The Counterfeit Gentleman (30 page)

Lady Letitia chuckled. “Such egotism. Do you think you
are the only one in London with a secret? Wait until you hear what scandal is brewing before you decide that you must flee
the scene.”

“By then it will be too late.”

“If I laid you even odds, I could still make a fortune bet
ting that you are not the subject of this latest gossip.”

Watching the people by the door, Digory realized that
Lady Letitia was undoubtedly correct. Not a single head
was turned in his direction.

Still a bit tense, he settled back into his seat, and a re
markably few minutes later one of Lady Letitia’s cronies
hurried over with the news.

“Lady Hester Hugford has run off to Gretna Green with Captain Trowbridge.”

“Indeed?” Lady Letitia said mildly.

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Creighton saw them changing horses at the Green Man in Barnet, so there can be no doubt. They
say her father and brothers are in hot pursuit, but the lovers
have a full four hours head start, so it is quite possible that
they will make it. Oh, but there is Mrs. Orlebar signaling to
me. I must tell her the news.”

As soon as her friend was out of earshot, Lady Letitia
turned to him and said, “You must not feel bad, my dear
boy, for while I freely admit that in matters of smuggling
and sailing you are the expert, I will not yield the premier position to anyone when it concerns the follies of society. Therefore, you must believe me when I say you are not to worry. This mad gallop to Scotland will keep idle tongues wagging for at least a sennight, and by the time the elopement is resolved, someone else will have done something to
attract the attention of the gossips. In short, my boy, you have just become yesterday’s news.”

“I bow to your superior wisdom,” Digory said, feeling a
vast measure of relief. For the first time since he had come
to London, he began to think that this unlikely charade
might actually succeed.

* * * *

Listlessly Bethia looked at the bronze silk being displayed for her approval by Madame Verseau. “You de
cide,” she said to Mrs. Drake, who gave her an odd look
before beginning to discuss with the modiste the pattern
and trimming that might be used to best advantage.

Bethia wished she had never agreed to this shopping ex
pedition, which she suspected had been suggested by her
husband, who could not understand her recurring bouts of
apathy.

When Digory had done so much for her, how could she explain to him that she cared nothing for social acceptance?
That with each passing day, she felt more and more es
tranged from “her world” as he persisted in calling it.

She had even gone to Lady Letitia for advice, but all her
elderly friend had said was that men are different from
women—that what is perfectly obvious to a woman is frequently incomprehensible to a man.

While Bethia could not dispute the truth of that state
ment, it still left her with no way to change her current situation.

“Mrs. Rendel?”

Bethia glanced up to find both Mrs. Drake and the
modiste looking at her. “Excuse me, I am afraid I did not
hear what you said.”

“I was telling Madame about the sprigged muslin we
purchased last week, and I was sure I had brought along a snippet to show her. But I cannot seem to find it. Did I perchance give it to you?”

“I do not think so, but I will check.” Opening her retic
ule, Bethia looked inside. The scrap of fabric was not
there—what was there was much worse. Instead of a hand
kerchief and a few copper coins, her purse now held a folded piece of paper on which her name was inscribed
with bold strokes.

For a moment she could not move—could not think.
Then she heard herself say calmly, “No, I do not seem to
have the sample, either. I am afraid we must leave it for an
other day.” With shaking hands she pulled tight the strings of her bag and tried to think what to do.

Without even reading what was written on the note, she
knew it was something wicked—something from the shad
owy world where Digory had lived before he married her.
The underhanded way the message had been delivered au
tomatically precluded an innocuous note from one of her
friends.

“Are you feeling all right, Mrs. Rendel?” Madame Verseau now inquired solicitously. “You are
looking
a bit
pale.”

Without hesitation Bethia lied. “I fear I have had too
much sun.”

“Or too many nights dancing until the sun comes up,”
Madame said with an approving smile.

“Well, we have done enough for today,” Mrs. Drake decreed, assisting her to her feet. “I shall instruct Little Davey to fetch a hackney for us since I can see that you are not up
to walking.”

Bethia wanted to protest—to delay in any way she could the awful moment when she would have to unfold the note
and read it. But at the same time, every minute she was
forced to remain in ignorance was an eternity of unbearable suspense.

Silently, she allowed herself to be driven home and
helped up to her room, where her dresser soon settled her
on the chaise longue, pulling the curtains closed so that the
light would not hurt her eyes. Then, just when Bethia
thought she must surely be left alone, Mrs. Drake insisted
upon laying a handkerchief dampened with lavender water
across her forehead. Only then was the dresser willing to
leave her alone.

No sooner did the door close behind her, than Bethia cast
off the sweetly scented handkerchief and hurried to her
dressing table. Opening her reticule, she removed the note
and quickly unfolded it.

It was a map of Vauxhall Gardens, with a message writ
ten in block letters on the reverse side:

Mrs. Rendel—I know who your husband is and
what he has done. The price for my silence is £3,000.
Bring the money to Vauxhall Gardens tomorrow
night. Wear a green domino and take a boat across
the river precisely at midnight. I have marked on the
map the place where I will be waiting. Come alone or
you will regret it for the rest of your life.

That was all. There was no signature.

The next morning Bethia directed Little Davey to drive
her to Rundel & Bridge, where she was to meet Lady Edington so that they could choose a gift for Lady Letitia—
or so she told him in any event.

Instructing him to wait for her, she entered the premises
alone and without undue problems, sold for a bit more than
£3,000 a diamond bracelet that had come to her from her
mother.

“We shall be happy to hold this back for a week or two,” the clerk assured her, “in the event that you might wish to
redeem it.”

She did nothing to correct his impression that she had
lost more at cards than she wished to confess to her hus
band, but it was more difficult to fool Little Davey, whose suspicions were aroused the minute she walked out of the
jeweler’s shop without Lady Edington.

For a moment she considered lying to him and claiming
that her friend had sent ‘round a note postponing their
meeting, but she changed her mind when she realized that she could not under any circumstances go alone to a ren
dezvous with a known murderer.

Nor would it avail her to seek Adeline’s help, for though Bethia had no doubt her friend would find it a marvelous
adventure, two unescorted ladies were not really much
safer than one woman alone.

Moreover Little Davey was the logical one to confide in
since he might possibly be persuaded not to tell her hus
band.

“Do not attempt to pull the wool over my eyes with more
talk of presents for Lady Letitia,” he said when he helped
her into the carriage. “I am not such a fool that I cannot see
there is mischief afoot.”

“I can explain everything,” she said, but Little Davey
made no move to climb up into the driver’s seat.

“It’s not me you should be telling what’s going on. Mr.
Rendel is the one what needs to know about anything that’s
havey-cavey, ‘cause he’s the best one for thinking his way
out of a tight spot that ever I met.”

“Please trust me,” she said. “There are reasons why he must not know any of this. Only meet me in the kitchen
garden as soon as possible after we return home, and I
promise I shall tell you the truth.”

“The whole truth or only the part of it you wish me to
hear?”

“I swear on my grandfather’s grave that I will hold nothing back,” she said.

With a grudging nod he took his place in the carriage and
turned the horses’ heads toward home.

* * * *

“It would be better if we told Mr. Rendel,” Little Davey
repeated after Bethia had explained it all to him.

“He will forbid my going there,” she replied. “You know
as well as I do he would not allow it.”

“Then it should not be done.”

“In which case, my murderous cousin is free to spread
slanderous gossip about me and my husband,” Bethia
pointed out, trying to keep her tone of voice reasonable in
the face of such pigheadedness. “Besides, I have said you
may tell Mr. Rendel everything. All I ask is that you wait to
tell him until ten minutes after I set off for the river.”

“But that means you will have to cross the Thames
alone.”

“Not alone. There will be a boatman. I shall not set foot in a boat that contains even one additional person, of that
may be sure.”

“I still think it would be better if Mr. Rendel and I went with you.”

Becoming thoroughly exasperated, Bethia said, “I do not
know why you refuse to admit what is so obvious. I was told to come alone. If my cousin sees you or my husband,
then he will not reveal himself. I do not know about you,
but I do not intend to let him get off scot-free after he shot a
man in cold blood.”

From his expression she knew that the mention of the
murder had struck home. Little Davey hesitated, mulling
over what she had said, but in the end he was not yet ready
to concede defeat.

“But the danger to you—’

“Is minimal,” she said firmly. “You have seen the map,
so you will know precisely where I shall be going. How
hard can it be to follow at a safe distance? Even if you lose
sight of me in the crowd, you know where I will be meeting
my cousin, so you can easily be there at the crucial time.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But tell me, what is to stop the
blackguard from spotting us in the crowd? For if you’ve
forgotten that the trap in Carwithian Cove failed because we did not think there would be a third man, then I have
not. We’ve no way of knowing how many men your cousin may have hired this time, and we are all of us now so well
known in London that we cannot hope to remain unrecog
nized.”

“I will give you money, and you can go out right now
and purchase a green domino for me and also two black
dominos, one for each of you,” Bethia said, feeling as if her
nerves would not stand much more arguing.

“Aye, that is easily enough done,” Little Davey said,
“but if you did not think about disguises for us, then what
other detail have you forgotten? I have learned the hard
way that the best plans can go wrong just when you least
expect them to.” From the expression on his face, it was not
hard to deduce that he did not consider her plan to be one
of the best.

“But if anything untoward happens, then my husband
will be there to deal with it,” Bethia said. “And you your
self told me how adept he is at getting people out of dangerous situations.”

Grudgingly, Little Davey admitted she might be right,
but it still required another half hour of repeating her argu
ments over and over again before she finally got him to
promise that she would have her ten-minute head start.

Which left her nothing to worry about at the theater that
evening except how on earth she was going to cross the Thames in a small boat without Digory there beside her
lending her courage.

It was entirely possible that Little Davey was correct
when he told her she was dicked in the nob for thinking
about undertaking such a dangerous errand.