Letters to a Lady (9 page)

“I shall be asking very soon, but meanwhile please don’t bother with small favors. Ronald can take me to Drury Lane,” Diana told him.

“I’m not doing a favor. I’m asking one from you in this matter,” he explained. “My hope is to prevent the Grodens from filling the extra seats in my box. After an evening in their company, I am merely ensuring my own sanity. The man’s conversation is the greatest bore since Milton penned
Paradise Lost
.”

“Oh, do you hate it, too?” Diana asked, and laughed. “I never could see what all the excitement was about. In that case, we shall be very happy to do you another favor, Harrup.”

When they returned, Diana followed Harrup into his office. He looked at her questioningly. “The letters,” she said. “I want to make sure they’re all there, safe and sound.”

Harrup pulled them from his pocket and removed the pink ribbon. He flipped through the stack quickly, then cast a frowning look at Diana. “There are two missing.”

“No! I counted them. The six were there. Look again.”

“Six? I wrote Laura eight letters.”

They regarded each other in consternation. “She only gave me six,” Diana assured him. “I’m positive. Peabody and I counted them twice.”

Harrup began pulling out the sheets and scanning them. He cast each aside on the desk as he finished. Diana picked them up and glanced at them. As he didn’t object, she began to read one through. Her cheeks turned pink and she stared at Harrup in astonishment.

He was busy and didn’t notice her expression. “She kept the warmest ones,” Harrup said, and emitted a proficient curse. “First, she leads Markwell to this lot to let him steal my appointment, then she keeps the worst of the bunch to hold me to ransom and make me a laughingstock. I can’t believe Laura would act so badly. I’ll be ruined if she takes into her head to publish them—or shows them to Groden! My God!”

Diana blinked at him. “Warmer than this?” she asked, looking at the letter. “‘Every hour away from your alabaster arms seems a day, every day an eternity ...’” 

Harrup, blushing furiously, took it from her and crushed it into a ball. She promptly took up another. “‘Eyes like star sapphires set in alabaster marble,’” she read, and giggled. “More alabaster. The woman sounds like a quarry. Such lack of originality! I thought you would make love more convincingly.”

Harrup snatched the lot and threw them into the fireplace. One sheet came loose, and Diana ran after it. He grabbed her wrist and spun her around. Laughing, Diana held the letter behind her back, beyond his reach. “No, do let me see what other marble features Mrs. Whitby possesses.”

Harrup reached behind her back with his other hand till she was encircled in his arms. As he bent over her, he found himself gazing into her laughing eyes. Tendrils of golden curls framed her forehead and tumbled forward over her cheeks, which were pink and soft and not at all like marble. Her lips were open, revealing a straight row of pearly teeth. Warm breaths fanned his cheek.

“Say please, Harrup,” she teased, and danced away.

Harrup let her go, but stood looking at her with a peculiar, conscious expression in his eyes. For a flashing instant he had felt a strong urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her. Even now he was aware of how well she filled that striped gown, how slender her waist and how full her breasts, how attractive she looked despite her disarray. It was the liveliness that did it. Di was always a lively girl. She had blossomed into a very alluring woman, but still kept that youthful sense of fun and adventure.

He felt uneasy with these thoughts and thought she was uneasy, too. When he took a step toward her, she handed him the letter with a shy smile. “I was only fooling,” she said, and went immediately to sit primly at his desk. “What are you going to do about Mrs. Whitby, Harrup?”

“Pay her,” he said grimly. “I don’t have many options. I wonder she hasn’t sent me a menacing note before now.”

“I wouldn’t give her a sou if I were you.”

“If you knew how much I want that appointment, you would. And with my marriage to Selena approaching—it would be a wretched embarrassment to the poor girl. Groden’s kept her bundled in cotton wool. She has no notion what I—what men—that is…”

“How old is she?”

“Eighteen, I think.”

“Eighteen!” Diana exclaimed, staring in disbelief. “You’re marrying a child of eighteen! Good God, you’re twice her age. How can you—” She noticed the stiffening of Harrup’s jaw and fell silent, though her rebukeful gaze lingered.

“It is not at all unusual for a man of my years to marry a lady making her debut.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Diana agreed. “But it seems wrong, somehow. So you plan to pay Whitby—five thousand, I think you mentioned.”

“Not a penny less. She has a pretty accurate idea what I’m worth and what she might reasonably try to squeeze out of me.”

Diana blinked. “Five thousand,” she said pensively. “That is every penny I’m worth in the world. Imagine, a couple of sheets of your scribbling are worth my entire dot.”

Harrup shrugged indifferently. “To put it another way, your dot is worth the attorney generalship, if that makes you feel more valuable.”

“But still, it is too much to give to a scoundrel like Mrs. Whitby. We must get the letters back.”

“No!” Harrup stated very firmly. “We shall do nothing of the sort. I have always treated Laura well, however, and I shall make a visit to try to charm them out of her.”

She gave him a quelling look. “You’ll end up writing her another batch of drivel that will turn up when you’re trying to become lord chancellor. No, Harrup, object though you may—and shall—I am the one who must get your letters. Now let me see,” she said, and frowned into the distance. “It’s a pity she’s met me, or I might try to scrape an acquaintance under some alias and weasel my way into her confidence.”

“You would pose as a member of the muslin company, I expect?” Harrup asked, lips unsteady.

“Why, no, merely a maker of bonnets or gowns for such boudoir aristocracy. Naturally. I do not suggest this raddled old countenance would ever incite a gent to fork over his blunt—or compromise his judgment by running off at the pen. I leave that to alabaster ladies with eyes like star sapphires and hearts of forged steel,” she finished, trying to stare him down.

Harrup regarded her for a moment, and when he spoke, he seemed to have forgotten their discussion. “How old are you now, Di?”

“A hundred and twenty-five, give or take a century. Why do you ask?”

“You should have been on the market a few years ago when you were—” Harrup stopped, aware by the glitter in her eyes that he was giving offense.

“What, are there no partis twice my age on the town? Surely there must be a few doddering widowers on the catch for such a well-aged article as I.”

“I have trod on your toes. Sorry, my dear. I didn’t mean to imply you were over the hill.”

Diana dismissed the apology with such casual indifference that Harrup knew she was untouched. “This tough old hide doesn’t wound easily. To return to business, Mrs. Whitby said she would be seeing you in London soon. Can you discover whether she has arrived?”

“I expect I shall be the first to know,” he replied through thin lips.

She shook her head. “No, Markwell will be the first to know. They’re obviously working together. He followed us to the inn in Hitchin and stole your letters. He could only have known our route if she told him. He was with her when he told you he was visiting his father. He must be her new lover. Why else would she share her letters with him? She wants to give her lover a leg up the ladder and saw a means of embarrassing you into the bargain. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” she added sagely.

Harrup considered this, but he was far from convinced.

“Why would she bother giving you any letters at all? She could have told me she burned them, and given them all to Markwell.”

“I don’t know,” Diana admitted. “That is odd, now you mention it. Unless—I don’t know. Perhaps she only wanted to embarrass you without showing her own hand. But in that case she would have given Markwell all the letters.”

“I still can’t believe Laura would do such a thing. I go along with you to the point where Markwell was with her and she told him she was giving you my letters, but I don’t believe she encouraged him to steal them. That was his own idea.”

“Why did she keep the warmest ones?” Diana asked.

Harrup’s frown softened to a smile. “For sentimental reasons. We’re looking for trouble where there is none. Laura has no intention of trying to get money from me for the letters.”

Diana just shook her head. “You actually believe she has them wrapped in lavender, to read when she’s feeling lonesome? How can a fully grown man be such an idiot?” she asked in a purely rhetorical spirit.

“How can you be so cynical? Damsels are supposed to be idealistic, romantically inclined.”

“It is only attractive gentlemen we idealize. She had a sly smile, Harrup. You haven’t heard the end of this.”

“I’ll make some inquiries and discover if Laura has come to town yet. If she has, I’ll call on her and turn her up sweet.”

Diana rose and yawned. “Take your checkbook with you,” she suggested. “It always works with Peabody. And now I am off to bed.”

She took up her muddied cape and left the room. Harrup remained behind, thinking. He thought he had the matter figured out. Laura had taken Markwell for her new lover; he had been with her and pirated the letters from Peabody, but those letters were now safe, and Laura—dear Laura—had no intention of using the other two letters to embarrass him. Still, he’d take along a small piece of jewelry when he visited her. A brooch or a bracelet—or cash might be more convenient. Markwell wasn’t well to grass. Best to keep Laura in good spirits.

The next morning, Peabody learned from Diana that the letters had been recovered, though she wasn’t quite clear how this miracle had happened. “Found them where, Di? They were not lying in the street.”

“You’d have to ask Ronald. I believe he called on Markwell and came across them in the man’s study.”

“But where were you during all this? Don’t tell me Ronald took you to call on a bachelor!”

“No, no. I waited in the carriage.”

“How did your cape get destroyed sitting in a carriage?”

“I dropped it—accidentally.”

“Wouldn’t you know it would land in a puddle,” Peabody said, well able to believe it of fate.

The important thing was that the letters were secure, and Peabody felt brave enough to take breakfast with Harrup and Diana. Di got Harrup aside and informed him of the vague manner in which his letters had been recovered.

“What frivolities do you ladies have in mind for the day?” he asked.

“We might as well head back home,” Peabody answered. “We have your letters safely back and Ronald settled in. I dread to think of him living in those cramped quarters, poor boy. Isn’t it a caution how he knew Markwell and could drop in to see him? I never thought he would be so clever.” Di glared hard. “Of course, he is up to all the rigs—a regular dasher.”

Diana hurried in to change the subject. “Harrup has invited Ronald and me to Drury Lane this evening.” Peabody glowed, taking it as a compliment to herself.

Diana figured that she would ask Harrup about a job for Ronald that evening, when Lady Selena had him in a good mood. “We can go home tomorrow,” she said to her chaperon.

“Why don’t you stay a few days?” Harrup suggested.

Peabody cast a benign eye on her Chuggie and said, “We don’t want to impose on your hospitality.”

“Impose?” he asked, and laughed. “I imposed on your good nature for several years, Peabody. I have an empty house at the moment. I hope you will consider it your home. Stay a week. Di’s in no rush to get back to the Willows, are you?” he finished, turning to her.

“No, there’s nothing to go home to,” she admitted.

He shook his head in sympathy. “As bad as that, is it? You really ought to submit your name at court and make a debut. Some doddering old bachelor would have you,” he joked.

Peabody laughed inanely to show Diana how she was to receive this compliment. “Chuggie was always a prime jokesmith,” she said.

“I’m sure his wit is much appreciated in the House, if it can be heard above the snores.”

Peabody soon left to begin work on the soiled cape, which had to be ready for Drury Lane that evening, and Diana went with Harrup while he got his hat and gloves. “I hope everything goes all right with Ronald at Bow Street this morning,” she said.

“Don’t worry your head about that. Markwell’s servant will produce the
Waverley
novel as evidence, Ron will pay his fine, and that will be an end to it.”

“Yes, but Markwell will know by now that the letters were stolen, and—”

“What can he do about it?” Harrup asked with satisfaction. “He can hardly report them as stolen. He won’t show his nose at Bow Street. Don’t worry. But I’ll keep a sharp eye on him, see how he acts toward me. I’m off now. Enjoy your day, Diana.”

He gave her fingers a light squeeze and left. The sun shone brightly as he stepped out to his curricle. He had his letters back, and soon he would receive notice of his appointment. It had been enjoyable to have some female company at breakfast. Before long he would have the daily pleasure of Selena’s pretty face across from him. Selena was not quite so lively as Diana, of course, but when she became more at home with him, she’d open like a rosebud in the sun.

She was still a child really, eighteen. Approximately half his age. When he was fifty, she’d be thirty-three. In her prime, while he was on the down road. Foolish to worry about that so soon. Selena wasn’t the sort of lady to cause her husband worries. A nice, docile child—lady!

Diana’s day was busy. Ronald came directly to her from Bow Street. He had escaped with a fine of three guineas—a blow, but not crushing. Markwell had not been there, and best of all, he had had the wits to use an alias. Whether George Cuthbert would be happy that his name was the one that popped into Ronald’s head was a matter of some concern, but as he had no intention of telling Cuthbert, he soon forgot that detail.

“I daresay Harrup was very grateful we got his letters back for him, once he settled down,” he said, looking hopefully to hear what form the gratitude had taken.