Miss Goldsleigh's Secret (23 page)

Chapter Thirty-Four

Olivia banged furiously on the massive door. When he opened the door to the townhouse on Cavendish Square, she was certain the butler had never, ever made quite that face before. He recovered his surprise at seeing her alone, and the proper-butler mask fell right back into place.

“Miss Goldsleigh,” Siegfried said, and the door swung wide open. He lifted her knapsack off her shoulder when she stepped over the threshold. “The ladies are upstairs. I’ll send more tea.”

“If the situation calls for anything, it’s for something stronger than tea.” Olivia dashed up the stairs to the parlor. There were more voices in the room than she was expecting, and they were all talking at once. Olivia prayed mightily to any God who would listen that there weren’t visitors in there. She didn’t think she could handle acting normal, not even for one minute.

“Olivia!”

Olivia flinched. She didn’t know which Cavendish sister squealed her name. It could have been any of them or all of them. She was engulfed in an enveloping hug that involved multiple arms, voices overlapping in welcome.

“I knew they’d find you.”

“Oh, Olivia, we’re all so happy you’re back and safe at home.”

“They did it in record time, too.”

“Not exactly.” Her theory was cinched up tight, when she spied Lady Francesca and her friend in the Cavendish parlor.
Oh good heavens, it really was all three of them on the Martha’s Patriot.
“You all are going to curse the day you ever met me.”

“Nonsense,” Aunt Evelyn squeezed her hand.

“You haven’t heard the latest,” Olivia told the ladies, still breathless from the dash up the stairs. Looking from face to face and seeing benevolently expectant faces, she really hated to disappoint them all.

The parlor door banged open, and Warren careened into the room at a run, pausing long enough to locate his sister in the crowd. The way his arms hugged her tightly to his chest relieved her of any anxiety over whether he was angry at her for leaving him. “I’m really sorry, Warren.”

Warren kissed her cheek. “It doesn’t matter. Lord Dalton brought you home.”

“Not exactly, but I was coming back anyway.”

The tea tray appeared, carried into the parlor by Siegfried himself. “I brought the usual,” the butler told her dryly.

Evelyn tried to lead Olivia to the settee. “Sit and tell us. You’ll feel better after tea and confession.”

“There’s no time for tea or biscuits or anything,” Olivia protested, refusing the offered seat.

As if no one had even heard her, and certainly not the urgent tone of her voice, Lady Francesca poured the tea and Miss Anna delivered the cups. Cassandra followed with a plate of biscuits. Olivia refused the teacup but took four biscuits and shoved them in her pocket.

“Did you leave because Henry is such a toad?” Daphne settled herself on a cushion on the floor near Olivia since all the chairs were taken.

“No,” Olivia replied most vehemently.

Daphne clearly didn’t believe her, based on the dubious look she gave her.

“When Henry told us the story this morning, he sounded like a beast,” Helen told her with a serious nod. “If he sounded like a beast even by his telling, well he must have been a beast.”

“There’s no time for this!
I promise to give you every wretched detail ad nauseam, but later.” Every woman in the room looked at her in confusion. She needed to move things along to the important matter at hand, namely the tide and that massive American vessel sailing away on it. “I couldn’t let Reginald hurt you.” Olivia gave Penelope an apologetic smile and took her friend’s teacup, placing it on a side table.

“And he didn’t,” Penny reminded them all. She rose from her seat when Olivia pulled at her arm.

“No, but the terror I felt when I thought he had…” Olivia swallowed hard at the memory. She snatched the cup and saucer from Daphne’s hands as well and tugged her to her feet. “No, I planned to do what the gentlemen thought I was going to do. I was going to buy passage on a ship to America.”

“Oh, Olivia.” Cassie’s look of sympathy changed to consternation when Olivia relieved her of her teacup and plate of biscuits.

“Even though Henry’s feelings for me have changed…” Olivia sighed, “…I couldn’t leave in the dark of night like that.” She added Vivienne’s teacup to the precarious pile on the side table.

“Oh, dear heart.” Lady Vivienne squeezed Olivia’s hand even while she towed her to her feet. “I think you underestimate my Henry.”

“I certainly hope so, but that seems like too much to presume.”

Anna resolutely held tight to her cup when Olivia approached.

“I’ll say that I am surprised the gentlemen didn’t stop in to brag on their rescuing proficiency.” Lady Evelyn settled back against the silk upholstery.

Olivia took a deep breath. She waved her hands in front of them and yelled, “
The gentlemen aren’t here.
They didn’t rescue me. In fact, they didn’t even see me.”

A roomful of eyes stared at her.

Lady Vivienne broke the silence first. “Where are they then?”

“Henry, His Grace, and Lord Harrington are all on a ship to America.”

Francesca stood from her chair, still in possession of her cup and saucer, and it clattered to the floor.

“Do tell,” Anna said with expectation.

Olivia made an effort to calm herself. She placed her palm over her chest and implored, “May I please explain in a carriage? There’s really no time to lose.”

As soon as Olivia’s meaning became clear, the remaining teacups rattled, and gasps filled the room. Lady Vivienne’s mouth opened and closed several times while she worked out what question she should ask first. Ten sets of eyes trained on Olivia, waiting for the punch line to her story.

“Sailing away?” Francesca’s voice wavered.

“Yes.”

The ladies looked from one to the other as if one of them had the secret to the puzzle.

“All three of them?” Cassandra clarified.

“Yes.”

“On a ship to America?” Francesca raised her voice.

Olivia nodded, trying desperately to convey urgency. There was silence and blinking while they all digested the new wrinkle.

“Oh heavens,” Lady Vivienne gasped.

There was another moment of shocked silence. Finally, Olivia shouted what she’d been trying to say all along. “We need to go fetch them before they’re in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.”

“How?” This came from several of the ladies.

Francesca suggested an idea that made Olivia want to weep with its simplicity. “Thomas has been teaching me to sail and he has a boat. It’s small and travels fast.”

“Excellent.” Olivia beamed at Francesca. “Let’s go.” She set about shepherding ladies towards the double doors.

Lady Vivienne issued an immediate protest. “You ladies can’t go rescue them. That’s insane.”

Francesca pointed out there were few alternatives, and that her husband was in possession of a fine sailing vessel. “I don’t know how you all feel, but I’d like to see my husband sooner than three months.” Francesca was a newlywed, after all, and Olivia suspected three months would be a long time indeed for a new bride and groom to be apart.

“If just the four of us go,” Olivia told the woman who, once upon a time, was to be her mother-in-law, “we’ll be faster. But we need to go now.”

“Four of you?” Vivienne looked about her.

“Yes, Penny, Lady Francesca, Miss Anna, and me.”

“I want to go!” Cassandra insisted, which set off a whole new round of chaos as other sisters demanded to go as well. Warren even gave Olivia a hopeful look, but she promptly quashed it with a shake of her head.

Aunt Evelyn rose to stand next to her sister. “Viv, let them. You can’t very well refuse Lady Harrington, Miss Anna, and Olivia anyway. Penny will be fine.” Vivienne started to protest, but Evelyn spoke over her, “You and I shall go to see Admiral Beasley and muster some assistance from the Navy. The admiral has always been partial to me. Perhaps he can be persuaded without too much fuss.”

The coachman made excellent time to the pier where Lord Harrington anchored his boat.

“I’ve never been on a sailboat before,” Penny volunteered nervously. “Of course, I’ve been on a boat, but not a sailboat I was to be expected to help keep afloat.”

“How long has your husband been teaching you to sail?” Olivia asked Lady Francesca.

“A little over a month now.”

“Oh, that long.” Olivia thought that sounded like a very short amount of time, actually.

Anna reached across the expanse of the carriage and patted her knee. “I’ve been onboard several times with the two of them. It seems quite easy.”

It turned out the “small boat” Lady Francesca had referred to was a twenty-eight-foot yacht with a mast at least as high as the boat was long. Its wood-and-brass fixtures gleamed in the afternoon sun. The Auburn Maiden was beautiful.

Olivia sincerely hoped they wouldn’t sink it.

Lady Francesca stepped aboard while Anna showed them how to untie from the dock, and before Olivia had time to reconsider the folly of the undertaking, they had cast off.

“First we hoist the mainsail,” Francesca instructed, and using hand gestures and excessive amounts of pointing and shouting, Olivia and Penny managed to pull on the correct ropes, and the giant white sail luffed in the stiff breeze. More directions, and the jib sail unfurled. “Tie the rope to the aft cleat. Aft is in the rear, Olivia. No the cleat, the cleat. The silver thingamabob over there.”

Penelope turned and took a wide stance to steady herself, then planted her hands on her hips and glared at Lady Francesca. “Are you going to yell at us the whole time because that is going to seriously lessen the amount of fun we’ll have during this rescue.”

“Really,” Olivia agreed, already a little sniffly from the earlier mainsail incident.

“I’m sorry,” Lady Francesca apologized. “It’s the oddest thing. Thomas and I had almost the exact same conversation when he brought me out for the first time. He was such a bully I almost swore off sailing altogether. It’s a good thing I didn’t, eh?”

Anna tied the rope to the cleat in question. “So no more yelling and we’ll all do our best, right, ladies?”

“Agreed,” they said in unison.

There was a quick lesson in terminology, and they all learned where starboard and port, forward and aft were.

“Now we point her into the wind,” Francesca explained.

They all pulled on ropes and tugged booms and adjusted the sheets. Olivia was pleasantly surprised when she looked up to find they were actually making progress in the water.

“Thomas is going to be so proud,” Francesca said with a wide grin. “He’s always positive I’m not paying attention.”

“It’s not like I didn’t warn you fellows.”

Henry was going to kill the American captain, and if he didn’t do it, the voice of reason, Harrington, was going to have a go at him. They had been far below decks searching for Olivia when they’d felt the ship leave the quay. By the time they emerged on deck in a dead run, the ship was swiftly moving down the channel.

“And don’t try that imperious ducal bullshit on me, Your Grace,” Captain Nathaniel Johnson told Morewether. He said the honorific with a sneer. “I don’t care one damn bit what you’re titled. You’re on my ship, and here I rank higher than all of you.”

“When we get off this ship,” Morewether threatened, “my title will guarantee you’ll never get a berth in London again.”

Johnson shrugged. “On my ship, the ranking goes me, my first mate, various drunken sailors, the blighter who scrubs the head, some bilge rats, and then the three of you.”

Henry restrained Morewether’s arm. He had to damn near hang on the thing before his friend relaxed and laughed off the American’s offending remark. As much as Henry wanted to do physical harm to the man, they needed his cooperation.

“I have to get off this ship,” Henry insisted again. “I’ll pay you handsomely to turn around.”

“I get paid quite handsomely for getting my cargo to Boston on time, thank you very much. I get paid even better when I come in early.” Johnson leaned his back against the rail and pulled on his pipe. It didn’t appear he was even remotely threatened by the three of them.

God dammit.

“Of course,” Morewether reminded Henry, “with her cousin unconscious on board, he certainly won’t be any threat to Miss Goldsleigh or your family.”

That was small consolation.

“Seriously, fellows, if I don’t get back to London by dinner…” Harrington turned at the wheel and strode back to the rail, “…Francesca is going to kill me.”

“She might kill you.” Morewether nodded at his brother-in-law. “She’s a mean woman.”

“She’s not mean.” Henry was going to nail Harrington’s boots to the deck if he didn’t stop the infernal pacing. “But she does carry your balls in her reticule.”

“You’re just jealous because you’d hand Miss Goldsleigh your balls for safe keeping and be happy about it, except she’s Not. On. This. Bloody. Boat.” Harrington at last stopped his pacing. That was something.

“Both of you shut up. You’re equally pathetic,” Morewether thundered. “As the lone man among you in control of his own prick, I’ll have you know I have an assignation with a certain lady I’ve been working on for some time, and I’m going to be very disagreeable if I miss this appointment.”

Captain Johnson laughed until his eyes watered. “I told you there were no passengers.”

“I’m positive I saw her,” Henry insisted.

“Harvey,” Johnson yelled up the mast.

“Aye, Captain?” a sailor yelled back, the voice nearly lost in the wind.

“Come down.” Johnson eyed the three of them with a mirthful sparkle. From high up in the crow’s nest, a man began his descent. He slithered down the series of ropes and ladder rungs with the skill of a monkey. He jumped the last five feet, landing smartly near the captain. Harvey was quite small of stature. Most telling, however, was his waist-length blond hair. “Was this what you saw?”

Henry heard snickers from behind him. He whirled around and eyed his friends with murderous intent. “I dare you to say one word.”

Morewether turned to Harrington. “I don’t know, Harvey’s kind of fetching, don’t you think?”