My Lord Murderer (22 page)

“I don’t pass at this hour all the time. And I often travel in the family carriage,” she explained. “It’s only when my stepmother or my half-sisters need it that I hire the hack.”

“Stepmother? Half-sisters?” Wys asked, laughing suddenly. “
Two
half-sisters, I’ll wager.”

“Why, yes! How did you guess that?”

“It’s so appropriate, don’t you see? You are Cinderella! You should have left me a glass slipper when you ran off that day!” he said delightedly.

The girl smiled and blushed. “I’m not at all like Cinderella, I’m afraid,” she said wistfully. “My stepmother isn’t at all cruel. And our meeting—at noon, not midnight—among all those apples wasn’t quite like a grand ball.”

“And a good thing too,” Wys agreed. “I’m no Prince Charming, and my dancing is atrocious.”

There was a silence between them as the fairy-tale atmosphere seemed to evaporate. “Why were you looking for me, sir?” the girl asked suddenly.

Wys was taken by surprise. Surely she must
know
why he’d been looking for her. But suddenly his heart fell. How stupid he was! Just because
he
had dreamed of nothing but her since the day they’d met was no reason to think that she had felt the same. She’d probably not given him a second thought. How could he have assumed that she was as glad to see him as he was to see her? He’d been behaving like a prize fool.

How should he answer her question? With the loss of his confidence, he became awkward and self-conscious. “I … I hadn’t asked you your name, you see…” he said lamely.

“Yes, I know,” she said softly. “I remembered that afterwards. I hadn’t asked your name either.”

Wys perked up. “
Did
you think of me afterwards?” he asked eagerly.

“Of course. I told you I would never forget your kindness.”

Wys didn’t know what to make of that. “I’m Wystan Farr,” he said.

“How do you do, Mr. Farr,” she responded politely. “My name is Anabel Plumb.”

“
Miss
Anabel Plumb?” he asked.

“Yes. Is there any special reason why you wanted to know my name?”

“Well, yes, Miss Plumb. I wanted your permission to … call on you.”

Miss Plumb seemed to catch her breath. “You wanted to c-call on me?”

“Yes. Very much.”

“Oh,” said Miss Plumb in a small voice.

“
May
I call on you one day soon?” he asked pointedly.

She looked at him, her honest eyes shining. “Oh, yes, I’d like that very—” But suddenly the shine faded from her eyes, and she gasped in consternation. “Oh, I’d forgotten…” she said miserably.

“Forgotten what, Miss Plumb?” Wys asked in alarm.

“I have just recently … been betrothed…” she said, agonized.

Wys stared at her for a moment, not understanding what she’d said. Then he said quietly, “Oh, I see.” He had thought, when he couldn’t find her, that he had reached the nadir of despair, but now he realized that there were depths he hadn’t plumbed. “Under the circumstances, then, it seems I’ve intruded on you to no purpose,” he said, his tone perfectly polite and matter-of-fact. “I’m sorry to have troubled you.”

She hung her head. He turned away abruptly and lowered the window. “Driver!” he called, sticking his head out. “You may put me down at the next corner.”

Pulling his head back in, he made an awkward obeisance to Miss Plumb. “I must bid you good day, ma’am. Please accept my good wishes for your future happiness.”

“Thank you, M-Mr. Farr,” she said, her lips trembling. The carriage stopped, and Wys opened the door and jumped down. “Drive on,” he told the coachman. The carriage started to move. Suddenly, Miss Plumb’s head appeared at the window. “Mr. Farr?” she called back to him, a pathetic little smile on her lips. “You … you’ll always be P-Prince Charming to m-me.”

Why had she said that? he wondered. He watched the carriage disappear down the street, feeling not at all like Prince Charming. If truth were told, he felt more like a frog.

After wandering about the streets for more than an hour, he found himself at Drew’s door. Mallow informed him that Lord Jamison had gone out but was expected back for dinner. Wys waited, sitting in the library staring moodily at the fire. So deep had he sunk in despond by the time Drew arrived that he could barely lift his head to greet his friend. “Where have you been?” he asked in a lifeless voice.

“At the F.H.C. They want me to race my chestnuts. I told them that I was in no mood to race—” He became aware of the deep gloom of Wys’s face and stopped in mid-sentence. “If I didn’t know you better,” he said in surprise, “I’d say you were desolate. Of course, I know that desolation is not an emotion indulged in by a moderate man, so I know you cannot feel as wretched as you look.”

“Don’t roast me, Drew. I’m as desolate as a man can be.”

Drew poured two glasses of Madeira from the decanter that Mallow had left on the table for them and thrust one into Wys’s hand. Dropping into an easy chair opposite, Drew ordered him to drink up. “I won’t have you disdaining my best Madeira, no matter how deep into the dismals you’ve fallen,” he said firmly. “Now, tell me what’s troubling you.”

“I found her,” Wys said shortly.

“What? The girl in the rose pelisse? However did you manage it?” Drew asked curiously.

“She passed along Jermyn Street again.”

“Did she indeed! What a bit of luck!”

Wys regarded his friend balefully. “Yes, that’s what I thought. It all seemed like … well, like a fairy tale.” He lapsed back into gloomy silence.

“I take it you found the girl not quite up to the mark … a bit less than your first impression of her led you to expect?”

“Not at all,” Wys said with a show of spirit. “She was even lovelier than I remembered.”

“Then, what’s…? Oh, I see. Married, is she?”

“Betrothed.”

Drew sighed and leaned back against the cushions of his chair. There was nothing he could think of to say to his friend that would in any way cheer him. Wys was inherently a sober, serious young man, not given to light or frivolous emotions. This was the first time that Drew had known him to be taken with a girl. Hetty had tried to interest him in several available females—almost as many as she had foisted on her brother—but Wys had withstood them all. Somewhere deep within him, Wys had a romantic streak, Drew surmised, and the first encounter with this girl had many elements of romance: he had rescued a damsel in distress, there was an intriguing mystery surrounding her identity, she had disappeared completely from his life, and he had spent the last few weeks daydreaming about her. Finding her today must have seemed to him a stroke of luck just short of miraculous. But Drew realized it was not lucky at all. Wys would have been more content to go on dreaming of her than to learn, so abruptly, that he must end the dream altogether.

The old saying that misery loves company was not true at all, Drew discovered as he looked across at his unhappy friend. Whatever made the old wives who originated the saying believe such nonsense? His misery over Gwen was not making Wys’s pain any easier, just as Wys’s tale of woe had not soothed him in the least. The truth about misery was that one must shake one’s self out of it. And the sooner the better. “Wys,” he said thoughtfully, “do you remember the day early last fall when we drove up to Langley Abbey?”

“You mean the day when the phaeton lost a wheel, and we had to put up at that verminous inn?” Wys recalled with a ghost of a smile.

“Yes, and we engaged in a charming adventure with the innkeeper’s daughter and her pink-cheeked cousin from the farm behind the stable?”

“Of course I remember. Why?”

“That was less than four months ago. Since then I went to my sister’s cursed ball, and you rescued a girl on Jermyn Street.
Love
came into our lives, and in four months two cheerful, high-spirited adventurers have been turned into a couple of mumpish, dreary moon-calves. If this is what love does to men, I’d prefer to spend the rest of my life without it.”

“So would I. But we seem to have no choice.”

“There may be more of a choice than you think. We needn’t surrender to this—what shall I call it?—
onslaught
.”

“Perhaps ‘incursion’ would be more apt,” Wys suggested in his sober way.

“Very well, incursion. We needn’t surrender to it. We can fight back.”

“How?”

“By going back to the state of mind we had in the fall. We were busy and active, game for any sport, ready for any light flirtation, ripe for any adventure…”

Wys sighed with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. “Did you have a particular adventure in mind?”

“How about the F.H.C. race, for a start?”

“I thought you’d already turned them down.”

“It’s not too late to change my mind.”

“I don’t see why
I
should. I’m not a noted whip. What chance would I have against a nonpareil like you?” Wys asked in the glum tone he’d used all evening.

“What about riding with me?”

Wys looked up with a flicker of interest. “With you? You’ve never taken
anyone
up with you on a curricle race.”

“I’d like to try it this time.”

“Do you mean it?” he asked, a real smile appearing on his face at last.

“Of course. More of a challenge. What do you say?”

“I say done!” Wys said, jumping up and holding out his hand to his friend. “What do you say we walk over to the stables right now and see how the chestnuts do?”

The two men, with Drew’s arm draped companiably over Wys’s shoulder, walked briskly from the room, leaving the gloomy lassitude that had enveloped them behind—for the time being at least.

Interest in the race had been high to begin with. The idea had started with an argument between Lord Sommerfield and Richard Warrenton over the relative merits of their matched pairs, Sommerfield claiming that his geldings could outrace Warrenton’s greys over any course at any distance. Before the air had cleared a race had been arranged, and five more contenders had put in claims for their pairs. The Four-in-Hand Club had taken on the chore of organizing the details. Sporting events were infrequent in the winter season, and soon the race was the talk of the
ton
. Bets were being laid at all the clubs, but the feeling prevailed that unless Drew Jamison were a contender, the results would be unsatisfactory. Therefore, when the word spread that Jamison had entered the lists, interest zoomed, and the betting became serious.

The race would begin ten miles up on the Great North Road, ending at the green at Islington. There would be four starts, ten minutes apart, the winner being the curricle which made the best time. Two curricles would start off together, to be followed by two more ten minutes later, four starts in all. The winner of each start would receive a prize, but the top winner would be the driver of the curricle which made the best time of the eight. All plans, however, were contingent upon the weather, snow and ice being a particular threat in January. But the day agreed upon dawned cold and clear, and an impressive number of carriages started out from London that morning and made their way up the Great North Road. Most people, however, chose to go to Islington and take places at the finish line. By noon a gay crowd had gathered at the Islington green, the watchers well-wrapped in mufflers and mittens and filling the winter air with the sound of laughter and excited voices.

Gwen had heard of the race but did not feel any particular interest in it. Tom, however, was looking forward to it in a fever of excitement. He carefully avoided mentioning it at home, but on the morning of the race his eagerness to be out of the house was so great that it was apparent to everyone. “Where are you off to so impatiently?” Gwen asked him.

Tom hesitated before answering. True to his word, he had not seen Drew since the day he’d left Drew’s house, but his interest in his hero remained high. His sister could not expect him to turn a deaf ear every time someone mentioned Lord Jamison’s name. He saw nothing wrong in listening to news of Drew’s activities, or in attending a sporting event in which Drew was a participant. Although he had every intention of cheering for Drew at the top of his lungs, he did not consider that he would be in any way breaking his word to his sister. “I’m going to Islington,” he said offhandedly. “The fellows and I want to see a … a curricle race.”

Gwen raised her eyebrow. “The race Lord Jamison rides in?” she asked coldly.

Tom stuck out his chin belligerently. “Yes,” he said, daring her to oppose him.

Gwen said nothing. Lady Hazel had been watching the exchange with interest. “I’d like to see that race myself,” she ventured. “Why don’t we drive out there this afternoon, Gwen?”

Gwen flicked a dagger look at her mother-in-law. “No, thank you,” she said curtly.

“Why don’t you come with
us
, Aunt Hazel,” Tom offered magnanimously. “I’m sure there’ll be room for one more in Ferdie’s phaeton.”

“Heavens, dear boy,” Hazel laughed, “three young bucks would be too much for me to handle at my age.”

“Tut, tut, Aunt. You’re becoming chicken-hearted,” Tom teased.

“Rather chicken-hearted than bird-witted,” Hazel retorted. “And birdwitted I’d be to gad about with three young scamps. But run along quickly, before I change my mind.”

Tom made a quick escape, and Gwen thought the subject of the race was closed. But a little before noon, Pollard presented himself at her door and insisted that she join him on his outing to Islington. “I didn’t know
you
were interested in the race,” Gwen remarked.

“I certainly am. I’ve backed Richard Warrenton rather heavily to win.”

“Oh, George, no!” she said dismayed.

“Don’t worry, my dear,” George said, smiling at her indulgently, in the fatuous way men have of patronizing women when they speak of sporting matters or other ‘masculine’ pursuits. “I won’t lose. Warrenton has the most magnificent pair of greys you’ve ever seen. Prime steppers, each one, and no one but I has yet seen them in action. I received very good odds.”

“Does that mean that Lord Warrenton is not the favorite?”

“Yes. That is how I received the good odds.”

“Who
is
the favorite?” Gwen asked, quite casually.