Love's Harbinger (12 page)

“Couldn’t you just threaten Shaft that if he doesn’t resign . . . I am thinking of the man’s reputation, his private life,” Lady Lynne said.

“We are discussing his public life,” Guy answered grimly. “When a man puts himself up for public office, he must set an example. He ought to be like Caesar’s wife, above reproach. Politics needs the best men, not the scum.”

Faith listened and felt a shiver dart up her spine. The man was implacable. He would have his story, and never mind who suffered. The easier way was not his way, not when there was a good story in it. “That should make lively reading,” she said tartly.

“It will,” he promised. “I see you ladies are displeased with me. It’s the Shafts of the country who have brought us to the plight we’re in.”

“Our plight does not seem all that wretched to me,” Faith said.

“You are one of the ten thousand, Lady Faith. In a country of ten million, ten thousand enjoy your privileges. That’s one in a thousand, one tenth of one percent. For every Lady Faith, there are a thousand unfortunate Millies, is another way to look at it.”

“How convenient for you bachelors!”

“The man’s a criminal. I don’t have to justify what I’m doing,” he said angrily.

And Thomas, as far as Delamar was concerned, was just another criminal. He’d be equally intransigent with Thomas—even more so, given his hatred of aristocrats. Her feminine compassion was stirred on Mr. Shaft’s behalf. Her own part in unmasking him was a further burr. Why had she done it? It was Delamar’s air of rectitude that had impressed her, but how much of that air was real, honest rectitude and how much an excuse to persecute his enemies, to pillory them in print? And on her own side, she had to admit that she had helped him as much to gain his good opinion as to curb political chicanery.

Over breakfast, there was more discussion of the night’s doings, but Faith hardly listened and said nothing. She remembered the angry lurch of her heart when she saw that woman issuing from Guy’s room. It was worse than seeing the red peignoir in Thomas’s flat. Were all men so horrid? How long had she been there? Long enough to do more than hand him an envelope, she figured. He wouldn’t have sent Fletcher downstairs if that had been all their business together.

As they were in a hurry, there was no dawdling over breakfast. The ladies went upstairs to prepare their valises, while Guy gave some last-minute instructions to Fletcher before the latter returned to London. Lady Lynne, worried that she had been precipitate in mailing the cancellation of the engagement, immediately lit into her charge for her morose behavior at breakfast.

“That’s a poor way to nab a fellow, miss! You’d think he’d stolen money, like Thomas, to judge by your Friday face.”

“I expect he did worse than that, Auntie. Why did he send Fletcher away when that trollop was in his room?”

“The man is a bachelor, for goodness’ sake. Men have appetites that you know nothing about. Don’t they teach you chits anything in your seminary? All that sort of thing will stop once he’s shackled—or it will if his wife has her wits about her.”

“Then you do think he was . . .”

“It wouldn’t surprise me. What’s the harm in it? It’s not as though that Millie person were an innocent girl. Entertaining gentlemen is her business. He paid her. What more do you want of him?”

“Less hypocrisy,” Faith said. Her jaw again assumed its frozen, mulish angle. “He shouldn’t preach so much piety if he’s no better than the others. I thought he was something special—a war hero, a self-made man, a good man.” Thomas at least had never assumed any air of rectitude. She knew him for a gazetted flirt.

“Pooh!” was her aunt’s answer to what she considered pious fustian. “He is an excellent
parti
. There isn’t a man alive who don’t chase after skirts when he’s away from home, Faith, and the sooner you learn it, the better. Why, if that is all that concerns you, you obviously don’t know much about Thomas Vane.”

“What about him?” she demanded swiftly.

“Lud, he’s the worst womanizer in London. With his looks, he had his pick of them all, and he didn’t turn down many, I can tell you.”

“But you said he was unexceptionable!”

“He is—was unexceptionable for you. Do you think it’s easy to find a husband for a country chit with no dowry to speak of and no extraordinary beauty? Your papa, the gudgeon, insisted on a title into the bargain. I’ll tell you something I had hoped to keep from you, for otherwise you’ll return to Mordain Hall a spinster. Thomas was not all that hot to have you, my girl. His papa insisted he marry or he’d not pay his debts. It was debtors’ prison or you—those were Thomas’s choices. It comes to seem he preferred a life of crime to marrying you, so you need not mount your high horses because Guy Delamar had a lightskirt in his room. There’s a time to be wide awake and a time to close one eye: For you, this is a time to close one eye and not look too sharp out of the other.”

Faith stared at her aunt with a disbelieving look. “But you said Thomas was unexceptionable! He told you he would be desolate if I refused him!”

“Aye, so he would. A mighty unpleasant hole, debtors’ prison.”

“He said he loved me,” she added on a whisper.

“Hah! I wish I had a shilling for every silly chit he said that to.”

“Then why are we here? Why are we following Thomas?”

“Because he has my five thousand guineas, that’s why. And because I hoped you might nab Delamar, if we could get him alone, away from more desirable ladies,” Lady Lynne said baldly. Of course she did not mention her first hope of attaching him herself.

Faith turned away and began to shove clothing into her valise. Tears pricked at the back of her eyes, but by holding her breath and counting, she restrained them. Thomas didn’t love her. He had never loved her. She was a last resort—no more. His handsome, dashing face, those eyes that had looked deep into hers and told her she was “a darling,” had lied. She had been made a dupe by him and her aunt, and had made a fool of herself by praising him to Delamar. She wished she could crawl into the valise and have someone close and lock her inside, to avoid meeting Guy again. Not that he was any better!

Her face was long when they went downstairs to meet the gentlemen. Guy took Lady Lynne’s valise from the page boy, and Mr. Fletcher took Faith’s and led her to the carriage.

“Graveston has just picked up the letter and has gone after Shaft,” Fletcher told her. “I daresay you find Guy’s attitude a little intransigent. He’s a soldier at heart, you know. They play for keeps. If you give your enemy a second chance, you end up very dead. He must have showed you the spent bullet he uses for a watch fob. It landed in his cheekbone on the occasion when he showed mercy to a wounded soldier in Spain. He kept it as a reminder. Shaft is a born scoundrel like his father before him. Bribery, corruption—every manner of crooked dealing. Guy wouldn’t have sent me down to cover just any by-election. He’s had his muzzle aimed on Shaft for a long time, ever since Graveston discovered the mishandling of affairs here. It would be asking too much to give Shaft another chance.”

“I assure you I am not asking anything of Mr. Delamar,” she said primly.

“He hoped you would not ask that favor, in any case. As to asking anything other than that . . . well, I shouldn’t hesitate. He’s generous. If you have much to do with him, you’ll find he asks a good deal of you. He doesn’t mind asking the impossible of people—the strangest thing is that they seldom refuse.”

They reached the carriage, shook hands, and made their farewells. “I’m back to London to oversee getting out the rag. Perhaps I’ll see you there later, Lady Faith? Are you making a long visit at Bournemouth?”

She gave him a startled look, surprised that Guy had not told his close friend about Thomas. “No, not long. We’ll be back within a few days. Yes, I hope we meet again.”

He stored her valise and helped her into the waiting carriage.

Chapter Eight

Guy’s carriage was already pulling out of the yard, and before long they drew up to the dock where the barge was waiting. It was not large enough to take the two carriages and teams in one crossing.

Guy came to them to explain the procedure. “I’ll go across first with my rig, then come back to accompany you. It helps to have an extra man with the horses in case they’re poor sailors. Bournemouth is only another twenty-five miles after that. We’ll be there for lunch.”

Lady Lynne said all that was polite, while Faith studiously regarded the
Times
, whose words were a blur in front of her eyes. She continued to hide behind the paper after Guy left, while her aunt went for a stroll along the dock. Faith wanted to go home. Not to London, but home to Mordain Hall to hide herself. Her Season was over, and she had failed. Next year Hope would be sent forth but not without an enlightening discussion with her failed sister.

Someone ought to warn debutantes about the jungle that awaited them in London. She had gone to town an innocent girl full of hopes. It had seemed, for a brief, halcyon month, that all her dreams were to come true. She had met her Prince Charming, had her offer of marriage, but now it had soured. She had only the disgrace of having accepted an offer from a rogue and the humiliation of facing society and her family. She hadn’t even been able to hang on to her rogue.

She wished she could at least conceal from the world the extent of Thomas’s treachery. If she could find him and make him return the money . . . When had she accepted that he had indeed stolen it? No matter, she accepted it now. If Delamar caught him, there would be no hope of keeping the thing quiet. If Thomas would only return the money and invent some story to cover his strange flight, then his family might be saved the shame of having harvested a criminal and she the degradation of having loved one.

This hope took a strong hold of her. Outwitting Mr. Delamar added a further incentive: It would give her great pleasure to best him. But how could she set about doing it? She must try to find Thomas before Delamar did.

As the weather was still blustery and cold, her aunt soon returned to the carriage, and Faith tried to enlist her aid. “It will be an awful scandal if Thomas’s thievery hits the papers. Delamar will blazon it in headlines for the whole world to read. His father and mother will be killed with shame. I wonder where he is.”

Her aunt wore a pensive face. Unmentioned by Faith, but of some importance to the aunt, was the fact that she had sponsored this match. It was she who would bear the brunt of blame and whose judgment would be in question. Lady Lynne had some misgivings herself about how Guy would handle the story in his paper. But her greatest fear was for the harm it would do to her niece’s chances. Now that Faith had managed to lose Guy’s interest, yet another replacement must be found. “Holed up in some inn, I expect. They will be the first places Guy looks. Has Thomas any friends in the neighborhood?”

“No.”

“Hmm.” A crafty light beamed in Lady Lynne’s eyes. Thomas was certainly at an inn, and Delamar would just as certainly find him unless she devised a scheme. Faith was of no use as a liar. Never having been a wife, she had not perfected the conjugal art of misleading a gentleman. It would be for herself to lead Guy a merry chase, while she found Thomas and got her money back. Of course she would try to talk him into returning the lot, but, failing that, she would at least have her share. Let the others fend for themselves. That self-seeking bounder would leap at the chance of getting away with most of his ill-gotten gains, and she doubted that Guy would bother to publish half a story if he had to omit the best part: that he had captured the thief.

While they were waiting for the barge to return, another carriage pulled up behind them at the wharf. It was a hired carriage, not at all elegant, and was full of noisy, clamoring women.

The man who sold tickets cast a jaundiced eye on the inferior carriage and strolled up to speak to Lady Lynne. “That’s the crew from across the water who were shipped in yesterday to entertain the gentlemen come to town for the election. Lightskirts, the lot of them,” he scoffed.

The ladies, vastly interested in this matter, stared at the carriage. The door opened, and two of the females descended to stroll up and down the beach. They recognized the black-haired wench as Millie, Guy’s cohort in catching Willie Shaft. Millie was the prettier of the two, and certainly the noisier. She gamboled about like a lamb, careless of the wind that carried her skirts into the air. Yet despite her awful voice and her common behavior, Faith had to acknowledge that the girl was uncommonly pretty.

When the barge returned and Delamar hopped ashore, Millie dashed up to him. They stood together chatting for a few minutes, longer than was necessary just to say good day. Guy leaned toward her, talking eagerly, and Millie nodded her head in agreement with whatever he had to say. When he pulled something from his pocket and handed it to her, the ladies exchanged a significant look.

“I assume Guy was pleased with Millie’s performance,” Faith said grimly.

“It looks like it,” her aunt agreed, “since he’s buying a ticket for a repeat performance.”

After his transaction was finished, he added further fuel to their anger by not approaching them but only helping the groom get their carriage and team aboard. His own team were experienced seamen, and had made no fuss about boarding an unsteady barge. Lady Lynne’s horses were landlubbers and resisted with all their force. It took a long time to coax them onto the barge, and once they were aboard, they continued to be restive. All Guy’s talent and all his time were required to keep them quiet.

The ladies were equally nervous. The barge seemed very small and the water exceedingly rough. The craft pitched and dipped till they were quite sure they were all going to end up in the cold sea. The wind carried balls of foam, which flew against their gowns and faces and destroyed their coiffures.

“Why don’t you get into the carriage? You’ll be more comfortable,” Guy suggested.

“If we are going to drown, I prefer not to do it locked up in a carriage,” Faith said grimly.