Amy Snow (46 page)

“I think he's cracking under the strain with the net he's spinning.” Brazil leans a confiding arm on Leworth's shoulder and they both lurch a little. “The strain, you know. It's a lot of
strain
. Serves him right. No fellow ought to have three women on the go when some of his friends don't have one. He asked Rhoda Carmichael to marry him last week, did you know?”

My eyes widen.

“She didn't say no but she didn't say yes, so he went back to the other two for another crack, but Miss Snow is still entangled with some
nobody
she's panting for, and Miss Davenport has her sights set on some old European prince so Garland's
her
second choice. He's their . . .
second choice
, d'you see?” He gives a long, loud belch. I screw up my face.

“Quite funny really, you wouldn't think a man like Garland would have so much trouble getting a ring on a finger, you know. Handsome face, manners smooth as glass and all that . . .” Leworth waves a hand loosely about his head. “Maybe they can sense something's wrong about him.”

Brazil gives an exaggerated scowl of disagreement. “Doubt
that
, old chap. Don't think women have that much intelligence, to be honest. Suspect he's just on a run of bad luck at the moment. Bad, bad luck. It'll turn around though. It always does for Garland. You know what he's like. By the autumn he'll be married to one, playing it with another and the third one, whichever she'll be, will be carrying his child and he won't know her.”

“Reckon you're right, Brazil; reckon you're right.” He tugs without effect at Whentforth's snoring bulk. “Come on, let's get this fool home. Think I'll give the brandy a miss for a couple of nights this week.”

Brazil's laugh bounces around the archway. “You always say that, Leworth!”

Leworth hefts the unconscious man's right arm over his shoulder. “So I do, so I do. Lord, but he's heavy for a short one. Take his left, Brazil.”

Frozen with shock, I watch them grunt and groan and hoist their friend between them, his head dangling, feet dragging. They begin a slow, painstaking march along the river.

When they have gone far enough, I turn carefully and pick my way back up the stairs on trembling legs. I cannot—
cannot
—think about all this until I am back in the carriage and well beyond Bath.

As I emerge onto Pultney Bridge, another disheveled gentleman in evening dress comes swaying past me. I shudder in horror. It is Quentin Garland, though not as I have ever seen him. His cravat is loose, his hair is tousled. He has no hat, nor gloves, nor cane. His brilliant blue eyes are shot through with blood.

“Good morning, Mr. Garland!” I say in ringing tones. I am astonished at myself, for I didn't mean to speak to him at all.

He staggers to a halt and looks all around him for the source of the address, even though I am directly in his path.

“Here, Mr. Garland. It is I, Amy Snow. Do you not know me?”

He squints at me, and as he leans closer I smell the alcohol pouring off him.

“Hard night, Mr. Garland?” I persist, not recognizing this devil in me.

“By God . . . Amy! Wonderful to see you, Amy.” He sways towards me. “Hard night? Yes, you could say that. You haven't seen three gents, have you? Think they came this way. Owe me money. Oh, just a quiet game between gentlemen, nothing squalid, you know.”

“Naturally not. No, I haven't seen anyone, Mr. Garland. Well, good morning to you.”

“Morning Amy.” He reaches for the parapet of the bridge but misses, and somehow trips over his own feet. He falls heavily to the ground, where he sits and looks up at me, chuckling. His blue cravat has slithered off and landed in a puddle.

Despite myself, I feel embarrassed for him and offer my arm to help. He hauls himself back to the vertical, leaning on me like a cane, breathing heavily. I can smell that he has been sick. I try not to recoil but extricate myself as soon as possible, propping him against the bridge, since straightening his knees is evidently a challenge too much.

“You know, you're looking a little . . .” He frowns and reaches out a finger, prods my scraped chin clumsily. I wince. He examines his finger, and shudders.

“Blood. Thought so. You're looking a little rough around the edges this morning in fact, Amy.” He winks clumsily. “Well, I won't tell anyone, don't worry. Your secret's safe with me.
All
your little secrets are safe with me.” He nods and grins and taps the side of his nose.

“You're a true friend, Mr. Garland. Farewell.”

I run back to the carriage, feeling strangely triumphant. Ambrose's composure has surpassed its limits: I have been a great deal longer than ten minutes. She exclaims in horror at my disappearance and at my wounds, but I refuse to explain. Without further delay, the carriage hurtles out of Bath and in moments the golden city is behind me.

I am bound for the north. My Henry is left behind and angry with me and my last memory of the elegant, exquisite Quentin Garland, talk of the town in Twickenham and Bath, is of a debauched chancer sagging against a stone balustrade, sallow-skinned and looking lost.

Two days later, I arrive in York, amidst the predictable turmoil of station and journey's end and conspicuous solitude. I am now more noticeable than ever, for a shabby nobody may have a number of reasons for traveling alone—all of them disgraceful, naturally—but an elegant lady doing so screams for attention. However, my apparent position and wealth allow me to trample over speculation and scrutiny with a haughty hoist to my head and confidently flung orders. It is something I may have learned from Mrs. Riverthorpe.

When I step onto the platform, far from anywhere that might ever have been home, I am not afraid; I am too preoccupied by a storm of angry questions inside my head and a heart that seems to be breaking all over again. Under these circumstances the need to hail a porter, ask for a hotel, demand assistance, become trifling.

Thus, I am soon ensconced in a large suite at the Jupiter Hotel. “The finest York has to offer, and very close to the station, m'lady,” the railway porter assured me.

I can barely take in the sumptuous green and cream furnishings and drapes, the thick rugs and heavy luster jugs of roses. I am exhausted from eight hours on a train today and ten or eleven in a carriage yesterday. My pride is fractured by the discovery that someone I had thought a friend is in fact a profligate, scheming villain. My heart is devastated from the loss of the man I want to marry—either through his stubbornness or my own, or possibly both. It is not a pretty state of affairs.

I have no further clue to follow. I am here. I have done as Aurelia instructed. What now?

Sleep must be the first thing. And sleep I do, for even the most troubled soul has its limits. I wake to a fresh summer morning and the tumbling bells of York Minster.

My first sensation is relief that I am rested. Then comes the familiar, weary recognition that I am somewhere all new—I must start again. I no longer doubt that I can do so, but confidence is cold comfort when I'm alone once more.

Then comes the reestablishment of the dreaded mist in my brain: nothing is solved, after all. I decide to get up and explore this new city, for I have fretted and ruminated over my woes for every moment in that carriage and every moment on that train and it has achieved precisely nothing. I am neither reconciled to what has happened nor decided upon a course of action. Naturally, it is too soon to put it all behind me and embrace a new start. In short, I feel wretched.

The worst of it, without question, is Henry. The wrench from him. The inability to believe that our future has been ruined and the fear that it may be so. I hate it. I cannot yet bear to admit that he was in the right, but a budding suspicion that he may have had a point fuels the flame of my indignation. Nevertheless, more than anything I want to leave York at once, travel to Richmond, and put it all right.

But I am afraid. What if he has since realized that loving me was an error from which he has been most fortunately saved? What if his offers to me are all retracted, now and forever? When he speaks of love and choice, of honoring one's feelings and acting in accordance, my mind can understand him but the dark places in my heart cannot. In those dark places I have ever been alone. There I am always a blight, with a lopsided smile and grubby hands. And there I have learned that to put my fate in someone else's hands might cost me dear. Since Aurelia died, I have grown accustomed to looking after myself, and though it is lonely, it is safer that way. Those dark places whisper always of impossibility . . .

I think of writing to him, but I do not know what to say. Although it feels as though we have been separated an eternity, it has been only two days. He will still be angry—and I am still gone. Besides, he will be in Richmond by now . . . I know not where. And where will he go after that? How might I find him? Any letter must pass through several hands to reach him, even assuming he tells anyone where he is. “I shall live my life as I see fit,” he told me—he is lost to me. For now, at least.

I have the strangest sensation of being poised on a sixpence, about to bolt at any moment. I just want to take action,
any
action, to change history so that it never happened. But that is quite beyond my power. For now, the precious, damaged puzzle of Henry and myself is one that I must lay aside until I am free of the quest, or at least until I have a better wisdom with which to address it.

In these dark moments of contemplation, I also worry upon Quentin Garland's shameless usage of me—and, apparently, half the other young ladies of Bath. Fortune hunter. Philanderer. Liar. Wrapped up in a shiny pastel exterior with a blue cravat. Thinking about it now makes my skin crawl. I feel so horribly
stupid
when I remember all the moments that my instincts told me the truth and I barely noticed them, so dazzled was I by the elegant figure he cut. I felt honored,
validated
, by his attentions when I was low in spirits, when I felt like an outcast, when I thought Henry did not love me . . . yet it was all mixed up with a sense that
something
was not right. My instincts whispered to me, but my insecurities made me deaf to them. I am angry with myself. And with him, of course—it seems I am angry with
everyone
at the moment.

By what right did he fix upon me as a . . . as a
target
, and decide that
my
life,
my
heart,
my
future might be employed to serve
his
interests? Despicable disregard for humanity! I fume when I recall the clever, subtle ways in which he tried to drive a wedge between Henry and me, the way he sought me out, in Twickenham and in Bath, having witnessed my dramatic transformation. Oh, it was clear that I had come into a fortune and he fixed upon it like a hound with a scent. And I was flattered that such a great gentleman might take an interest in
me
! What a fool!

I feel ashamed when I remember how I allowed myself to imagine that he had my best interests at heart because he appeared to respect my secret where Henry did not. Quentin Garland did not respect my secret—he simply had not the slightest interest in it! He even told his friends about it.

I know it is fruitless to fret this way, yet I cannot stop, not with any effort of will, and this is why I step out into the clear, warm morning and begin aimlessly to wander the streets of York.

'Tis a different world here. The city is old, and beautiful in an altogether different way from Bath. The stone is darker, defensive. The streets are crooked and mischievous. Tiny alleys wriggle from one part of the city to another, with small, silent openings barely discernible to the hurrying passerby. There are rumors of a second city, older still, buried beneath the very stones on which I tramp, its stories lost forever. A fitting place, then, to end my quest. The buildings stoop and droop and mullioned windows wink in the sunshine. Despite the golden day, the close-crowding roofs and narrow streets create great tides of shadow, even as midday approaches. I am hopelessly lost, by then.