his flesh warm, high on the cheek, satin smooth, in contrast to stubbled unkempt artist’s chin.

The scent of him, she breathed deep: turpentine and sandalwood. The world took on a rosy glow--horizon to horizon--the color all-encompassing. Arms unfolding, she slid trembling hands over his collarbone, closed her eyes to the deep pink that flooded her eyelids. 

“That’s the idea.” He smiled grimy, whisper terse. “I am whispering sweet compliments and lewd suggestions in your ear. Something designed to provoke a tender feeling in you.”

She plastered a smile on her lips, and forced a flat laugh.

“That funny, am I?”

It was all too disconcerting: her limbs arranged passionately, her waist fervently claimed, her ear at the beck and call of lips that spoke to her of nothing in the least loving. Roger Ramsay’s gaze hungrily devoured, not her features, not the terrifying infatuation he might discover in her eyes, but the threat approaching them.

She could feel the suspended tension in his every muscle. Like a cat, looking nonchalant while gathering haunches to spring, he focused anywhere but on her.  

“Ungentlemanly, this playacting, I know,” he whispered, evidence of how unmoved she left him. It sank her heart. “Gentlemen who might recognize me approach.”

She exhaled heavily, gave her head a shake, tried to shut down the flood of feelings. She was not a milkmaid. He was not her lover. “The men we follow are getting away.” Her voice sounded surprisingly rational, controlled. She had only to school mind and heart to follow suit.

“Can you play the offended lover? Slap me.”

She stared at him blankly. “You want me to hit you?

“Make it convincing. Lover’s tiff. Stalk off after our chaps. I shall give chase.”

Still, she hesitated

The hand at her neck slid the length of her back, the one at her waist slid further south to cup her buttocks. “Shall I give you good reason?” Unsmiling lips sought hers. The Gargoyle leaned down from his perch.

The world within her eyelids exploded like a sunlit dawn, saffron and rose.

Chapter Nineteen

Clerkenwell, London

The Gargoyle kissed Dulcie Selwyn with lips of stone, nerves on edge, concentration fixed not on pleasure but protection. For an instant he thought only of the plan---her pulling away--the sting of her hand. The liquid silk of her mouth caught him completely unprepared. For one, blind, plundering moment he gave himself up to the sweet lure of her mouth. For the briefest of moments she responded, mouth blooming--honeysuckle in the rain of his kisses--body clinging.

He forgot--the plan, the radicals. Only her mouth mattered, the willing response of her body, the promise of where both might lead. The sting of her palm against his cheek woke him as if from a dream.

She ran from him, as planned. He set off after her, his reasons for following more complex, the odor of change and the reek of desperate purpose spurring his pursuit. Nightfall sounded like hasty footsteps on flagstone and sharp, drunken cries.

“No more taxes!”

“We’ll show ‘em!”

“To the Exchange, lads. We’ll torch the place!”

Change fluttered hotly, light against dark, burning reflections in the mullioned windows of the shops they passed, rushing like a man-made wind as torches lapped the deepening twilight,  throwing soot and sparks against the approaching darkness, adding a breathless, cinder-blown deviltry to the air.

Roger could taste change on his lips---sweet like almonds, creamed peaches, a touch of clove. More than the cries for action, memory of her embrace stirred him.

He could not long focus on his feelings for her. His attention could not be consumed by the curve of her bottom, the breeze blown wisps of hair, the slender nape of her neck. Change and mischief ran ahead of him, just as she did, beyond reach, out of control, smashing glass, breaking down doorways, firing shots and curses into the gathering dusk.

The mob raged, through Clerkenwell’s print shops, watchmaker’s and gunsmith’s, snaking off between Georgian residences no longer considered fashionable, into the Smithfield Market. There they looted the hosiers, drapers and cloth-merchants, slowing the mad dash, terrorizing clerks and shopkeepers, vandalizing.

Ahead of him, her hair a silken flag, ugly bonnet bobbing, she sprinted through goods strewn haphazard about the streets.