Lord Portman's Troublesome Wife (18 page)

He did not answer. Instead he picked up her heavy velvet mantle and draped it about her shoulders before putting on his own, then offered her his arm. ‘Come, my dear, our carriage is at the door.’

The crowds, spilling into the road and lining the route of the procession, cheered every carriage that
passed, regardless of whether they knew its occupants. Rosamund, stiff with nerves, hardly noticed them.

Arriving at the Abbey, they were conducted to their places and prepared for a long wait. Many of those around them had brought packets of food and bottles of drink and the whole place hummed with conversation and gossip waiting for the arrival of the king and queen. Rosamund filled the time looking about her at the glittering array of churchmen and nobility and asking Harry to identify them. He had a tale to tell about each and kept her entertained until the cheering outside rose in volume and a few minutes later the Royal couple arrived.

They made their way through the nave to the coronation chairs and the service began. The Archbishop presented the sovereign to the people who responded with a cry of ‘God Save the King!’ Then the king took the oath. His crimson robes were removed, leaving him in a plain white tunic and he was seated in the coronation chair to be anointed while the choir sang the anthem. This done, the king was dressed in cloth of gold and invested with the regalia and crowned with St Edward’s crown over the Cap of State. From there he moved to the throne and received the homage of the people, in strict order of hierarchy. Then the queen was crowned and silver coronation medals were thrown into the congregation. Harry, retrieving one, wondered how long it would be before these were counterfeited and being sold for genuine.

After Holy Communion, the newly crowned monarch and his queen went to St Edward’s chapel where he put on a purple velvet robe and then proceeded
in state to the west end of the Abbey, carrying the orb and sceptre. It was over and the congregation filed out behind them to celebrate in whatever manner they had arranged. Harry and Rosamund returned to Portman House to eat a quiet meal together, while outside the noise of singing and cheering and the explosions of fireworks filled the air. On the surface they appeared content with each other, but both were nursing secrets that made ordinary conversation difficult and they separated to go to their rooms and rest until it was time to go to Lord Trentham’s ball.

Harry wanted to establish himself among the company so that he would not be missed when he later disappeared, and he had to make sure Rosamund did not come looking for him. Luckily most of the Piccadilly Gentlemen were there with their wives whom she had met on her wedding day, so she was soon in conversation with Louise and Amy. Amy rarely came to town, preferring to stay at their country home in Norfolk, but the coronation was a special occasion and so she and James were staying with Jonathan and Louise at Chaston Hall, a few miles out of town.

When the dancing began, they paired off; Rosamund was partnered by James and Amy by Jonathan. Harry swept Louise an extravagant leg and offered her his arm. They followed the others into the dance. Somehow he managed to make a wrong turn and drew everyone’s attention to him as he endeavoured to get back into the set. ‘My apologies, Lady Leinster,’ he said loudly in the high voice of the fop. ‘Don’t know what I was thinking of.’

She smiled. ‘Your lovely wife, I should imagine.’

‘She is lovely, ain’t she?’ he murmured.

‘Does she know?’

‘That she is lovely? I doubt it. She is too modest.’

Louise laughed. ‘No, I meant about the Piccadilly Gentlemen.’

‘No. Too dangerous.’

‘But I know and Amy knows,’ she said.

‘That’s different.’

‘Why?’

He paused, wondering how to answer her. ‘Because of the way her father died,’ he said with sudden inspiration. ‘Very smoky, that.’

‘Is that what you are investigating?’

‘Among other things,’ he answered enigmatically.

The dance ended. He bowed, she curtsied, then he took her back to Jonathan. He took a turn with Amy and then stood watching with tolerant amusement as Rosamund, smiling and relaxed, stood up with several youthful and not-so-youthful partners. He looked at his watch. It was time to go. ‘There is someone I must see,’ he said, to the company near him. ‘Beg to be excused.’ Flourishing a bow, he made his escape.

Looking about him to make sure he was not being watched, he dropped his lazy gait and hurried to the room Lord Trentham had set aside for him, which was at the rear of the house on the ground floor and close to an outside door. Jack Sylvester was waiting for him with his Gus Housman clothes.

The valet did not bother to hide his disgust; the garments were even filthier and smellier that they had been and his lordship would not allow him to clean them. ‘Don’t know why you want to go out in these
things,’ he said, trying to brush the coat down with his hand, as Harry threw off his white wig and began stripping off his finery.

‘Reasons, Jack, reasons you do not need to question,’ he said amiably, stepping out of his small clothes and into the disgusting fustian breeches. ‘I hope you remembered the make-up, I am not keen to rub real dirt over my face.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

Once the disguise was on, he dirtied his face and hands with make-up and put on the mouse-bitten brown wig. ‘Will I do?’ he asked, clapping a dirty black hat on top of it. ‘Haven’t forgotten anything, have I?’

‘Your own mother would not know you, my lord.’ It was said with a perfectly straight face. ‘But I fancy red heels are a little out of place.’

‘Good God!’ Harry, who had absent-mindedly slipped his feet back into his shoes after putting on the breeches, kicked them off again and replaced them with the down-at-heel footwear of Gus Housman, then looked at his fob watch which lay with his quizzing glass, rings and other accessories on a table, ready for his return. ‘I’m late. Don’t stir from here until I come back, I shall need you.’

He left Jack muttering that he didn’t know what the world was coming to, and peeped out to see there was no one about. The coast was clear and he was soon out and hurrying down a side road and out on to Piccadilly. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Ash’s phaeton standing outside the Admiral’s house and, unusually, no one in attendance. At once he went into character, sidling along, looking shifty. The street was still busy
with pedestrians, a cab or two and a couple chairs being escorted by linkmen.

He had half his body in the carriage when Ash came out of the house to raise the hue and cry. He was too early or Harry was too late, but he could not retreat and there was nothing for it but for Ash to pretend outrage and grab the offender. ‘You were late,’ he muttered as they pretended to struggle. ‘Now what am I supposed to do?’

‘Let me get away and fall over your own feet coming after me.’

Ash obeyed, but others had seen the robbery and gave chase. This was not in Harry’s plan, but there was nothing for it but to run for all he was worth. His closest pursuer dived for his legs and brought him down, making him hit his face on the cobbles. Desperation lent him strength and, after a brief but intense struggle, during which his neckerchief was torn from him, he squirmed away, scrambled to his feet and set off again. The man made a half-hearted attempt to follow, but gave up and went back to Ash, who had gathered the witnesses about him and was loudly lamenting the loss of his purse.

Harry could not go back to Lord Trentham’s house until he was sure he was not being followed. He turned the corner into Tyburn Lane and risked a look behind him. There was no one on his tail. Another turn and then another and he was at the mews behind Trentham House. Making sure there was no one to see him, he slipped back into the house and rejoined Jack.

‘My lord, what has happened to you?’ the valet asked, shocked by the sight of him.

Harry was so breathless he had to sit down before he could answer. ‘Nothing of any moment.’

‘Nearly got caught, didn’t you?’ Jack said. ‘I knew no good would come of it.’

‘Come of what?’ Harry demanded, stripping off the dirty coat and noticing there was blood on it. ‘Where did that come from?’

‘Your nose, my lord. You look as though you have been in a mill.’ He sighed and wrung a cloth out in a bowl of water set ready to wash off the make-up and began dabbing at Harry’s nose. ‘It was a wager, I doubt not. I only hope it was worth it, though what Lady Portman will say when she sees you, I can but guess.’

‘Ouch! That hurt.’

‘I must clean the blood off, my lord, and get rid of this brown make-up, but you will have to use the lighter make-up to cover the bruise. I assume you mean to rejoin the company.’

‘Of course I do.’ He brushed the valet aside and stood up to look in the hand mirror, which he kept with his box of make-up. ‘Good Lord, I did not know it was as bad as that.’ He fingered the end of his nose tenderly. ‘That comes from not looking where I was going and walking into doors.’

‘You don’t say,’ Jack commented laconically, handing him a pot of make-up.

Harry could easily have admonished him for that but, busy smearing the paint over the bruise and blending it in, decided not to. Then he took off the rest of Housman’s clothes and dressed again as the foppish Lord Portman, cramming his hair back under the white wig and sitting down again to put on his shoes. Restoring
his fob and quizzing glass to his neck and the rings to his fingers, he left Jack to bundle up the other garments and return with them to Portman House.

‘Where has Harry has got to?’ Francis murmured, leading Rosamund down the line of dancers. ‘Deserted you already, has he?’

‘He is about somewhere. I saw him dancing not two minutes ago.’ It had been considerably longer than two minutes, but she did not intend to let Francis know she had wondered the same thing herself. ‘He might have gone to the card room.’

‘Ah, yes,’ he said, with an oily smile. ‘Harry does so like a gamble.’

Why did everything the man said sound as if he meant something more than the words he was uttering? ‘He is no different from most other men and I do not think he risks too much.’

‘Oh, he risks a great deal,’ Francis said enigmatically.

‘I cannot think what.’

‘No?’ He stepped away from her and down the outside of the double line of dancers to find her again at its head. He bowed and took her hands to duck beneath the arch of outstretched arms. ‘Marrying you was a risk and embroiling himself in your affairs an even greater one,’ he murmured so only she could hear.

‘Whatever do you mean?’

‘I blame that play acting he was so keen on before he inherited. Thinks he’s another David Garrick, I shouldn’t wonder. It wouldn’t be so bad if he confined his acting to the stage and didn’t enjoy dressing up like a muckworm and consorting with the low life in the stews.’

‘I am sure you are mistaken,’ she said, as an image of Harry creeping from the house in that strange garb came to her. This was all to do with Papa and that mining company and Max and those coins, she was sure of it.

‘I’ve seen him myself. Funny that, after your brother passed me a clipped guinea the other day.’

‘That was an innocent mistake, you know that.’ She tried to sound convincing but was not sure she had succeeded.

‘Oh, undoubtedly it was a mistake,’ he said airily. ‘A big mistake.’ He stopped suddenly because Harry was waiting for them at the end of the line.

‘I will take over now,’ he told Francis, holding out his hands to Rosamund. ‘Do find something else to do.’ Defeated, Francis left them.

‘My lord,’ she said, taking his hands and stepping to the side and then back again. ‘That was discourteous of you.’

He matched her steps with his. ‘I have no doubt he was filling your head with nonsense.’

‘I took no note of what he was saying,’ she said.

‘Good.’

The dance ended, he gave her a flourishing bow and she curtsied. It was when he held out his hand to raise her and she looked up into his face, she noticed his nose was swollen and there was the beginning of a bruise on the end of it. ‘Harry, what has happened?’

‘Happened, my dear?’ He was at his most infuriating as he tucked her hand beneath his arm and strolled to the side of the ballroom. ‘Why, I have been dancing with you. I know it ain’t done to dance with one’s wife,
but I don’t care for that custom when the wife I have is making the whole population of London green with envy of me.’

‘That is a foolish thing to say,’ she said, unaccountably pleased with the compliment. ‘I did not mean that.’

‘Oh?’ A dark eyebrow was raised towards her.

‘You look as though you have been fighting.’ It was said in a whisper.

‘Fighting, my dear? Me?’ He feigned astonishment. ‘I am the world’s worst coward. Besides, it would ruin my clothes.’ These were as pristine as they had been when they arrived, but he ran the back of his hand down the lapel of his coat as if stroking it in affection.

‘But your nose is swollen and I do believe I can see a bruise.’

‘Oh, that,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘Silly me, I walked into a door. Not looking where I was going. A little foxed, perhaps.’

She did not believe him, but could hardly call him a liar; still, something had happened when he absented himself, she was sure of it. The company was too wrapped up in the dancing and their own conversations to notice when someone disappeared, which often happened at functions like this: a call of nature, a stroll in the garden, the lure of the card room, a little flirtation. But she had missed him. It had not worried her until Francis Portman started filling her ears with his innuendo and Harry had come back with a bloodied nose.

‘Then perhaps we should take our leave and return home before other people notice it,’ she said. ‘I will put some salve on it. You cannot go about looking as though you had been in a prize fight and come off worse.’

‘If I had been in a fight, I would not have come of worse,’ he said, attempting humour. ‘But, by all means, let us make our excuses and go home.’

Their carriage was sent for while they took their leave of their host and hostess. James and Jonathan, who knew about the supposed robbery, pretended to believe the story of the door and chaffed him unmercifully, so that he was glad to escape.