Althea (27 page)

Georgiana, when he had been gone perhaps five minutes, began
to be afraid. She had ventured a look out the window and knew none of the
buildings she saw by dark. She had no money with her with which to hire her own
hack, and even had she had some coins, she would not have known how to hire a
hack, or how to go on at all without a man’s protection at that late hour. When
Wallingham finally returned, she was so relieved to see even his face that she
immediately burst into tears, and was taken from one vehicle to the other
without the slightest idea that she was entering a traveling carriage. In the
new vehicle there were several warm rugs, which Wallingham immediately piled
about her; in another moment he had paid off their first vehicle, and installed
himself across the seat from her. His manner remained so kind and solicitous
that she felt herself obliged to cry again, and strangely, going from cold to
warmth and then to crying, she finally came to an uneasy kind of slumber. The
driver of the chaise, who had traveled this route before, turned his coach
toward the north, in the general direction of Gretna Green.

o0o

It had not been Tracy’s intention to place himself in any
position where he would see Althea. This party could not be helped: besides
certain courtesies he owed his host and several of the players, he had promised
to make his appearance there long before. If he could not avoid seeing Althea,
the next best thing would be to avoid looking for her, so from the moment that
he arrived at the party, he was conscious of scrupulously avoiding glances at
any part of the room where she might be lurking. This encompassed such a great
amount of space that shortly he felt the ridiculousness of his resolve and
decided it was better that he should watch the crowd for Althea’s face than
that he should cause remark by studying the floor for the entire evening.

He endured the music, which was nicely performed, and
watched some part of the theatrical offering before boredom overwhelmed him. He
saw Althea’s sister make her entrance, looking very like some pretty, affected
little bird, and sounding rather like a scarecrow, for her voice was so harsh
with repeating her part that she sounded more like a rook than a nightingale.
When even this became too much for his sense of humor to absorb, he decided to
leave, and made his way toward the hallway. He had begun to make inquiries
after his hat and topcoat when he became aware that someone was addressing him.
He turned and found Edward Pendarly, white as a ghost, clutching a sheet of
paper in one hand — and, by the looks of things, keeping himself from tearing
out his hair with the other by main force of will.

“May I have a word with you, sir?”

Tracy looked bemusedly at Pendarly. “Of course. What have I
done to put you in such a state?”

Pendarly had the grace to look pained. “Not you, sir, and if
I ever seemed to bear you some ill will, I wish you would forgive and forget it
now.”

“Well then, has it to do with the letter you’re holding?”

“It has.” Pendarly proffered it to his companion. He had no
idea why he had sought Calendar out, except that somehow he felt the man was
involved in this mess, and he could think of no one else who would stand by
him. Tracy read the letter through twice.

“Has anyone else seen this?” he asked. Pendarly denied it.
“She did not go with him willingly, I imagine. I misdoubt that Miss Laverham
would have a taste for this sort of adventure. I wonder what he did to inveigle
her into it?”

Pendarly started to remark that he was not sure that
Georgiana had needed any encouragement, but Tracy disabused him of this notion
rather harshly in a few short words, then told him not to waste time in feeling
sorry for himself.

“They are for Gretna, of course,” he said. “Look here,
Pendarly, you go change into something you can ride in and I’ll meet you at my
house — Cavendish Street — in an hour and we’ll go after your Miss Laverham. I
have one or two things to attend to here before I leave.” Pendarly made an
impatient
moue
. “They are traveling in a chaise, and even the fastest
chaise cannot go so fast that we will not overtake it this night. One hour at
Cavendish Street.” He dismissed Pendarly with a curt nod and turned back toward
the assembly room with a glare of undeniable purpose in his eyes.

He found Althea among the audience for the play, smiling to
herself at her sister’s absurdities. Without salutation of any sort he grasped
her wrist; she looked at him with a flush of pleasure for a moment — until she
saw the look on his face. From the red of his hair to the black scowl in his
eyes, everything about him was cold. Involuntarily she shuddered and attempted
to withdraw, but his hand on her wrist admitted of no retreat. After another
second’s resistance, he spoke under his breath, biting off each word as if it
were to be used as a weapon.

“If you do not wish to be involved in a very public scene I
suggest that you take my arm without delay, and come with me,” he said slowly.
“I have something to say to you. Now.”

Althea felt the futility of trying to break away; any sort
of resistance would immediately call attention to them.

She rose and took Calendar’s arm, following him to the
curtain-enclosed area where earlier Georgiana had been hidden. When he had
placed her unceremoniously on the settee there, she looked up at him
questioningly, ashamed and infuriated by the way her heart changed its beat in
his presence.

“What can be of such moment that you draw me away from my
sister’s performance? Bad I must admit it was, but I owe her the loyalty to
attend to it. And since you have been able to prevent yourself speaking to me
this week and more, why do you choose this particular moment to go into one of
your tempers?”

He said slowly, “Althea, do not push me. I have a weak
enough hold on my temper as it is. I thought that as the author of the
situation you might be pleased to know that Wallingham appears to have abducted
Miss Laverham. I warned you before of the folly of allowing that stupid chit to
dandle upon Wallingham’s knee, but you assumed that you knew best. I take leave
to tell you that you knew nothing. I hope you are proud of your handiwork. For
myself, I go now to see if I cannot undo some part of it,” he finished. With no
more than the most cutting of nods did he leave her, and with an equal
disregard for ceremony Miss Ervine hid her face in one of the curtains and
wept.

When he saw his sister removed summarily from her seat in
the audience by a tall red-haired gentleman dressed with such exquisite
simplicity that even he, whose taste ran more to padded shoulders and a
profusion of fobs, had to admit the man’s superiority in fashion, Merrit
Ervine’s curiosity was roused. This, aside from Miss Laverham’s pretty face and
the amusing spectacle of Maria trying to remember her speeches, was the first
interesting thing he had seen that evening. As he had assured his sisters
earlier, a musical evening was no more than a tepid sort of amusement to him,
and although Francis had promised that after the
musicale
they should go
on to something more amusing, that hardly helped now, in the midst of the most
damnably boring evening he could remember.

Althea’s movements with the stranger were intriguing to him,
and he set himself the task of spying upon the couple as they moved from the
banks of chairs to the same area where Miss Laverham had been settled not long
before.

From his vantage point he did not hear what was said, nor
could he see the faces of the two while they were within the confines of the
curtains, but less than five minutes after they had disappeared therein, the
gentleman emerged, looking like thunder, and Merrit caught a glimpse of
Althea’s face. He had never, in his twenty-three-year acquaintance with his
younger sister, seen Ally’s face so totally bloodless, nor her expression so
particularly horrified, and the sight of her was enough to make him — not
precisely spring into action, but amble over to the curtains. Althea looked up
with a startled, weepy face: she had been crying. When she saw who it was, her
face relaxed a little and she did not try to pretend a composure she obviously
was not feeling. She said weakly, “Oh, Merrit,” and then her voice dropped off
into little hiccups of sound.

“Who was that sharp swell, Ally? I’ll make him sorry for
troubling you, right enough.” Merrit swore roundly, putting his arm about his
sister’s shoulders. “But look you, it don’t do to have crying fits at soirées,
ain’t the thing at all.”

Althea shook herself furiously from his arm. “I am not
crying!” she sobbed. “And you needn’t trouble Tracy, for he was in the r-i-ght
of it all along, and I was w-w-wrong. Now I shall never be able to face him,
l-l-l-let alone — and p-poor Georgiana!” Althea burst into another bout of
tears.

“Georgiana?” Merrit asked quickly. Althea, had she had her
wits about her, would probably not have told her flighty brother anything of
the situation, but her wits were
not
about her, and without realizing
what she said, she gasped out the story of Georgiana’s disappearance. Now
Merrit
was
galvanized into action. With unwonted sternness he regarded
his sister and ordered her to cease her crying at once and repeat the last part
of the story.

“As near as Tracy gave me to understand — and he didn’t say
much, only stormed at me and stalked off, which he was perfectly right to do;
I’d have done it myself had it been me — anyway, Georgiana has been abducted by
Mr. Wallingham, that odious man who sat between her and me at dinner, and they are
off to Gretna so he can pay his debts out of her pocket. But she swore to me
that she could handle him. How could she be so hen-witted as to let this
happen?” Althea had stopped crying now and submerged her overwrought conscience
in bitterness and recrimination. Her expression was particularly unattractive
as she ruminated upon her own part in the drama.

“I’m off then,” Merrit said suddenly.

“What?” Althea was shaken from her reverie and looked
mistily at her brother.

“Well, aside from its being the most tremendous adventure, I
can’t let that poor chit be savaged by that flash cull, can I? You said the
tall fire-thatch would chase after her? Where do I find him? And has Bevan a
horse I can ride?”

Althea gave him the information Merrit requested, then rose
shakily to her feet. “Have you seen Francis?”

“What’s he to the purpose?” Merrit asked abstractedly. “He’s
over by the potted palms.”

“He and I shall have to keep this from becoming generally
known of, as well as fobbing off Mrs. Laverham with some story as to Georgie’s
absence. You go ahead, Merrit. I won’t make a cake of myself anymore. And
please, once you know she is safe, come back straightway and tell me. Better
still, bring her back to Maria’s when you find her.”

They parted, and Althea went in search of her
brother-in-law. She found him at last at the back of the crowd, admiring his
wife. With a sort of bloodless efficiency Althea apprised Francis of the
situation and enlisted his help. To his credit he immediately offered himself
her conspirator and between them they managed to make Georgiana’s apologies for
an indisposition that had forced her to retire to the Bevan house. Mrs.
Laverham, deep in a hand of silver loo, muttered a darkling “Yes, yes,” and
otherwise ignored Althea when she tried to explain to her. All that remained
was to persuade Maria to leave the party early. This seeming impossibility was
achieved by Francis, using Althea knew not what domestic diplomacy.

In something under ten minutes Francis signaled that all was
ready, and Althea, impressed with his dispatch, was handed into the barouche
waiting outside the door. Maria had already been installed there in one corner,
and sat looking, to Althea’s surprise, neither furious nor triumphant but small
and shaky and white.

“Ally,” she moaned softly.

Dear lord! Althea thought wearily. Not yet another crisis! I
shall not be able to endure it. But she very calmly slid over to her sister’s
side and bid to be told what the matter was.

“I was dreadful. I was awful. My voice broke over that simple
little song, and I couldn’t for my life remember my words, and I have never
ever been so mortified! Oh, Francis!”

From the seat opposite Francis solicitously assured Maria
that her performance had been everything he liked to see, and that her
appearance had been enough to knock the eyes out of anyone with eyes to see
her. By the end of their ride Maria was tolerably comforted and submitted to be
led up to her room and handed over to Bailey’s care, while Francis and Althea
continued to the morning room for further councils.

“Mary must be told at once,” Althea fretted. “She’ll have to
know what our story is, and after that I depend upon you to keep her silent
about this night’s work.”

“Don’t you trust your sister any more than to have to put
such a rider on it?” Francis asked indignantly.

“I have known her longer than you, and while I have found
her lack of regard for the secrets of others severely trying on some occasions,
I will trust that you have some influence with her. Just tell her how vital it
is. And I hope I can counsel Merrit to keep his peace as well, although I can
see him bursting to tell his boon companions at Hooking how he rode off his
first time in town to rescue a female in distress. I shall have to impress upon
him the facts….” Althea sighed wearily.

“Shall I tell Mary?” Francis suggested.

“Let us both go up — Bailey will have given her some milk,
and perhaps a glass of hartshorn and water, so Maria should be a little more
composed.”

“You don’t appear too composed yourself, Ally,” Francis said
as they climbed the stairs. “Look as though you were studying to go into a deep
decline.”