The Devil to Pay (18 page)

“Oh, dear,” murmured Julia.

“But it is all for the best,” Miss Hannaday insisted. “Charles has been at Giroux & Chenault for all of three days now. Mr. Giroux says Charles is a genius with the accounts—which, of course, he is,” the blushing bride proudly added.

Julia smiled like a cat in the cream-pot. “I vow, I should like to see your papa’s face when he realizes you’ve gone.”

“And I should like to see Bodley’s,” muttered Sidonie grimly.

“I should rather see neither anytime soon,” said Miss Hannaday a little sorrowfully. But she brightened at once. “I feel the luckiest girl in the world, Madame Saint-Godard, and I owe it all to you.”

“You are very kind, my dear.”

Miss Hannaday scooted away her teacup. “Well, I mustn’t make Papa suspicious,” she said. “I’d best go home. I have the oddest premonition that I’m going to be struck with dyspepsia at half past six and go straight up to bed. But I’ve ever so much packing to finish first.” She smiled and winked at the ladies, looking, for the first time, as a young woman on the verge of marriage should look.

The ladies laughed. Their conversation at an end, Sidonie rang for Miss Hannaday’s maid and escorted the girl to the door.

With one last wave at Miss Hannaday, Sidonie half turned to reenter the house. It was at that precise moment, however, that the Marquess of Devellyn’s elegant coach-and-four turned the corner and came rattling up the street. Apparently anticipating its arrival, the marquess stepped out his front door. Upon seeing Sidonie, he lifted his hat, smiled almost uncertainly, and started toward her.

Sidonie pretended not to see. She stepped back in and gently closed the door.

Once inside, she leaned against it, palms flat against the cool, smooth wood. It was time, she told herself firmly, to get back to business. She had Lord Bodley to deal with as soon as Amy Hannaday was safely en route to Scotland. And it was definitely time to forget the Marquess of Devellyn. To attempt to maintain any sort of friendship with him now was not just folly, it was dangerous. The man might be a scoundrel, but he was by no means as stupid as she had first assumed. Indeed, Sidonie was willing to wager that underneath all his self-deprecating humor and ramshackle ways, the man was as keen as a newly stropped razor.

It took Sidonie three days to make certain just who the Marquess of Bodley was, for this time, she was very careful in her planning. She had no intention of failing to thoroughly research another of her nightly adventures. Bodley’s town residence, she discovered, was near the corner of Charles Street, just a few yards from St. James’s Square.

Every evening after darkness fell, Sidonie slipped over the square’s fence and hid in the shrubbery with a pair of opera glasses. From that vantage point, she had an unobscured view of his lordship’s well-lit doorstep. Bodley, as it happened, was older than she had expected. He was a tall, lean man with a narrow, slightly hooked nose, a thin, cruel mouth, and hair which hung dark and heavy about his face. He lifted his nose at a very odd angle as he walked, and had the old-fashioned habit of carrying a quizzing glass limply between his fingers.

The image of his thin, clawlike hands on Miss Hannaday was enough to make Sidonie retch. And according to George, the appalling truth was that Bodley preferred his female bedmates significantly younger than his former fiancée. He had doubtless made an exception for her advanced years—she was all of seventeen, if Sidonie recalled—based on his expectation of her father’s generous marriage settlement. Sidonie let that thought eat like acid into her heart so that she could feel not one trace of pity for Bodley, not one modicum of regret over what she was about to do to him.

Now certain she had the Black Angel’s next victim clearly in her sights, Sidonie began to shadow Bodley, learning his haunts and habits. On Tuesday evening, he strolled over to White’s Club, where he spent the entire evening. Sidonie gave up at two in the morning, and walked back to Bloomsbury deep in thought. When she arrived home, it was to find that Lord Devellyn had called earlier in the evening. Julia had been out, dining with old theater friends. Devellyn had left a card, but no message.

On Wednesday evening, Bodley took his carriage to a ball in Portland Place where, again, he remained well into the night. Sidonie arrived home to find Julia waiting up for her. It seemed Devellyn had once more called in Sidonie’s absence, ostensibly to bring Julia a gift. It was a bottle of Bordeaux from his cellar, a vintage for which Julia had expressed a particular fondness during their dinner party. But Julia was not fooled. She teased Sidonie unmercifully.

For her part, Sidonie felt a little shaft of envy that it was Julia who had enjoyed a glass of Madeira by the fire with Lord Devellyn, while she’d been stuck skulking about in the damp alleys of Marylebone. Then, on Thursday, Sidonie had a stroke of luck. Following a late evening at the Oriental Club, Bodley dismissed his carriage and staff save for one footman and set off in the direction of St. James’s Park.

It was an unhoped-for opportunity. Sidonie followed, keeping to the shadows and shrubs along the mall as best she could. Her male garb—she was dressed as a newsboy carrying an empty sack—kept her from being too boldly accosted.

Soon Bodley motioned for his footman to stop. They were deep in the park, and Sidonie was growing uneasy. Bodley slowed his stride and made his way past a milling crowd of dandies who were passing a flask and smoking thin cheroots. Once beyond them, he turned in the direction of the armory, toward a darker, less public side of the park. Sidonie decided it would be imprudent to follow.

In less than ten minutes, Bodley returned, motioned for his servant, then went straight to the Golden Cross Inn at the foot of the Strand. His servant waited outside. Sidonie was wondering whether to follow Bodley in when a handsome young lad in a second lieutenant’s uniform strolled up the street. He greeted the footman by name, and the servant passed something—money, or a slip of paper—to him.

The young man looked at it almost disgustedly, muttered something, then pushed through the door. The implication was clear. A rendezvous had been arranged, and the young man looked less than enthusiastic about it. Alas, there was nothing she could do for him just now. Sidonie melted into the stream of late-night pedestrians and vanished.

It was just as George had said. Bodley was buying, or coercing, his lovers—and doubtless being blackmailed by some of them in turn. Now Sidonie needed to form a plan. A freshly pressed midshipman’s uniform hung in her wardrobe, and it was time to put it to good use. Lord Bodley, she vowed, was going to rue his next little stroll through the park.

Sidonie slipped in through the mews and headed toward her back door a little nervously. She was returning home far earlier than usual, and it would not do for the voluble Meg to see her dressed as a newsboy. Sidonie considered lingering in the shadows until the lights belowstairs went out. But at that very moment, through the adjacent window, she saw Julia’s silhouette. She was waiting. She must have fresh gossip, or some word of warning. Sidonie went up the rear steps, and scratched lightly at the window. Julia threw open the door and dragged her inside.

“Quiet!” she whispered, urging Sidonie up the stairs. “Meg’s not yet abed. Come, I’ve something to show you.”

With Julia on her heels, Sidonie slipped into her room, half-hoping Devellyn had called again, then mentally kicking herself for being such a fool. She tossed her empty news bag on the bed, tore off her hat, and went at once to the bottle of sherry. After getting a good look at Lord Bodley in action, she needed a bit of fortification.

But Julia made an eager sound in the back of her throat. Her excitement was palpable. As soon as Sidonie pressed the wine into her companion’s hand, Julia pulled something from her pocket and held it up triumphantly.

“What’s this?” asked Sidonie, dropping into a chair.

Julia sat down, too. “This, my dear, is an invitation to one of the season’s grandest events,” she answered. “Lord Walrafen’s annual charity ball! Forgive me, but I recognized the seal, and just had to open it.”

Sidonie took the invitation from Julia’s outstretched hand.
Lord Walrafen?
“But I do not know him,” she protested. “I mean, I know
of
him—who does not?—but why would he invite me to his ball?”

Julia withdrew yet another slip of paper and fanned it back and forth. “I daresay it has something to do with this urgent missive which preceded it,” she answered. “Mrs. Arbuckle wrote to say that they have been invited, and she asks that you escort Miss Arbuckle, who very much wishes to attend.”

The Arbuckles? Suddenly, something inside Sidonie’s brain clicked. “Yes, Lord Walrafen is a patron of the Nazareth Society, is he not?” she murmured to herself. “Just like Lady Kirton.”

“Perhaps, but what of it?”

Sidonie considered it. “After Lady Kirton’s musicale, I remember Miss Arbuckle saying she meant to ask her father to make a sizable donation to the Nazareth Society.”

“Well, it must have been enormous,” said Julia. “This is the event to which all of society aspires. Will you go?”

Sidonie considered it. “Yes, why not?’ she said, lifting her chin. “It is a wonderful opportunity for Miss Arbuckle. And Lord Walrafen is something of a reformist. Indeed, George says he is a very fine man.”

Julia’s eyes widened. “George
knows
Lord Walrafen?”

“Oh, you would be surprised whom George knows,” said Sidonie. “Do you remember the trips he made to Somerset and Scotland last year? It was some sort of mysterious errand for Walrafen.”

“Ooh,” said Julia. “George has a lot of mysterious errands, doesn’t he? Shall he be invited to the ball?”

“It is possible,” she answered. “Walrafen is said to be quite liberal in his choice of friends. But George would never go.”

Julia’s face fell. “No, he wouldn’t, would he?”

Sidonie set aside her wine and gave a long, languid stretch. “So,” she said on a yawn, “when is this ball, Julia?”

Julia looked at the invitation. “Just a week hence,” she answered. “Oh, my dear girl, we must get you something to wear! I can remake, perhaps, the wine-colored silk that was your mother’s. Or the green satin, perhaps? Do you have shoes to match? Yes, I’m sure you do. Then we’ll need to poke through your mother’s jewelry, to find just the right thing…”

As Julia rattled on about stockings and necklaces and hair, Sidonie’s thoughts turned inward. She would escort Miss Arbuckle to Lord Walrafen’s great ball, yes. But she was not quite ready to think of it or plan for it. She had not yet erased from her mind the expression she had seen on the face of Bodley’s young naval officer tonight. That, she feared, might haunt her sleep.

On Friday morning, Lord Devellyn shocked himself—and stunned his staff—by arising at nine and going downstairs to breakfast.

“B-R-E-A-K-F-A-S-T,”
he grumbled at the brace of footmen whose brows flew aloft at the sight of him coming down the stairs fully dressed
and
fully upright. “A morning repast of eggs, bacon, and toast. You have heard of it, I daresay?”

The first footman bolted toward the kitchen stairs. “I’ll tell Cook.”

Lord Devellyn took a seat in the breakfast parlor, which gave onto Bedford Place. The day looked sunny, even a little warm, and the drapes in his bow window had been drawn to take full advantage of its glory. The first footman’s steps had scarce faded from earshot, however, when the door opened across the street at Number Fourteen, and Madame Saint-Godard and Mrs. Crosby came out. The former was looking especially fetching in a gown of daffodil yellow muslin, which contrasted beautifully with her inky hair and faintly olive skin.

Devellyn turned around in his chair. “You, there!” he said to the footman by the door. “Henry Polk, is it?”

Polk darted into the room. “Sir?”

Devellyn pointed toward the street. The two ladies were almost past the front window now. “Any idea where they’re off to at such an hour?”

Polk seemed stunned by the question. “I’ve no notion, sir.”

“None?” barked the marquess.

Polk recovered quickly. “Shopping, I daresay, my lord. Ladies do love to shop of a morning.”

The marquess grunted. “What about that girl, Meg. Does she never mention their plans?”

“Only if I ask, sir.”

“Well, ask, damn it,” he grumbled. “And ask often. Do you follow me?”

Devellyn leaned deeper into the window. He was bloody tired of not knowing the comings and goings of Sidonie Saint-Godard, though why, or why it was any of his business, escaped him. He had no sooner cast off his foolish obsession with the Black Angel—well, to an extent—than he’d found himself caught up in a new one. He had called at Number Fourteen twice this week, never to find Sidonie in, and he had a sneaking suspicion he could have called every day of the week, and still have been sent away disappointed.

Devellyn couldn’t decide if he was just getting a cold shoulder, or if Sidonie Saint-Godard was suddenly the most popular woman in town this season. What in God’s name did she do with her evenings?

The ladies were disappearing around the corner now. Polk cleared his throat loudly. “Perhaps it would help, sir, if I had an extra half day.”

“Hmph!” said Devellyn. “Quite the negotiator, aren’t you?”

“I try, sir,” Polk admitted.

“When is Meg’s half day?” snapped Devellyn.

“Oh, she has Wednesday
and
Saturday afternoon, sir.”

“Fine, take ’em,” he grumbled. “But I’m warning you, Polk, I shall want something in return.”

“I comprehend, my lord,” he murmured. “You may count on me.”

“Well, tomorrow is Saturday,” returned the marquess. “Make hay while the sun shines.”

Unfortunately, the sun did not shine again for several days. April came to London in a terrible torrent and to Sidonie’s undying frustration, it rained for three days solid. She knew it would do her no good to attempt to track Lord Bodley; neither man nor beast would venture through the park in such a torrent, and she already sensed that Bodley was a man who cherished nothing so much as his own comfort. And so Sidonie watched the incessant spatter run down her windows and busied herself with hemming and darning and needlepoint until she thought she might well go mad.