Wicked Company (56 page)

By the fourth night of Peter’s forced occupation of her lodgings, his fever broke and his skin became cool and dry to the touch. By morning, he was sitting up in bed, a full half inch of beard shadowing his face.

“I’m very hungry,” he announced plaintively. Behind the black stubble, his skin was pale as parchment and his hands shook. “Can you fetch me something to eat from the tavern—and a whiskey?”

Before Sophie could think of a reply, the door opened and in walked Mary Ann Skene. Sophie’s lodger had stayed away from Half Moon Passage since the day she claimed she’d rescued Peter in front of the shop.

“Ellen Gardener owes me a quid!” Mary Ann declared, removing her cloak and hanging it on the peg. Her dress was made of cheap muslin but sported an overabundance of frills and flounces that had become the harlot’s trademark. “I said to Ellen last night, I said, ‘By now he’s up and about, or in his grave,’ and here you are. Outfoxed the Grim Reaper, did you, squire?”

“No thanks to you,” he grumbled. “You didn’t even try to persuade that old bawd to look after me.”

“Well, you never pay what’s owing and Mrs. Douglas wouldn’t hear of your remaining with an ague like that! Infect the whole house, you would!”

“If you two don’t mind,” Sophie snapped, her patience worn to the breaking point, “Peter, you must remove yourself from here immediately! I’ll expect you to be gone by the time I return from delivering the week’s play listings to
The Public Advertiser.
Lorna should be here within the hour, Mary Ann. Until then, please look after the bairn for a bit. She should go off to sleep soon.”

Mary Ann appeared to be about to refuse, but remained silent, probably because of her lodgekeeper’s display of ill temper. Sophie picked up Danielle, who was fussing in her makeshift bed. Soothing the fretful babe, she glanced uncertainly at the child’s father.

“You were too ill for me to make introductions earlier… but this is your daughter,” she said, raising Danielle in her arms and taking a step closer to her husband who lounged against pillows propped behind him on the bed.

“
Is
it?” he said coldly, gazing at the fretful baby with obvious disinterest. “Are you sure?” Sophie gasped at the insult and felt blood pound in her temples.

“Get out!” she shouted as Danielle began to wail. “Get out of my sight, you rotten sot! And if you or your creditors
dare
disturb me again, I’ll take more than play listings to
The Public Advertiser,”
she fumed, “I’ll write for all the world to know the sorry tale of your so-called title! I swear it on my daughter’s life, Peter
Lindsay!
Be gone before I return!”

Glaring at both her husband and the startled whore, she handed the baby to Mary Ann, grabbed the newly printed placards, and stalked toward the door, trying her best to close her ears to the infant’s anguished cries.

“So you’re
not
a bloomin’ baronet!” Sophie heard Mary Ann laugh as she flung open the door to the landing. “Darnly hinted that, but I didn’t believe him.”

Sophie did not catch Peter’s sullen reply as she slammed the door shut and ran down the stairs into Half Moon Passage. Crossing into Henrietta Street, she glanced through the iron gates into the little cemetery bordering St. Paul’s. She paused briefly to stare at the trees rising starkly between the tilted gravestones. Their leafless branches swaying in the icy wind looked like a skeleton’s fingers scratching at the gray sky overhead. Poor Aunt Harriet wasn’t even allowed a decent burial. Shivering, she stuck her chin into the folds of her cloak and quickened her pace, striding across the Piazza quickly to escape the cold.

Within ten minutes, Sophie had arrived at Garrick’s office at Drury Lane. A conference between him, James Lacy, and Roderick Darnly was apparently just concluding. From the snippets she could pick up while waiting for Garrick outside the door, it appeared that Roderick Darnly was proposing to underwrite several large productions in the form of loans for the following season. In exchange, the partners would grant him the right to receive a mortgage on some additional shares.

“As I believe I’ve made clear several times before,” Garrick said patiently, “I am grateful for your suggestions of new wardrobe and scenes, sir—and certainly your willingness to invest additional funds—but I have no wish to dilute my holdings by granting my shares as collateral. Lacy? What of you?”

Sophie heard James Lacy clear his throat nervously.

“Well… the Honorable Mr. Darnly has some capital suggestions for adding spectacle to our presentations, Davy… you must own that… but if you do not wish to participate in this venture, I’m afraid, my dear sir, I wouldn’t wish to mortgage any more of my shares either… at least not at the moment.”

Sophie stepped back into the hallway as the door opened and a disgruntled-looking Roderick Darnly strode into the passageway.

“Ah… Sophie… we wondered when you were going to emerge from the sick room,” he said frostily. “Is your husband likely to recover?”

Sophie flushed, wondering how word that Peter had been convalescing at her lodgings could have circulated around Covent Garden so fast. Awkwardly, she recounted how Mary Ann had put him to bed above her book shop without her permission.

“In fact,” she concluded with heavy emphasis, “he has made such a good recovery, he’s vacating my chambers
today.”

“Well, that’s a blessing, I’m sure,” Garrick interjected from the doorway.

The manager handed her the cast list for the week’s fare and, without further discussion, Sophie quickly departed for the newspaper offices. Worried that she had been away from Danielle nearly an hour, she virtually ran back to Half Moon Passage, arriving just before noon.

Rounding the corner at Henrietta Street once again, she was surprised to see Hunter stalking toward her from the direction of Ashby’s Books. She began to call out a greeting when she saw from his expression that he was in a towering rage. He halted several paces from her and pointed a finger up at the second story window above the book shop.

“I came to call on you… like a foolish, love-sick Romeo,” he fumed.

“And you’re angry because Peter is upstairs,” she said sympathetically. “He’s only—”

“Naked! In your bloomin’
bed!”
he shouted.

“Hunter, please, I can—”

“Please don’t misunderstand me,” he said, lowering his voice menacingly. “I’m not merely angry at you for choosing to lie with that sod… I’m
disgusted!
Disgusted by your judgment… disgusted by your character, and most of all, Sophie McGann… disgusted to have actually thought I was in
love
with someone who could behave as you have!”

Sophie stared at him, stunned by the vitriol that laced his words.

“Dear God, Hunter… what is the
matter
with you—” she began, but Hunter brushed past her, stomping down the road. Sophie gave chase, grabbing at his arm. “Please! Let me explain,” she pleaded.

Hunter whirled around to face her, his features contorted with fury.

“There
is
no explanation, so, pray, don’t bother to lie to me! You’ve made it up with Peter… that’s plain to see. All right. Perhaps I can accept that. Women are famous for such treachery. But apparently you think nothing of abandoning that poor child… frightened and ill and whimpering pitifully in the printing room while you cavort—”

“Danielle… she’s ill?” she cried, turning toward her lodgings. “Oh, God… NO!”

Sophie began to run, her heart pounding furiously. When she reached the shop, she hardly noticed that the public door to Ashby’s was still closed, awaiting Lorna’s imminent arrival. She raced up the flight of stairs that separated the two shops and burst into the flat.

Halting at the threshold, she stared at two figures sitting up in bed, each holding a mug which she assumed contained spirits of some sort. Mary Ann wore a transparent batiste dressing gown edged with an ostentatious cascade of lace she had undoubtedly filched from her previous employer. Peter, with the counterpane wrapped around his waist like a toga, was convulsed with mirth. “Where’s Danielle!” Sophie screamed. “What’s wrong with Danielle?”

But the pair were doubled up in a paroxysm of laughter. Sophie whirled and made for the printing chamber where she found her daughter, listless and feverish, abandoned in her little bed. Her skin was flushed scarlet and her breathing was labored. A burst of Mary Ann’s giggles rent the air.

“At least, Peter, I had the decency to
hide!”
Mary Ann chortled, trying unsuccessfully to control her merriment. “But there you sat, like some pasha, bold as brass, conducting a bloody
conversation
with the gentleman!”

“Well,” Peter declared between guffaws, “I had to say
something.
After all, we were in bed when the knave nearly knocked the door down!”

“I jumped in the trunk quick enough, but as you two were blathering on, I began to feel a tickle in m’nose inside that dusty bin. I was sure I’d
sneeze
and be found out!”

The pair exploded in another fit of hilarity. Sophie lifted her daughter into her arms and ran to the doorway connecting the two chambers.

“What did you say to Hunter?” Sophie demanded furiously. “What damnable lie did you tell this time, husband?”

“I informed the blighter,” Peter said, slurring his words, “that Lady Lindsay-Hoyt would be returning momentarily to minister in proper wifely fashion to her adored husband. However, it appears that the honorable Mr. Hunter Robertson didn’t wish to wait.”

During Peter’s rambling description of his unexpected encounter with the visitor, Sophie backed toward the fireplace and reached for the poker.

“This time I swear by St. Ninian I will
kill
you if you are not gone from these premises in five minutes!” she said in a low, menacing voice, pointing the fire iron at Peter as if it were a pole-axe. It was clear now what scene had greeted Hunter when he opened the door at Peter’s bidding—her supposedly estranged husband, naked, lying in her bed; Danielle in the adjacent printing chamber, whimpering with fever and apparently ignored by her parents.

I should never have left her with them!
she cried in silent anguish and bitter remorse, staring down at her daughter’s listless countenance.
I
should have sent Mary Ann to Drury Lane and
The Public Advertiser…
or simply shirked my duty, for once… I
should never have left my child with such—

“Fetch Mrs. Phillips from downstairs, and be
quick
about it!” Sophie ordered harshly.

The strumpet did as she was bidden. Sophie held Danielle in one arm and the fire poker in the other, while Peter clumsily reached for his breeches and rumpled jacket.

“I never want to see you in Half Moon Passage or anywhere near me again, do you hear?” she cried, as he hastily donned his shoes with their tarnished silver buckles. “And if you try to take any more of my money, I’ll have Roderick Darnly see you’re thrown into Newgate.” She took a step closer, poking him with the tip of the cold fire iron. “And there’ll be no more public threats about petitioning the House of Lords to take my child or charge me with desertion, do you understand me?” Peter hiccupped involuntarily and nodded nervously, anxious to be gone. “And may you rot in
hell,
Peter Lindsay, for how you’ve treated me and our daughter!
Now get out!”

Her husband of less than a year retreated out the door without a word. Sophie glanced down at her infant, aware for the first time that Danielle was trembling in her arms.

“Oh, no!” Sophie whispered as the baby’s face began to contort while a seizure took hold.

She tossed the fire poker aside. Her child had begun to writhe convulsively, her entire little body taking on the hue of cooked beets.

“Mrs. Phillips!
Mrs. Phillips!”
Sophie screamed, running to the landing and shouting down the stairs at the top of her lungs.

“What’s a do? What’s a do?” she heard her neighbor say as she rounded the corner, and mounted the stairs. “I’ve a shop full of people… I can’t be—”

The apothecary arrived out of breath at the threshold, with Mary Ann scampering up the stairwell behind her. The older woman’s bosom heaved and her face grew somber as she placed her hand on Danielle’s forehead. The baby’s eyes were rolling backward, and the infant’s little body was racked with violent tremors.

“’Tis the fever’s grip… we must break it. Water!” she ordered. “You must plunge her in cool water. Quick! There’s a tub at the back of my shop.” The trio hurried downstairs and into the Green Canister past a gaggle of customers who watched the frantic procession with mild curiosity. In a room at the back of the shop, Sophie stood cradling her trembling daughter in her arms while Mary Ann filled the wooden tub from buckets of water fetched from the neighborhood well. Within minutes, Sophie plunged Danielle into the bath, but the child continued to shake as if seized by a frenzy. Each pathetic cry protesting the chilly water sluicing Danielle’s parched skin tore at the fabric of Sophie’s soul.