Cynthia Bailey Pratt (12 page)

Without ado, William Etter pushed the scullery maid off his lap and stood up. “Be you Miss Wingrove?” he asked inoffensively.

“I am. I wonder if you would take this letter and these volumes to Mr. Clively. I ...” She fumbled in her petticoat pocket for two shillings she’d saved out of the purchase of the novel.

“Never mind, miss,” he said, waving the douceur away. “The master said I was to ask if you wanted anything.”

“Thank him for me. I am perfectly content. When do you return to Roselands?”

“I’m only waiting for the mistress to send whatever she wants. Might leave tomorrow if she isn’t in a taking.”

“Thank you. Are you certain you won’t ...”

“The master pays me well enough, miss. And it ain’t nothing but a lark for me to ride here and there.” Looking back at the middle-aged man, powerful in his leather breeches and laced shirt, Danita could well believe he took pleasure in the outdoor pursuits. The young maid, giggling behind the door, certainly seemed to admire him.

In the street, Berenice also talked to a servant. Danita approached quickly to save her cousin from another impossible encounter. Her steps slowed, however, when she recognized Sir Carleton’s footman.

Glancing back over her shoulder, Berenice smiled and waved at Danita. As Danita reached them, Berenice was saying, “How interesting. I never should have thought of alum to clean marble. You’re too kind to tell me.”

“Why, miss, I never mentioned no...thank you, miss.” The young footman did not apparently share Mr. Etter’s disdain of gratuities. He was still bowing as the ladies walked away.

“Bath Street is the other way,” Danita reminded her as Berenice turned right at the end of the street.

“I’ve changed my mind about that bonnet. Let us go to Mr. Godwin’s in Milsom Street.”

“The book-seller’s?” Berenice did not
look
ill, but this was the strangest request Danita had ever heard her cousin make.

“Yes, I want to look again at that choker of cameos.”

Ah, Danita thought, that was more understandable. She recalled how pleased Berenice had been when she’d first learned that circulating libraries and bookstores sold more than dusty tomes of old sermons. But when they reached Godwin’s, Berenice did not make immediately for the case of ladies’ jewelry. She stood in the doorway, practically on tiptoe, craning her head to see who perused the deep tiers of bookshelves. Danita, behind her, had to practically push the smaller girl to enter. “The cameos?” she reminded her.

Even as the clerk drew out the triple-strand of pink carnelians, each carved in relief with the head of a Roman goddess, Berenice looked less at the jewels than at the others in the shop. Danita and the clerk exchanged a glance that was very nearly a shrug.

After a few more seconds of abstraction, the girl sighed and deigned to glance at the necklace. “Isn’t it pretty?” she exclaimed, taking it from the young man’s hand. As he held up a mirror, she laid the piece across her throat, squinting to imagine the stones against her skin, instead of over her spencer. “What do you think, Danita?”

There was no answer. Glancing around, Berenice saw that her cousin had drifted off to run a finger along the titles against the wall. Berenice said to the clerk, “I quite like this. Do you have the bracelets to match, and may I see that gilt comb? Yes, the one with the brilliants.”

Knowing Berenice would be happily occupied for at least an hour, Danita gave herself over to the siren call of the books. When she and Catherine had run their school, their only leisure would be one hour in the evening, after the students were abed, when they’d read aloud from some improving work. As soon as the clock struck ten, though, the volume would go back on the shelf.

In a bookstore, or circulating library, Danita could indulge in the fantasy that all the books she saw belonged to her alone. Browsing at will, taking down first one and then another, reading a line here or there, she knew perfect happiness. Reaching for the first volume of
Charming Walks Through Shropshire
by “A Reverend Gentleman,” Danita expected to feel the pleasant thrill of ownership. But it did not come.

Temptation came in its place. She had a sovereign. She could choose a book, take it to the counter, and pay for it. She could carry it home, read it at leisure. Danita remembered the joy she’d felt at owning Miss Austen’s pleasant work, and the delight of rereading a passage that had made her smile whenever she felt the wish to do so.

Hastily, Danita replaced the book, closing her eyes to the hand-colored plates, boasted of on the title-page. She would go and wait until Berenice was done, shutting her ears firmly to the whispering volumes all about her. They called to her to come and read, and after reading, buy.

As she marched across the floor, she heard a deep voice say, “I’ll take the Gilray prints and I must have this
Don Quixote.”

“Yes, sir,” said the clerk. “Shall I send them?”

“The book, yes. The other is a gift. I’ll take it along with me.”

“Very good. Sir Carleton.” The clerk scribbled some numbers on his cuff. “Ten and six, if you will be so good. I shall add the rest onto your bill, sir.”

As the clerk busied himself with wrapping the items in brown paper, the gentleman stirred the coins he’d pulled from his coat pocket. Then, waiting, he tapped his foot and gazed out the bow-front windows into the busy street beyond. “I’ll be back in a moment,” he said, dropping a few coins on the counter. “I see a friend.”

“Very good. Sir Carleton.”

As the tall man walked past, Danita bent over to search, as though nearsightedly, through a bin of quizzing-glass ribbons. Once the bell over the door jangled, she straightened. Passing the counter, she paused, struck by an idea. The clerk wrestled with a knotted spool of string. Walking silently by, Danita’s hand flashed between her pocket and the pile of coins.

Loitering near a pile of out-of-date guidebooks, her back to the desk, Danita heard all that passed between the clerk and the returned Sir Carleton. “I beg your pardon, sir, but you gave me a sovereign too much.”

“Did I? Odd, as I know I had no such coin in my pocket. Are you certain you made no mistake in the change?”

“I haven’t given you your change, sir. I wished to point out that you’d given me too much, to avoid the appearance of error.”

“Perhaps my smaller coins wished to amalgamate, or to speculate. My own investments, please God, will do as well.”

“Be that as it may. Sir Carleton, I assure you Godwin’s is not in the habit of...”

“Is there some difficulty?” asked the head clerk.

“No, indeed. Merely a misunderstanding. I gave my friend here a bit too much, and with commendable honesty he pointed it out to me.” Sir Carleton picked up the sovereign, weighing it in his hand.

Peering at him from around the edge of her bonnet, Danita saw him smile as his eyes traveled about the dim interior of the book-seller’s. Snapping her attention again to the shelves, she began casually to slip along from category to category. Only when she found herself among an unfashionable stack of epic poets in the extreme rear of the shop did she feel herself safe from the keen amber eyes of Sir Carleton Blacklock. “Three,” she said aloud in satisfaction. “Three to go.”

Perhaps her great-uncle would not be pleased to think his gifts went to Sir Carleton Blacklock’s pocket. Certainly Mrs. Clively would be highly scandalized to learn it. But Danita considered that a gift was hers to do with as she liked, and she wanted to be free of her last monetary debt. She had not quite decided how she would repay Mrs. Clively for taking her in.

“Are you reading aloud, Miss Wingrove, or mumbling to yourself? If it is the latter, I suggest care. My grandmother began talking to herself and look what happened to her.”

Danita jumped, surprised to hear his voice, seemingly in her very ear. But there was no one near her. Then, a book fell from its place and there, looking through the space where it had been, was a singularly bright and amber eye. The dark lashes blinked. “Are you not going to ask me what happened to my grandmother?”

Danita licked her lips and turned her head away, knowing she could not restrain a smile. “What happened to her?”

“She died. Of course, she was ninety-odd years old at the time.”

Danita laughed. A man and a woman passing at the end of the row stopped and frowned at her. Blushing, for she had not even the excuse of a book in her hand, she reached out to the shelf. “Very amusing,” she called reassuringly. The man took his companion’s arm and hustled her past.

“Listen,” Sir Carleton said through the gap. “We can’t talk here. And I’ve a favor to ask of you. Miss Wingrove. If you’ll do this little thing for me, we can call ourselves quits and you can stop raining gold pieces down upon me.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Danita said, pretending an interest in
British Birds.

“As the clerk began to say, Godwin’s is not in the habit of handing out sovereigns with their books. Even with so fine a book as
Don Quixote,
which is worth gold to me at least.”

“What is it? I’ve never heard of it.”

“ ‘Tis a grand book. My last copy went when the bailiffs came in. Fortunately, I was out at the time. Not even Cervantes could make one overlook being in prison. But, as I was saying, Miss Wingrove, you can’t keep giving me sovereigns. It doesn’t look right. It makes me feel...well...it’s not right.”

From not too far away, Danita heard Berenice calling her name and then adding, “Don’t tell me to hush. I can’t find my cousin. Danita, Danita!”

She had to answer. “I’m over here.”

“Where can we meet?” Sir Carleton asked.

“We can’t meet. I promised ...”

“Promised? Promised who? Ah, your Mrs. Clively, of course.”

“Yes. She doesn’t...regard you as good...that is...”

“No, the lady is succinct. She doesn’t regard me as good. But, Miss Wingrove, you alone have the power to help me.” He thrust out his large brown hand, strongly marked lines across the palm, from between the shelves. “I must have your help. It’s vital. Where can we meet?”

“There you are, Danita. You do wander off, don’t you? And you scold me for it!”

“I’m sorry, Berenice. I thought you were busy.” Sir Carleton’s hand was gone. Replacing the bird book on the shelf, Danita saw only a glimpse of a strong shoulder in a dark blue coat, half-turned away. “Did you buy your cameos?”

“No, I decided on the granulated gold beads instead. And a tortoiseshell comb that I’m not certain Grandmamma will permit me to keep. I’m sure she thinks they’re fast. Well, let us go on to the milliners in Bath Street.”

“No, I think you should go home. I have only just recollected that your grandmother wanted me to go to the Post Office to see if that letter from her solicitor is arrived. After our quarrel, I think she will be better pleased to see me if I come home with that.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a book slide out from the shelf and fall to the ground.

“Someone must have pushed against it from the other side,” Berenice said, bending swiftly pick it up. She peered at the dark green print on the edge.
“Walks among the Hibernean Abbeys
by a young lady of means. Hibernean? What is that?”

“I believe it means Ireland,” Danita said, wishing she’d said it meant China.

“Oh! How interesting. I’ll have them put it down with my other things. I’m dreadfully interested in Ireland, just now.”

Outside, Danita asked, “You didn’t come to Godwin’s just to look at that necklace, did you, Berenice?”

Within the depths of her bonnet, Berenice blushed. “No, Cousin. That footman told me his master was there, but I didn’t see him. What a waste of half a crown!”

Danita could only shake her head. It was useless to lecture Berenice. The girl was incorrigible. Though not certain she agreed with Mrs. Clively that a suitable husband was the only answer for a girl’s defaults of character, Danita did not envy her great-aunt’s task of finding a mate for Berenice. An older man might be the logical choice, yet undoubtedly Berenice would continue to be attracted to wilder spirits. If only there was a man somewhere who combined both the qualities of youth and attractiveness, with the steadiness of middle age.

“Look,” Berenice said, “there is Mr. Newland. Who is that with him?” Danita reminded Berenice that she’d already met Lord Framstead, at the Assembly Ball. The young earl certainly knew who Berenice was. He stood back, hat in hand, as the older gentleman bowed, his short brown hair ruffling in the breeze. Berenice smiled graciously at him, and when he smiled in return, she hesitated for a moment, looking at him with a slight crease of thoughtfulness between her perfect brows.

Almost at once, however, her attention was reclaimed by Mr. Newland, who began to talk about the latest discoveries at Pompeii, as he offered Berenice his arm to escort her home. “Imagine it, Miss Clively! Over sixty years of excavation and they still ...” Berenice’s interest in anything over sixty was not great, but she had the art of appearing interested even when she was not.

Lord Framstead fell in beside Danita. He did not speak to her, his eyes fastened upon the elegant figure of the girl ahead. Beneath the tilted brim of his beaver hat, the young man’s mouth was wry. “And I thought a title would make a difference,” he muttered.

“A friend of mine says you shouldn’t talk to yourself, Lord Framstead.”

“I beg your pardon, Miss ... uh ... I’m sorry, I don’t believe I recall...”A tinge of embarrassed color came up into his face, and he sucked meditatively on the handle of his stick.

“My name is Wingrove.”

“Ah.” Rather sheepishly. Lord Framstead smiled. Danita could understand why Berenice had been temporarily dazzled. The young nobleman had a frank and cheerful grin that made one forget the pretensions to fashion expressed in his dress. His coat was far too tight in the waist and much too padded in the shoulders. Danita suspected that his calves were padded with oakum to make a more attractive leg. But his eyes, of an unusual dark green, were kind and quite possibly clever. “I admire Miss Clively very much,” he said.

“Many men do.”

“Many? How many?”