Joan Smith (5 page)

“I hardly consider myself to be doddering into the sunset yet!” he answered, conferring his most ravishing smile on her. It softened the harsh lines of his nose and mouth and did actually appear to remove five or so years from him. “It’s not really a full course I’m interested in. The fact is, I’ve
been elected to Parliament and wish to insert a few quotations in my maiden speech. My friends tell me it is all the go. I never had the advantage of a classical education and have often felt the lack of it. I was put into a bank when I was twelve, for I had some knack for handling figures.”

Trudie’s eyes were drawn again to the flickering diamond, and she said, “You appear to have prospered without benefit of the classics.”

“Beyond my highest expectations, insofar as my career and earnings are concerned. Now that I have accumulated a good fortune, I am aiming for a political career. Vansittart, the Chancellor of the Exchange, was instrumental in my winning a seat. He feels I could be of help to him in his ministry; I seem to have the knack of handling money.”

Mrs. Harrison was impressed by the man’s patron and joined the conversation. “I hope you don’t plan to raise the taxes.”

Trudie also looked at their guest with greater interest. “Is it just a few famous quotations for the speech you are interested in?” she asked. This could be accomplished in half an hour, and who knew what else might be accomplished as well? Already the words of Cicero and Virgil and Horace were tumbling through her head.

Luten cast an impatient look at the aunt but answered civilly. “For the beginning, at least, to see how we go on together.” His wish was to imply he was good for more than one call, if they rubbed along well.

“Could some of your colleagues not help you?” Mrs. Harrington asked.

“No doubt they could if I asked, but I am a little proud, and don’t mean to advertise my lack of formal education,” he answered.

Trudie was of the popular but unstated opinion among Englishmen that pride was no vice; quite the reverse. “I think we might help Mr. Mandeville, Auntie. We should all do our bit to make Parliament a polite and learned place.”

Luten’s smile escalated from approval to intimacy so quickly that she was set to wondering. Being as innocent as a nun, she concluded he liked her, and she wasn’t slow to return the smile.

“Could we—ah—take care of it now?” he asked, darting a glance at Mrs. Harrington, who sat like an owl, watching and listening.

“It is rather late,” Trudie pointed out. “My aunt was about to retire. I will want to make some preparations for the meeting. Could you come back tomorrow?”

He lowered his tone to avert Mrs. Harrington’s detection and said, “If you think we would disturb your aunt, we could do it elsewhere—go to my place.”

Trudie stared with blinking eyes. “Oh, no! Are you in that great a hurry?”

“My speech is coming up very soon, and of course I will want to practice a little.”

“Miss Barten is certainly not leaving her house at this hour of the night with a strange gentleman,” Mrs. Harrison said. “She has been seeing too many students lately and is fagged. Besides, it is quite improper for you to suggest it, Mr. Mandeville.”

“I’m sorry,” he said promptly, and began backtracking to undo the mischief. “When may I return?”

“Tomorrow morning?” Trudie suggested.

“Morning?” he asked, blinking in surprise. “I thought evenings would be more
...
appropriate.”

“Daytime would be better,” Mrs. Harrington said.

“Mr. Mandeville works, Auntie,” Trudie pointed out. “He is a Member of Parliament. He is busy during the day.”

As he was eager for a private talk with the young woman, Luten discovered a free space in his timetable at eleven the next morning. This hour was agreed upon as suitable to both parties. Next he went on to try for news of Peter.

“Sir Charles was going to come with me to make me known to you,” he invented, “but he went out of town this morning with a friend—Lord Clappet, I think he said. Perhaps you know Clappet. He is a great bosom beau of Sir Charles.”

A warm smile lit Trudie’s face and she answered, “Oh, yes, it is really Peter, Lord Clappet, who is our friend. It is he who brought Sir Charles to us. They went to
...
” She remembered in time that the trip to Brighton was a secret from Peter’s family, and for all she knew, Mr. Mandeville might be a friend. Luten regarded her, his black brows lifted in a question. “To Newmarket,” she said, but in a flustered way.

“They went a bit early. The races aren’t till May,” he said.

“Yes, they did.”

“Nicolson didn’t mention just why he was going,” Luten continued in a careless way, as though he were just making conversation, but it would be natural for her to explain now if she knew, and if she was innocent.

Luten looked at her from beneath his lashes. He found himself hoping she would give some unforeseen reason for the trip, some motive that excluded herself. What he saw was a faint blush color her cheeks, a quick warning glance to the aunt, and what he heard was a longish silence.

When Trudie spoke, she changed the subject. “What is the topic of your speech in Parliament, sir? It will help me to cull suitable quotations if I know what you will be speaking about.”

“Money,” he answered. “Large sums of money.”

“Is it spending, raising, or wasting money you will be discussing?” she inquired.

“I am not in the Opposition, ma’am. It is Tierney who  rails against the awful waste. My subject will be the careful husbanding of the nation’s funds.”

She nodded. “Anything to do with thrift will be useful, then.”

“Quite. With the
nation’s
funds one must be cautious, whatever one’s own habits,” he said, taking the opportunity to hint at personal largesse.

She couldn’t quite refrain from smiling at his diamond, which was really unattractively large, ostentatiously so. Seeing her glance, he lifted the hand that sported the emerald ring, and patted the folds of his cravat. Then he drew out his watch, allowing the heavy golden fobs to rattle to her attention.

“What a handsome ring, Mr. Mandeville,” Trudie commented, for she had some idea these adornments were being purposely drawn to her attention.

“I rewarded myself for a particularly brilliant coup on the market last year,” he explained.

“I tremble to ask what coup the diamond represents. Is it possible you were alive in the last century and were the one who reaped the rewards of the South Sea Bubble?”

“That was well before my time. It was Harley, the Earl of Oxford, who is usually credited—or shall we say discredited—with the scheme. We Tories deal quite differently with the national debt, but I’m not pushing Consols as a good investment by any means.”

Trudie nodded, only minimally interested in his financial advice. “What does your diamond represent?”

He bestowed another of his intimate smiles on her, but this time it was tinged with flirtation. “Why, to tell the truth, I bought it for a lady, but she spurned my advances, so I had it mounted into a stud to wear myself, till I find a lady willing to accept it.”

Mrs. Harrington pokered up and looked rather pointedly at the clock. Trudie smiled and glanced at the decanter of wine that rested on the table. Luten observed them both and concluded he would have better luck tomorrow when he got the young female off by herself. He rose, thanked them most civilly for accepting his offer, bowed his adieux, and left.

In his carriage, he removed the excess of jewelry, put it into a side pocket, and went on to a rout party. Peter’s scrape, however annoying, was by no means monopolizing Luten’s time and thoughts.

“Cheeky fellow,” Mrs. Harrington griped. “We have hit a new low, catering to Cits.”

Trudie emitted a long sigh and replied, “I thought he was rather handsome.”

“A man who decks himself up like a jewelry display window to impress his betters is no gentleman, my dear. Give him the quotations he wants to use in Parliament and have done with him.”

“How odiously snobbish of you to disparage Mr. Mandeville only because he is a self-made man. I think with a little coaching he could be
...
”

“He is too old, and too common for you,” her aunt said swiftly. “How very like Nicolson to burden us with his second-rate friends. It is the outside of enough for him to send total strangers to our door. I wish you had turned the man off.’’

“It can do no harm to see him once more,” Trudie answered mildly.

He was the most interesting man, in fact the
only
real man, they’d met since coining to London. There was a whiff of the city about him to be sure, but that could be brushed off with tactful hints. And Mr. Mandeville would be susceptible to such hints. He must be very clever to have advanced so far in the world, and he wanted to make a good appearance.

The tedium of London had brightened, and though Trudie was obliged to listen to several other animadversions on Mr. Mandeville’s manner, she paid no heed to any of them. She thought she had found an access into polite society, and meant to cultivate Mr. Mandeville’s company.

“Did you see her?” Lady Clappet demanded the next morning, before her brother had handed his hat and gloves to the butler.

He made no reply till they were in the lugubrious Blue Saloon. “I saw her.”

“What had she to say?”

“She admitted she knows Peter, but of course gave no idea why he went to Newmarket. She says that is where he is gone—not that it’s necessarily true.”

“Did you get the thing settled? I hoped we might be rid of her by now.”

“What did you expect me to do, murder her? She’s got Peter under her thumb. Why should she hand him back to us, only because we want it? She’s not a fool. I begin to think the best thing is to buy her off.”

“Pay her money?” Maggie asked reluctantly.

“It’s done all the time. The Beauforts offered Harriet Wilson twenty thousand pounds to rescue Worcester from her.”

Lady Clappet turned a nasty shade of mauve from the sudden infusion of blood into her pale cheeks. “Twenty thousand pounds!” she gasped.

“Yes, but Miss Barten isn’t so high a flyer as Harry.”

“Miss Batten? The woman’s name is Mrs. Harrington.”

Luten shook his head. “Harrington is the aunt, or called so, at any rate. The female Peter’s involved with is a Miss Barten. She has an eye for gaudy jewelry.”

“Did she ask for money, for jewels, to free Peter?”

“Oh, no, we were much more civilized than that. I am to take Latin lessons from her, starting this morning. Last night I only made contact, presented myself as a rich Cit, ripe for plucking.”

“This is wasting valuable time, Luten,” Lady Clappet objected.

“We can afford it. Peter’s out of town. She won’t bother going after him if she thinks she has a plumper bird in hand.”

“How long will it take?”

A cocky smile settled on his lips. “About two minutes, once I get her away from the chaperone. Getting rid of the old hag will be the major problem. She sticks like a burr and is loath to see her girl take on any more clients, but the chit rules the roost. I can’t believe Peter means to marry her—the aunt spoke openly of other clients. Unless she has an offer of marriage from Peter, she’ll be easily bought off.”

“And if she
has
an offer?” she asked fearfully.

“Then she won’t get a Birmingham farthing. A penniless female plying her trade to earn a living is one thing; an adventuress trying to pull a greenhead of a boy into marriage is something else.”

“Dear me, yes. She is much more dangerous.”

“I really think she has no more in mind than being set up in a cottage near Newmarket for the racing season. That’s bad enough to be sure, but Peter is reaching the age, you know. And so far as women of that sort go, she’s not at all bad. She has a ladylike way about her, a lively little thing, well-spoken and so on. There were even a few papers and books in the room.”

“Of course there were! She claims to be a tutor,” Lady Clappet said sharply. She disliked that shadow of a smile that was hovering at the corner of Luten’s lips, and his oblique praise of the woman.

“So she does. She is ingenious, you must admit.”

The woman was a witch. First Peter, now Luten. “I want you to buy her off, Luten,” she said, taking her decision quickly. “Once Peter gets a taste of that low life his dear papa so abhorred, there is no saying where it will end. Offer her a couple of hundred pounds.”

Luten gave a snort of laughter. “She stands to get a thousand every quarter from Peter. She won’t be likely to settle for less.”

“A thousand pounds! It is too much!”

“She’ll never settle for a couple of hundred.”

“She shan’t get a penny more,” Lady Clappet said firmly. All signs of mourning were abandoned; a very martial light gleamed in her eyes.

“We’ll see. We may scrape through without giving her anything at all. I mean to try my charms on her. If I can gull her along, get her to give up Peter
...
”

“Yes, Luten, but then
you
are stuck with her.”

“My foolish sister, do you take me for a knave? Naturally I would not actually steal the boy’s mistress.”

A soft moan sounded in his sister’s throat.

“I’ll only lead her to believe she may have me for the taking. I shall insist on monopoly rights; she will turn Peter off, and
voil
à
!”
He threw up his hands. “I bolt on her. It will show her a useful lesson. She hasn’t dealt with a
man
before, I think. She’s only preyed on boys.”

“Do you think it will fadge?” she asked doubtfully.

“I have no idea. I think she considers me ready for a Bath chair, but we’ll soon know. I am to be there in half an hour. I’ll come right back to you. Had Nettie any luck in getting them evicted, by the way? You mentioned it earlier. They weren’t in the throes of packing last night.”

“Evans, the maintenance man, took the tale to the owner, but nothing has come of it so far. Nigel Patterson is the landlord, it seems.”