The Black Mask (23 page)

“I’m damned if I know,” Niles said. “I simply wanted to more than I wanted anything else, I suppose.”

Wapton nodded. “Pure heart, clean living. Just like they tell you at school. I suppose you want to know about Christian.”

“I have the papers, Wapton. You don’t need to tell me anything.”

“You know he was guilty? Just as guilty as we were, maybe more so because we weren’t fools. He trusted us, especially Beringer. We were his friends, his comrades in that dirty business. He really believed in honor among thieves.”

“And it killed him.”

“He should have known better than to nurse the scum of the prison yard. It’s better to be alive than dead, no matter what the circumstances.”

Rose shook her head at this true cynicism. “What are you going to do with him?” she asked.

“Going to call in the Runners, Alardyce? I’ll spill all your nasty family secrets if you do. What will her parents say to the news that you’ve got a gaolbird in the family tree?”

“They won’t care,” Rose said defiantly, though she knew her father would hate it and her mother would never forget it for an instant.

Niles picked up Wapton’s coat and threw it into the man’s lap. “You’re leaving the country, I take it.”

“I have a chaise waiting. I was only stopping to pick up my satchel from Miss Spenser and to ask her ... well, never mind.”

“I never would have gone with you,” Rose said. “I don’t like you.”

Niles had to help Wapton to his feet. The man put his hand to his ribs and groaned if he turned or twisted even the slightest amount. “Damn you, I think you’ve broken one of my ribs.”

“Get out,” Niles said. “Go to the Continent or the devil. I’ll give you thirty-six hours to leave the country and that only because you were somewhat concerned for Rose when you confronted me earlier. If it were not for that, I would turn you over to the Runners or your own commanding officer no matter what threats you made.”

Wapton sneered, his open good looks destroyed now that the essential littleness of his soul stood revealed. “You’ll never dare give those papers to anyone. They condemn Christian just as much as they do the rest of us.”

“With this difference,” Niles said. “He’s dead and has nothing left to lose.”

Rose linked her arm with Niles’s as Wapton cast a glance around. “You’d better hurry,” she said. “Your thirty-six hours started two minutes ago.”

Niles softly closed and locked the door behind him.

“So good riddance to all bad rubbish,” he said. “And now, Miss Spenser...”

“And now, Sir Niles?”

“Now we begin.”

The roads in Ireland were no worse than the roads In England, just appalling in a different way. Mud instead of dust, sheep in the road instead of cows, and long distances between habitations at least enriched the adventure. Rose, however, didn’t mind the dirt, the ruts, or the enforced slowness of the drive. She had her baby girl in the coach with her.

She and Niles could spend long hours jouncing Melinda Jane on their knees, gazing into her cornflower blue eyes, or just holding her close as she slept. At home the ruler of the nursery had decreed Melinda should live in the nursery where mothers and fathers were a treat, not an all-day event.

“We’ll arrive there today,” Niles said, early on the last morning, putting his foot on the coach step and looking at the sky. “Barring accidents like the wheel falling off again.”

“Couldn’t we miss the turning and continue right on around the whole perimeter of the country?” Rose asked, only half teasing.

“I’m in favor of it, but I think Paige and Augustus would be disappointed. They haven’t seen Melinda yet.”

‘You’re right, but these days have been so sweet. I hate to see them end.” Rose watched out the coach window as the nursemaid appeared, carrying Melinda bundled in her arms. The majestic nurse, Mrs. Jarricks, walked alone and in state. Even while staying in the sometimes primitive inns, her vast bonnet of tucked and frilled white lawn was thoroughly starched, ironed, and as upstanding as a windmill.

“I’ll take the baby, Nancy,” Rose called. Mrs. Jarricks’s mouth tightened like the drawstring on a reticule.

“I can h’only say h’again that it h’would be better, my lady, to h’allow Miss Melinda to travel with those trained to look h’after her.” Mrs. Jarricks never dropped an “h,” but she was a great collector of them.

Niles intercepted the nursemaid. “Give her to me.”

Little Melinda might be only six months old, but she definitely knew when her father held out his arms to her, she wanted to go. She kicked and gurgled in delight, her toothless smile enchanting.

“Sir Niles, I can h’only remind you that a constant routine is h’essential for h’any child.”

“So you’ve said repeatedly, Mrs. Jarricks, and I quite agree with you. So far on this journey, Melinda has ridden every day with us. That, therefore, is her routine.”

Mrs. Jarricks sniffed. If anything, her mouth pursed even more tightly. “Ireland is not my choice for a holiday,” she said awfully as she strode across the cracked surface of the yard in the direction of the second traveling coach, this one piled high with luggage. “Come, Nancy.”

The maid dipped a hasty curtsy and raced after Mrs. Jarricks. Lucy and Baxter, who had retracted his notice as soon as he met Lucy, were already inside and waiting.

Niles handed the baby to Rose, then climbed in himself. “Drive on, Burrows.”

The coachman touched his hat brim with the handle of his whip and ordered the ostler to “stand away from their heads.” A few minutes later, the second coach followed, leaving the landlord mourning the early departure of such open-fisted guests.

“You’re planning to dismiss her when we go home,” Niles said, holding out his finger to Melinda. He was always delighted that she’d hold on so tightly with her little baby fist.

“I won’t have to,” Rose said. “I feel certain she’ll give her notice the moment we sight the dome of St. Paul’s.”

“I still don’t see how you came to hire such a despot.”

“You interviewed her, too,” Rose reminded him. “You said you wanted firmness.”

“Well, she’s firm, all right, but she should draw the line at making me feel like a probationary first-year at a particularly Gothic public school.”

Rose laughed. “I doubt we are what she had in mind when she applied for a position in gentleman’s household.”

“We are a ragtag group, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He slid his arm around his wife’s back. “Do you mind not having a more regular household?”

Rose gazed at Melinda, her eyes distant. For a moment, she didn’t answer.

“Rose, do you mind?”

She pulled out of her abstraction at the urgent note in his voice, and smiled at him. “How can you ask? What would I do with servants equal to my consequence? I can scarcely move about the house as it is.”

“What were you thinking of just then?”

Rose cuddled Melinda a little, though the baby was more interested in reaching out toward the large buttons on Rose’s traveling costume. “I was thinking perhaps I shall ask Nancy to stay on as nurse once Mrs. Jarricks is gone. She might not have the experience, but I feel as though she truly loves Melinda which is more than I can say for Mrs. Jarricks.”

“It’s a fine idea,” Niles said, “so long as you can persuade her to stop bobbing up and down whenever I look at her. She makes me more seasick than even when we crossed from England.”

They arrived at Sir Augustus O’Banyon’s white and lemon-colored house just in good time for tea. A pause to change Melinda’s nappies and dress, and the Alardyce family were escorted through and out the rear of the graciously proportioned three-story house.

At a table set outside, but complete with napery and silver, Paige sat gazing over a peaceful view of gently moving river and tumbledown castle half in, half above the water on the other side. Hearing their approach, she turned and began to rise. There was something ungainly about her once slim figure.

Handing Melinda to Niles, Rose hurried down the sloping lawn. “Why didn’t you write to me?” she demanded, embracing her.

“Oh, I didn’t know how to tell you. I don’t know what your parents are going to say. Having one’s first child at the same time one’s brother is having grandchildren is a little strange.”

“Not at: all. What does Augustus say?”

“He pretends he expected this all along. But he struts about like a peacock.”

Niles had reached them, and Paige held out her arms for Melinda. At first, the baby was shy, ducking her head into her father’s neck, but when the adults laughed, she couldn’t resist looking around. Within half an hour, she was seated on Paige’s lap, eating crackers.

“Where is Augustus?” Niles asked, trying to pretend an intense discussion of breast-feeding was not going on around him.

“He rode into Cork to meet the mail coach from ... here he comes now.”

Rose stood up to greet her uncle-by-marriage civilly. Instead, she gave a shriek of joy and ran up the slope to throw her arms around a tall handsome soldier walking at Augustus’s side. “I declare I’m jealous,” Niles said.

“As well you should be,” Paige said knowingly. “My friends in Dublin write that he is quite the lover. Mothers are starting to look at him askance, since he is never serious.”

“Does he do well in the service?” Niles asked, reaching for a macaroon and watching his wife and brother-in-law come toward them, arm-in-arm, chattering like magpies.

“Augustus’s cronies say he’s taken to it like an eagle to the sky. The colonel of his regiment is an old comrade and has quite taken Rupert under his wing.”

“Look what Uncle Augustus has brought you, Melinda. Your
very own uncle.”

“B’Jove, is this Melinda? She doesn’t take after her father, thank heaven.”

“Watch your tone, my lad,” Niles said. “I still have your vowels and might make demands.”

“I thought Rose had persuaded you to throw those in the fire long since,” Rupert said uncaringly. “Let me have her. I charm all the women these days.”

Melinda was fascinated by the gold embroidery on his collar but soon grew sleepy from the long trip and the unaccustomed stimulation of five adult voices all talking at once. Rose carried her upstairs, directed by Paige’s pretty Irish maid. The cool nursery was full of shadows from the tall trees filtering the westering sunlight. Best of all, there was no sign of Mrs. Jarricks. Rose gave a limp Melinda to Nancy, who was tidying away the mountains of essentials a baby needed to travel.

In her own room, a pleasantly white chamber one floor below, Rose looked in the mirror and shook her head. It was a measure of the love her family bore her, she supposed, that no one had mentioned how completely haggard she looked. After the application of soap and water and a thorough brushing of her hair, Rose lay down beneath the white coverlet on the dark four-poster bed. She promised herself she’d sleep for only a few minutes.

When she awoke, it was full dark and someone was coming in. “Lucy?” Rose asked.

“No, it’s me.” Niles closed the door behind him with his foot and crossed the floor, balancing a tray and a candle. “You’ve slept through dinner,” he said, “so I brought you some.”

“Thank you, darling,” she said. “But you should have wakened me.”

“I did try. However, I didn’t have a brass band ready and I wouldn’t let Rupert try, He had some clever notions ...”

“He always does.”

Niles put the tray across her knees and sat down to talk to her while she ate. The soft candlelight brought out the gleams in her cascading hair and made her pupils huge and dark. He knew the texture of her velvet skin so well that he could remember the softness without touching her. Niles marveled they’d been two years married and he still desired her as passionately as on that first night.

When she finished, she stretched luxuriously, her arms above her head. Niles took the tray from her lap and put it outside the door. When the lock clicked, Rose smiled invitingly. “I should check on the nursery,” she said.

“I did. All’s well.”

“All’s well,” she repeated as Niles came into her arms.

To my family

Especially dedicated to

Miss Beth DiSciullo

Who has everything she needs to be a writer:

Imagination, determination, and love of books.

Copyright © 2003 by Cynthia Pratt

Originally published by Zebra (ISBN 0821774883)

Electronically published in 2014 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying  electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228

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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.