Lynne Connolly (13 page)

Richard passed his hand over his face, sighing. “I know.”

“It wasn’t your fault. Your mother found her a husband and a new start. It wasn’t her fault that the husband turned out abusive and she couldn’t settle. She saw you as her one chance. She never understood that you’d never have been allowed to marry her.”

“What I want I usually find a way of getting.”

“At fourteen?” I exchanged a glance with Richard. That was when he’d started to learn, to gather around him the strength he had today. I thought it was probably also the time he’d realised that he’d have to fight for an identity of his own. Certainly, although the money he’d made with Thompson’s wasn’t anything like the fortune he’d inherit, he’d used his share of the profits to make financial investments that ensured he’d never be poor, even if he never touched the family fortune. He’d done it for himself. Nobody could take the title and inheritance away from him, short of his death, but he wanted a place of his own, an independence outside the Southwood estate.

He said nothing to Susan now about that. “I need to know what he’s planning. I don’t want to destroy him, but I will if he threatens Rose again. I want to know so I can stop him without him doing more damage.”

Susan nodded. “I understand that, but I won’t spy on you for him, or the other way about.”

“We expected him to ask you. I’m glad you won’t,” I said. It spoke to her integrity.

Richard had thought of it too, and yet he’d still asked to meet her here. True, we had a few trusty men distributed around the building and inside it, but she wasn’t to know that. And John wouldn’t come here. To do so would ensure he walked into a trap.

Susan left after assuring us she wouldn’t tell John what she knew, but Richard persuaded her not to tell him too much about her plans, either. “I’ll give you a good settlement, and I can facilitate your wedding, if you need it.”

“That might be a good idea,” she admitted. “But John knows where Andrew lives in Wales, and he might visit. I don’t want that. I want a complete break.” Her gentle words and her softened expression told me all I wanted to know about her relationship with her client. I had never seen her appear in that way before. After her troubled childhood, an older man might give her what she needed, stability and care. I could only hope so.

Chapter Nine

The brusque summons to visit his father in Southwood House came as no surprise. Richard received many such these days, as he was working more closely with his father on estate matters, but this struck him for some reason as odd and he asked me to accompany him.

Lord Southwood received us in his book room, a simple name for a grand apartment where he received his men of business. His secretary, a dour-faced man of impeccable but unimaginative approach, showed us in with all the pomp he felt his master deserved.

Lord Southwood glanced at me with surprise as he greeted me, but said nothing untoward until a maid had brought a tray of tea and left. Perhaps he thought Richard had brought me to pour for him. I obliged, although I would soon inform him otherwise, if he tried to dismiss me.

Which he did. “I believe Lady Southwood is at home, my dear.”

“How nice for her,” I said. His lordship stared but said nothing as I retook my seat, a chair his man had hastily pulled up to accommodate my presence. I was tiring of all these meetings and furtive discussions. Richard glanced at me, arched a brow and smiled. I didn’t need his approval, but it warmed me nonetheless.

“So who is this upstart and what does he want?” At least his lordship got straight to the point.

“He’s my son, his sister is a courtesan and he claims that I was married to his mother.” When his lordship had stopped spluttering, Richard continued, without allowing him to get a word in. “I was not, but he has a document purporting to be marriage lines. I promised to marry her once, but not in the presence of witnesses.”

“I will deal with this.” Lord Southwood stuck out his jaw and glared down his nose at his son.

Richard remained unimpressed. “No, sir, you won’t. I’m quite capable of handling this unfortunate business for myself. You tried to interfere once before, and it resulted in this mess.”

“You will do as you are told otherwise I will cut off your allowance.” A poor threat, since we didn’t depend on any allowance from his father.

Richard shrugged. “You must do as you see fit, sir. However, I’d advise against it. Society will pounce on any breach between us, and that will benefit John.”

“What do you propose to do?”

“Assess, collect information and then make a decision. I will let you know what I plan. Meantime, I’d advise you to keep your wife under control. My mother has plans to use John to lever me into doing what she wants. She sees the question mark placed against my marriage as a chance for her to prise me away from Rose. You know that won’t work, and I assume you don’t wish to see Helen made illegitimate.”

“No indeed.” Lord Southwood shuddered. “I’ll make it clear that she must stop her activities and deny the gossip if she hears it.” I doubted she’d do that. She’d let people come to their own conclusions, helped along with a seemingly innocent remark or two. No doubt society already knew that John and Susan’s mother once worked for our family.

Richard got to his feet. “To be frank, I’m tired of discussing and planning. I have my own resources, but be aware that I will not acknowledge him publicly as my son, and I will not have Rose compromised in any way whatsoever.” He reached into his pocket and dragged out a document. “I had a copy made of my second marriage document. Be so good as to add it to the family vault. I have the original.” He got to his feet and tossed the document on the large mahogany desk to join the neat piles of papers awaiting his lordship’s attention. Then Richard waited for me to follow suit and stand up, ready to leave. I had little choice.

We travelled home by a circuitous route so that we could go through Covent Garden. I visited the Opera House, of course, but as a respectable woman I was expected to remain ignorant of the majority of the houses here. Some coffeehouses, a few shops, and many, many whorehouses, bagnios and gaming houses. Richard pointed one out to me, a large red brick house on the corner of Covent Garden and King Street. “Mother Brown’s. Supposedly the best whorehouse in London, but that remains to be seen. It has straight gaming tables, though, and I may have to visit it soon.”

“Why? Are you tired of me?” I could ask this in perfect confidence, so I enjoyed his slight flush and the startled expression in his wide blue eyes when he turned them to me.

“Hardly, my sweet. That will take a lifetime. No, I want to investigate a small matter that has come to light. Don’t worry, I’ll inform you of every move. But if anyone were to say to you that they saw me in that house, you’d know it was the gaming room they referred to.”

“You didn’t have to tell me.”

He lifted my hand and brushed his lips on the back of my glove. “I know. I can’t think what I did to deserve such good fortune. I have a wife who trusts me implicitly.”

“Because you trust me. If you went astray, I’d know. Just by the way you behaved.”

He gave a short laugh. “Yes, no doubt you would. I have no intention of giving you cause. It is our strength. And why should I want milk when I have cream at home?”

A flush warmed my face, but I knew he enjoyed my blushes.

We swung around the corner of the piazza into a smaller warren of streets. Maiden Lane ran parallel to the Garden’s south side and contained a huge variety of buildings. Gentlemen’s clubs, the inevitable whorehouses, lodging houses and shops containing a variety of items jostled for room, the houses appearing attenuated with the press for space. We had to alight at the end, because it was too narrow a street for a carriage to turn around and had only a pedestrian footpath at the other end.

The cobbled stones were worn away by time and the houses reached over us, appearing to lean in at the top. A fascinating mixture of respectable houses, interspersed with shops, inns and the occasional disreputable, rundown building caught my fascinated gaze.

Towards the end of the street, Richard indicated an anonymous-looking house. “That is the place Julia and Steven took for their club. The sign of the triangle, the Cytherean Club.”

I marked the house closely, and as we watched, someone approached and used the knocker to tap out a series of signals. The door opened almost immediately.

We lingered, studying the window of a shop a little farther up the street, which had a good display of toys, snuffboxes, fans and the like.

After a little while we saw Steven Drury. Richard stepped forward. “May we offer you a ride somewhere?”

Steven glanced back at the house. Nobody appeared to be watching. “You are too kind, sir,” he replied, and we went back up the street to where our carriage waited, the two bay horses stamping impatiently.

The footman swung the door open and Richard gestured elegantly. “Get in.”

Steven leaped up without troubling to pull down the foldaway steps. I waited until the footman had performed the office before I followed him. Steven sat opposite us. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” he drawled.

I studied him closely. His eyes seemed wide, almost startled, and his muscles tensed. He was on alert. As he should be in Richard’s vicinity. But we had entered into an uneasy truce since our shared experience last autumn, when Steven had the choice of using me or helping me. He’d elected to help us both escape our captivity. His choice had gone a long way to reconcile Richard to his previous treatment of me. But Julia’s continued hostilities made any closer connection impossible, even had we wished for such a thing.

“Why did John Kneller visit you yesterday?” Richard asked.

Steven closed his eyes and tipped his head back against the squabs, inhaling deeply. Then he let his breath out in a great gush and smiled grimly. “I might have known you’d get to hear. Are you having us watched, or him?”

“Or did I hear of it in the normal way of things?” Richard prompted gently. “I heard of it in the Cocoa-Tree last night. How I heard it is my affair. You surely didn’t assume his frequent visits to your club would go unnoticed.”

The carriage jolted back into the piazza of Covent Garden and then up Drury Lane. “If you could arrange for your minion to stop coming to the club, I’d be grateful,” Steven said. “He is proving most insistent.”

“On what?”

Steven glanced at me. A flush stained his cheekbones. “Do I have to be specific?”

“Yes,” I said before Richard could interrupt. I tired of men treating women as delicate creatures to the point of stupidity, and even Richard succumbed to that urge from time to time. I preferred to know precisely what was going on, as the two men currently occupying the carriage had good cause to know.

Steven rubbed his hand over his eyes. “You know that Julia prefers her affairs in the multiple.”

“More than one man at a time, yes,” I said. That was no surprise. “And has the reprobate proven willing?”

“Every meeting, every time.” Steven opened his mouth, then closed it with a snap. I felt sure he wanted to tell us something else and thought better of it. “He’s taking over. This club was supposed to be a harmless diversion.”

Richard snorted. “It was never that. I can’t believe you thought it. Julia prefers her men obedient. And her ambition overtops her personal desires.”

“As I’m only too aware.”

I raised a brow. “Has the worm turned? Are you tiring of your beautiful spouse?”

Steven gave me a straight stare. “That is my affair. But I would prefer her not to involve herself in too many business matters. Now her father is so frail she has taken control of the business, and not all her decisions are wise ones.”

Richard leaned back and stretched his arm along the seat behind my head. The carriage swung back into Covent Garden. It was never quiet, but at this time of day, just before dinner, the place entered a kind of siesta. The night people were waking, the market traders had gone long since, and the shopkeepers were taking their dinners. So only a few people strolled around the piazza, and none of them took much notice of us despite the crest on the door of the carriage.

“I know,” Richard said. “Some of her father’s business concerns overlap with mine, and my father’s. That was why she was proposed as a match for me. Julia was always headstrong and she rarely listens to advice. You should take control. She’d like that.”

Steven frowned at him before glancing out of the window. We’d reached the corner leading to the side street that led to Maiden Lane. “I’ll get out here.”

Richard reached past him and rapped on the wall. “Try to keep your wife in check and we’ll see what we can do about your visitor. That young man is becoming altogether too much of a nuisance.”

But he wouldn’t do it for Steven, and Steven knew that. After he’d alighted and we were on our way home, we looked at each other and at the same time declared, “He’s worried.” He would hardly have confided that much in us otherwise.

Richard sighed. “I fear I might have to visit this house of ill repute. Julia will be overjoyed. But I think I’ll send someone else first.”

“Freddy?”

“As you say, my love, as you say.”

I liked Freddy Thwaite, and I fear if it were not for Richard, I would have taken him in a heartbeat. Most of London liked Freddy, but most of London was unaware of the razor-sharp mind that lurked beneath the easygoing exterior. Freddy wore his mask as easily as Richard wore his, but where Richard left his fashionable, sophisticated exterior for everyone to see, like an elaborate Venetian mask, Freddy wore his with subtlety and guile, as if he had a replica of his face fashioned to wear when he wanted to conceal his true feelings—which was most of the time.