The Notorious Lord Havergal (22 page)

“It’s all the crack, Lettie. All the fellows are dying to get in, but you have to be introduced by someone that Mrs. Reno knows and trusts. She serves champagne and lobster. The food and drinks alone are practically worth the price.”

“Worth five hundred pounds? Worth losing a valuable piece of your estate? What will have to go next to pay for your vices—the stable, the pasture, the house? What are your plans for after you have ruined yourself? Do you plan to batten yourself on my meager ten thousand? Think again. I’ve spoiled you long enough. You got the lion’s share of the family money, but you’ll not see one sou of my dowry. And if you are thinking of a profitable marriage to pull you out of the suds, you can forget that dream. The wealthy merchants’ daughters, I have no doubt your friend has mentioned to you, expect a title. They aren’t interested in penniless country squires of poor character and reputation. No, Tom, you were wrong, and in your heart you know you were wrong.”

“Damn, I know I was a fool, but that doesn’t pay the bill, does it?” he exclaimed.

“Who do you owe the money to?” she asked, and braced herself for the answer.

“I borrowed it from a moneylender, a fellow named Wideman, on Poland Street. Here is his note.”

She examined it and handed it back. “Very well, I’ll tell you what we'll do. I shall sell my diamond necklace.”

“No!”

“Laurel Hall obviously means more to me than it does to you. I would rather lose Mama’s diamonds, and you know what they mean to me. This is not a gift. I will expect you to reimburse me for them, as though the money was a mortgage. In fact, we shall draw up a note, at five percent interest.”

Tom’s face screwed up and a few tears squirted out of his eyes. “I’m sorry, Lettie. I’ve been a demmed jackass. I feel so terrible. I was afraid to tell you. I wanted to. I knew you would think of something.” He went into her arms, and in spite of her determination, she felt a weakening rush of love.

“It’s all right, Tom. You’re young. Too young for the pack of hardened rakes you’ve been running with.”

“I’ll go home with you, Lettie. Truth to tell, London ain’t as much fun as I had hoped. Between worrying about money, and meeting all the pretty debs hanging out for a title and a big fortune, I haven’t been having that good a time. At home, all the girls made a great fuss over me, but here I’m nothing. The apartment is a miserable dump, and the food is awful. I think I’ve lost a few pounds.” She gave him a quizzing look. “Of body weight, I mean, besides the fortune I’ve squandered. Just like a Johnnie Raw. I ought to be whipped.”

“Don’t tempt me. Norton and Violet will be returning at noon. Let us—”

As she spoke, there was a commotion at the door, and Norton’s booming voice rang out. “So he has come. I hope Lettie has rung a good peel over you.”

“Indeed she has,” Tom said with a shy smile. “And well deserved, too.”

Violet rushed forward to greet Tom, and Norton turned to speak to Lettie aside. “I can let you have a few hundred if it will ease the strain, Lettie. Tom can pay me back at his leisure.”

“The sum is not so great as I feared. I can handle it. Thank you once again, Ned.”

“That’s good then. Tonight I shall take you all to the theater and for a smashing dinner at a hotel to celebrate. Tom can tell us where to go.”

“The Clarendon—No, this hotel is as good as any,” Tom said with a thought to the prices.

“Tonight dinner is on me,” Lettie announced, for  she felt guilty at Norton’s unending generosity. Ned put up a good fight, but in the end Lettie had her way.

Over lunch, it was decided that Tom and Lettie would attend to business that afternoon, and Ned and Violet would continue their sight-seeing. Lettie wanted privacy for the selling of her necklace. Norton would insist on lending her the money if he knew what she planned, and she would not infringe further on his good nature.

Tom announced his intention of returning to Laurel Hall with them. “There, then that solves your problem, Lettie,” Violet smiled. “You won’t be alone when I marry Ned.”

“I have not congratulated you, Mr. Norton, on your betrothal,” Tom said, and rectified the omission.

“Since our little secret is out, I can put a diamond on my lass’s finger this very day,” Norton beamed. “That will be a pleasant job, finding a ring to fit.”

Tom and Lettie remained behind when the others left. Tom said, “Lettie, I have been thinking ... I don’t want you to sell your necklace. Perhaps I can arrange a small mortgage on Laurel Hall.”

“Small mortgages have a way of growing, Tom. It is so easy to increase them once the thing is started. Papa always said he would rather sell the coat off his back than take a mortgage. In a bad year, you know, a mortgage can make the difference in the estate’s breaking even.”

“Let me look into it at least. It won’t take more than an hour. I’ll just speak to an estate agent and see what sort of a deal I can arrange.”

“Don’t even think of it,” she insisted.

“Well, at least I must go to my apartment and tell my man to pack. I know a fellow who is desperate for rooms. I’ll call on him and sublet my place. That’ll give me a couple of hundred to settle a few accounts outstanding in town. My tailor, and the fellow I bought this new curled beaver from,” he said, smiling ruefully at his new hat.

Lettie was happy to hear that he wanted to settle his accounts before leaving town. That augered a good character beneath the recent folly. Tom had always been a basically good lad.

“Don’t do anything about selling the necklace till I return,” he said as he went toward the door.

Lettie pondered this speech. She knew Tom well enough to know that he planned to try for a mortgage. It was sweet of him to want to save her necklace, but she had taken the decision to sell it and had every intention of doing so.

“I’ll be gone for two or three hours,” he said. “Don’t wait for me. Hire a cab and go out and see the sights, Lettie.”

Unlike taking a mortgage, selling diamonds was relatively easy. She could get the money within the hour and pay off his troublesome note. She would have felt better with an escort, but she was mature enough to tackle the city without one.

She called for a cab and asked to be delivered to Bond Street, where she made inquiries about the sale of her necklace at three establishments, finally returning to the first one, which had offered five hundred. She felt a piercing sadness to lay her beloved heirloom on the counter. What lady would be wearing it next? She hoped it did not end up on the neck of some lightskirt. After some discussion the shop agreed to pay her in cash. Her next destination was Mr. Wideman, on Poland Street. In the cab she remembered that she ought to have gotten Tom’s IOU, but she would get a receipt from Wideman, and that would be proof the note was discharged—probably with a forfeit of several pounds.

The driver looked curious when she gave the address, but the lady certainly looked as if she knew what she was about. Lettie felt a few qualms as the carriage proceeded into a fairly squalid part of town. There were no trees and few carriages, but only rundown houses packed close together, with a few down-at-heels gentlemen walking the street.

“Wait for me,” she said curtly when she got out. She surveyed the mean establishment. It was an apartment building, one of a row a block long, with only a small brass plaque to inform clients of the various matters going on within. As well as Wideman, there was also a solicitor, no doubt a shady one, a dealer in coins, and an art merchant, whom she felt in her bones sold either stolen goods or forgeries.

She opened the door and stood, studying the list of businesses pasted in the hallway. Mr. Wideman was on the second floor. She gathered up her skirts, for the staircase looked as if it hadn’t seen a broom in months. As she put her foot on the first step, she heard a rattle of descending footsteps. Their firm tread and rapid pace told her it was a young man. Some other unfortunate victim like poor Tom, perhaps. As the stairway was dark and narrow, she waited below till he had passed. God only knew what sort of man he might be. He might rob her of the fortune in her reticule.

She looked up as he negotiated the bend at the top of the stairs and felt as if her lungs had collapsed. Havergal! She thought she must be imagining things, for he had been so much in her thoughts. She blinked and looked again, just as he looked up and recognized her.

“Lettie!” The word came out in a shocked, disbelieving rasp.

All her grief and anger congealed into disgust. How could anyone who looked so good be so horrid? He looked as she remembered: young, handsome, healthy, prosperous. But he had caused her untold harm and had nearly ruined Tom into the bargain. And now he was here, probably selling off his birthright to pay for his latest sins.

“Lord Havergal,” she replied in icy accents. “So it was you who directed Tom here. No doubt Mr. Wideman is an intimate business acquaintance of yours. Do you get a commission on the Johnnie Raws you send to him to be fleeced?” He just stared dumbly. “I will be taking Tom home tomorrow, before you turn him into another libertine like yourself.”

“I didn’t!”

“Do you deny that you called on him in London?”

“Of course not! I promised you I would help him find a position.”

“You are either extremely ineffectual or have an odd idea of a position. Tom has to earn money, not throw it away on gambling. Excuse me.” She made a movement to walk past him.

He still looked stunned, but he recovered enough to become angry. His eyes flashed dangerously, and his lips were white. He didn’t trust himself to speak. He just pushed a piece of paper into her hand before he strode to the door, without having said one word in his own defense.

Lettie felt faint when he left. She leaned against the wall, panting. It was a moment before she noticed the paper in her fingers. She unfolded it and saw it was Tom’s note for five hundred pounds, discharged. Wideman had scrawled “Paid in Full” with his signature. How had this happened? What was Havergal doing with the note? She went to the carriage and asked to be taken to Reddishes Hotel.

She pondered the matter as the carriage moved sluggishly through the streets. Tom must have arranged the mortgage against her wishes, and for some reason Havergal was discharging the debt for him. Perhaps to save time, as Tom had a deal of business to attend to and was now eager to get home. Tom and Havergal were obviously seeing each other regularly. Havergal must be feeling guilty now that she was here in town, catching him in the very act of seducing Tom. If he thought performing this small errand was enough to redeem his black character, he had another thought coming. She would make Tom pay off the mortgage with her five hundred pounds before they left town.

And she would warn him he was never to speak the words Lord Havergal within her hearing again.

Lettie darted into the hotel, holding back her tears till she reached the privacy of her room. Tom came out of Norton’s private parlor to greet her.

“The greatest luck, Lettie. Beau Mason was delighted to get my apartment. He paid me cash on the line for the whole season’s rent. They make you pay by the quarter when you sign up.”

She followed him into the parlor, relieved to see they were alone. Curiosity was blended in plentiful supply with her grief, and she demanded, “Tom, what was Lord Havergal doing with your IOU?”

“Eh? How the deuce did you know he had been here?”

She stared, curiosity mounting higher. “He was here!”

“He landed in the moment I arrived. I’ve been waiting for you this past three quarters of an hour. I paid off my tailor and the hatmaker, and came straight around to tell you. My man is packing up my belongings.”

“But where did you meet Havergal?”

“I already told you, he was here, looking for you. He ran into Norton and Violet on Bond Street, and they told him you were here.”

Strange sensations whirled in her brain. He was looking for her! He had come to see her. For one fleeting instant her heart soared, then the outcome of their eventual meeting flooded over her. “That doesn’t explain how he got your note?” she said in confused accents.

“He doesn’t have it. It’s right here.” He began digging into his pockets, then searching around the table and floor. “It was here. I showed it to him. That old bleater of a Norton told him why you were all here. ‘Young Tom is in a spot of trouble,’ he said. Never can hold his tongue. Havergal asked me about it, and—”

“I should hardly think it necessary for Havergal to inquire, when he is the one who led you to Mrs. Reno to be fleeced.”

“Havergal? Good Lord, it wasn’t Havergal. It was the duke. I only saw Havergal the one time when he called on me, offering to help me find a position. I had had your letter warning me off from him, so I treated him pretty stiff and didn’t repay his call.”

Lettie experienced a dryness in her throat, and a dull ache in her heart. “I also warned you away from the duke,” she said.

“I didn’t go looking for him, but when we chanced to meet one day on the strut, he was so pleasant and friendly, telling me how he was a great friend of yours and Norton’s and all, that there was no getting away from him, I couldn’t remember just at the moment whether he wasn’t the one I was supposed to look up. He insisted on treating me to dinner at his club. The duke told me Havergal isn’t quite the thing nowadays. Used to be the prime sport in town, but he’s changed. I could see for myself it was true. Havergal didn’t talk of anything but finding a position. I can’t see myself being locked up in a dusty office for days on end, especially in spring,” he added, looking out the window.

Lettie sank onto a chair, too weak to argue. “How did Havergal get this?” she said, and handed him the discharged IOU.

Tom examined it, frowning. “Damn, Lettie, I told you not to sell your necklace. It was very kind of you to pay my IOU, but I wish you hadn’t done it. I had decided to arrange the mortgage after we get home. My property is known around Ashford, and it would be easier to get the blunt from our own banker. Now we’ll have to come back to London to get your diamonds, unless we can arrange it by mail.”