Authors: Cupboard Kisses
With that, she kicked over Boy’s bucket, stormed inside, slammed down the other front window, and slapped her second sign into place.
It wasn’t the sign that did the trick. Lord Winstoke’s jaw had been hanging open long before he read “Music instruction, pianoforte and harp.”
It wasn’t even the references to a noble, proud name that finally registered with his addled mind, a name that he had never asked and supposedly didn’t know.
It wasn’t the moral lesson, either, although that clinched it.
What turned the tide was that one piercing statement, “It’s
my
house.” His heart in his mouth, which he finally closed, Lord Winstoke was certain he knew Belle’s name after all, and all too well.
His new boots were ruined and his feet were sopping wet and cold inside them. Lord Winstoke’s temper, however, was on the boil.
“Jonas Sparling,” he commanded at the top of his considerable lungs, squelching across the marble hallway. “Report to the bridge.”
If nothing else, the order cleared the decks of every other of his lordship’s servants, especially quickly those used to gentry who delicately tugged the bellpull when they wished service.
Sparling skidded to a halt on the now-puddled marble. “Aye-aye, Cap’n. Uh, you called, my lord?” Sparling was more curious than perturbed. He had seen the captain in combat before, unlike the rest of the lubbers on board. As cool as the breeze off Dover, Captain Chase was during a battle, so at least they were not under attack by French warships right in Mayfair, as a body might suppose from all the hurly-burly below stairs. This was something personal, and, hell, whatever had the captain’s nose out of joint, he could only fire a valet, he couldn’t make him walk the plank. So Jonas nodded toward his master’s boots and asked if he should batten the hatches, with a rough sea following.
“I’ll batten your hatches, you yardarm yahoo. By all that’s holy, man, why didn’t you tell me Miss Swann was a young lady? A beautiful, charming, refined lady?”
“You wouldn’t listen, Cap’n.”
“Gads, Jonas, I was blind, not deaf!”
“You ordered me not to mention her name to you, sir.”
“Sailor, do you know how Lord Nelson won his promotion?”
“Yes, sir, I expect every man in the Navy knows about the Battle of the Baltic.”
Winstoke ignored him. “I’ll tell you. He disobeyed orders, that’s how. He held his telescope up to his missing eye and said he couldn’t see Admiral Parker’s signal to withdraw. He stayed to fight, for the good of his country. He went on to win the battle, got made a viscount and commander of the whole Channel fleet…by disobeying orders.”
“You made me promise, my lord.”
“But a bordello, man! You had to have known I’d sent an innocent maiden off to live in a brothel!”
“You begged.”
* * *
“Floyd, another bottle.” The viscount was in his study, slouched in a soft chair, his bare feet toasting by the fire. He’d already finished one bottle, but he was still thinking clearly. Too clearly, for sobriety only told him that he was now the two men Miss Swann liked least in all of England. One had stolen her inheritance, the other kept trying for her virtue. Lord, let there be oblivion in the brandy.
He would have had her anyway, he realized now, too late, even if she weren’t pure. Now he couldn’t have her any way, neither mistress nor wife. She would only believe his proposal came from a sense of honor, if she heard him out at all, to give her his name. Worse, she’d believe he was only offering marriage to get what was unobtainable otherwise. She would never believe he couldn’t live without her.
It was true, though, astonishing as it was. Love had come to the captain, and he had no defense. He had tried valiantly, of course, calling it lust, infatuation, then the pleasure of the chase. He was playing her game, he had told himself, while she held out for higher stakes. But there was no game, and the only stake Miss Swann understood was a wedding band. He should have known. Her kiss was that of an innocent, he could swear for him alone. Fool that he was, he had let his pride deal himself out. Where were his pride and his family honor now? Damn poor companions.
His Belle wouldn’t look at him anyway, prickly moralist that she was. He was a red-blooded Englishman in his estimation, a depraved libertine in hers, in either identity. She never wanted to see him again. He never wanted anything more than to have her beside him, forever.
“Floyd, another bottle.”
* * *
“Miss Cristabel, Miss Cristabel, come quick! It’s Mac, and he’s all beat up!”
“Mac? Oh, Mac, what happened to you? Your poor eye, and your lip! Here, sit down. Fanny, go get wet cloths and whatever else you can find.”
Major MacDermott staggered to a seat in the parlor, leaning on Cristabel. “My word, Mac, did Nick do this to you?” she asked. “I didn’t believe he was that dangerous! I’ll have to go to Bow Street after all. We’ll write out a warrant and have him arrested and—”
“What kind of clunch do you think I am?” Mac mumbled painfully through his split lip. “No twiddling little flat could have done this to me.”
“Footpads? Were you set on by a gang of thieves in broad daylight?”
“Arrgh. It was your bloody viscount.”
“Lord Winstoke? When you told him about us? I mean, when you told him there was nothing to tell?”
“He hit me before I could say anything.”
“But you told him?”
“Yeah, then he hit me again. Said he would have killed me if he thought otherwise.”
“Oh dear. Mac, does this mean you’ll have to call him out? Will there be a duel?”
With only one eye still open, he fixed it on Miss Swann like she’d grown another head. “If I wanted to die, you peahen, I’d go back to the wars. What would you have me do, challenge him over the honor of his own ladybird?”
So she hit him.
* * *
What a violent, hostile shrew Cristabel was turning out to be! She did not like it, or understand it. In her whole adult life, the worst she’d done was kick the occasional chair leg for getting in her way, and once she had pinched a student at Miss Meadow’s for bringing a toad to church. Now, in less than twenty-four hours, she had spilled punch in a gentleman’s lap, poured wash water over another one’s feet, and even struck someone in anger! She could not remember such furious thoughts or such physical outpourings of uncontrolled emotions.
Moderation, that had been the rule. Placid, decorous, and boring, the Golden Mean was more comfortable than this turmoil of indignation and upset, this tightrope between hope and despair off which she was constantly falling. Passionate outbursts were unseemly and unproductive, although Miss Swann had felt a touch of satisfaction—she was only human. But they had to stop. She had to control her thoughts and her actions, put aside all those foolish notions of a Grand Passion and get back to an ordinary, crisis-free existence.
Hadn’t she improved the house in just one day? And hadn’t she already found a respectable lodger? Then she could certainly bring a halt to this emotional drivel, and start using her God-given good sense.
Therefore Miss Swann promptly changed into her ugly but sturdy flannel nightgown, brushed her hair precisely one hundred strokes, climbed into her bed—and cried herself to sleep.
Sleep was hard in coming and full of dreams. If Cristabel’s dreams betrayed her finer principles and her new resolutions both, well, no one could control their sleeping thoughts.
Lord Winstoke was in her night fantasy, not surprising since she had fallen asleep with him on her mind. They were dancing the waltz, as light as air, spinning and twirling effortlessly, while they stared into each other’s eyes. She fell deeper and deeper into the gray depths of his gaze, still floating, as if on clouds. Then he moved closer and pressed his lips to hers, as tender as sunlight, as soft as a pillow. They danced and drifted, lost in an endless kiss that became more insistent, stealing her breath away. They were spinning faster, too fast. She couldn’t get enough air. She was afraid!
“Stop, stop!” she shouted, and woke up suffocating, with a pillow over her face! She thrashed wildly and hit something soft enough to force an
“oosh”
from her attacker and a momentary loosening of the pillow’s pressure. Cristabel managed to scream before the downward push was returned, but she’d also taken a deep breath, so struck out with more force. There was no way any one man was going to dodge two arms and two legs while using both of his own hands to hold her and the pillow, so the would-be murderer was not having an easy time of it either. The sound of footsteps on the stair and shouting, worried voices convinced him to leave before the job was finished, or he was.
Cristabel threw off the pillow and jumped out of bed, following the crashing sounds of the intruder finding his way to the front door in the darkness.
Marie stood with a candle at the top of the stairs—and a gentleman caller, with a pistol, pulling on his pants. Cristabel required a moment to absorb that vignette, and almost missed seeing Nick Blass scamper through the front door.
She leaned against the wall to catch her breath and slow her heart’s frantic pounding. Fanny and Boy, both in nightshirts, came tearing up the back steps. Fanny was wielding a metal soup ladle, Boy a butcher knife.
“We was just practicing our letters, ma’am,” Fanny replied to her scowl. “Really, we was.” She kicked Boy, who was grinning, and changed the subject. “It was Nick, wasn’t it, Miss Cristabel? I knew he was no good. It were those eyes, just like Uncle Lewis’s, what got hanged for—”
“Not now, Fanny. Boy, get dressed and fetch the watch. I’m sure Nick got away, but maybe they can find him.”
“But what happened, Miss Cristabel? How’d Nick get in?”
“With his own key, I expect!” Cristabel said with much disgust. “My wits have gone begging lately. We’ll need the locksmith and the Runners after all. If they cannot protect me, at least they can advise us about things like that.”
“You’re calling in Bow Street? Good grief, Marie, they cannot find me here! Where’s my jacket, find my boots!” Lord Chauncey Radway was waving the pistol around in a frenzy, putting Cristabel in worse jeopardy than she was in from Nick’s pillow.
Then young Mr. Haynes wandered down the stairs from the attics in his shirtsleeves, a quill in his hand.
“I say, Miss Swann, you promised this was a quiet establishment where I could get my writing done.”
“I’m dreadfully sorry, Mr. Haynes. I hadn’t intended on being murdered in my bed.”
“It won’t happen again, will it?”
“I sincerely hope not!”
“Good, good. Otherwise I’d have to move, you know.” And he drifted back up the stairs.
“Who was that?” Lord Radway wanted to know, struggling into his jacket with Marie’s assistance.
“Just the new boarder, love, a nice lad who writes for the papers,” Marie told him.
“A reporter? My God, I’ve got to get out of here! If this ever got back to my wife…” He grabbed his boots out of Marie’s hands and raced down the stairs, calling over his shoulder, “I’ll try to come by next month when I am in town on business again. You’ll have to let me know if it’s safe to call.”
“But, but what about the place of my own we were going to look for this visit?”
“Sorry, sweets. I cannot chance the notoriety. The wife’s breeding, you know. I can’t upset her at a time like this. The heir and all.” He managed to get out of the door faster than Nick had.
Marie fell to the ground wailing. “He’s abandoned me! I’ve got no place and no savings and I’ll be out on the street! What am I going to do? I’ll starve to death, I’ll throw myself in the river, I’ll—”
“You’ll stop working yourself into hysteria this instant!” Cristabel demanded, having seen quite enough tantrums among the girls at school. “If you don’t, I’ll throw this jug of water on you, so help me I will,” she said, pulling flowers out of a vase and advancing up the stairs, totally out of patience. You’d think Marie was the one nearly killed by a lunatic. “He is not worth your tears. Good riddance to bad rubbish, if you ask me. And you will
not
be out on the street. We’ll work something out, I swear we will. Please Marie, please don’t cry.”
It was too late as the other girl was already blubbering into her sleeve, but Cristabel could pick out a few phrases, such as “Skinny shanks,” and “wet kisses.”
“Really, Miss Swann, I must protest this continued disturbance. I cannot think, and if I cannot think, I cannot write, and if I cannot write—”
“I know, you cannot pay the rent. We’ll try very hard, Mr. Haynes. The, ah, disturbance should be over now. Here, Fanny, you take Marie up to her room. And stay there!”
“I think she could use some tea. My mum always said—”
“Very well, I’m sure I could use some also. But there is to be no more visiting with Boy in the middle of the night. Do you understand? Look where it got Marie.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t take money, Miss Cristabel. That’d be wrong. Boy and me, we’re just friends.”
Miss Swann sank into a chair, her head between her hands, and sighed. Fanny scooted, dragging the limp Marie after, leaving Cristabel alone in the hallway. Alone! She jumped up and locked the door. Fine lot of good that had done her, about as much good as her other defenders. Now that she had time to think about it, where was the guard dog Boy mentioned? She never heard so much as a bark. Her kitten would have done better.
The other protection was coming down the stairs now, fully dressed, buckling on his sword belt. “What’s all the ruckus?” Mac asked.
The night watchman was no help; the charlie was a stooped old man with little hair and less teeth and a misplaced levity, in Cristabel’s opinion.
“You complaining about a man in your bedroom?” he cackled. “That’s a new one for this place, dearie. What’s the matter? He wouldn’t pay up?”
“He tried to kill me, you jackanapes!”
“Ar-ar. And you expect me to go chasing after some swell that likes to play rough? You got to get yourself a protector, girl.”
“It was the pro—that is, the person who attacked me was a former employee.”
“Changin’ horses midstream, eh?” He chortled in Mac’s direction. “That’s the ticket.” Then he got a better look at Mac’s battered face. “Can’t say as how I’d lay my blunt on this one. ’Course I ain’t seen the other fella. No matter, us civil servants are paid to watch out for honest folks, not be wet-nursin’ you baby dolls, ar-ar.”
So Cristabel made Major MacDermott escort her to Bow Street. She dressed in one of her new gowns, but carefully buttoned her heavy old woolen cloak over it. The officer in charge was a great deal more respectful, if only a bit more helpful.
“It’s like this, ma’am. The Runners are an independent lot. They work hardest when the case offers the biggest reward. I don’t suppose…No, I didn’t think so,” he said regretfully, eyeing her shabby cape. “In that case, they’ll keep an eye out for this Blass person, but not much else, I’m afraid.”