Maggie MacKeever (26 page)

“Maman’s crowing on account of Lady Dorset being in her dotage,” Tony muttered. “I don’t know why Maman should be, because she ain’t far behind.”

Julie’s thoughts returned to their previous conversation. “Why not tell Lady Georgiana it was a mistake?”

Tony was confused. “Hannah ain’t in her dotage?”

“No— Yes— I don’t know! Nor do I care. I meant that your, ah, acquaintance with my corset was a mistake.”

“It wasn’t a mistake. I was curious about the construction of the thing. It don’t signify. Or shouldn’t! Just because a fellow ain’t addicted to wenching don’t mean he’s a Miss Molly.”

Julie recalled from her time on the streets that there were men who preferred the company of their own kind. “Ah,” she said.

“There ain’t no ‘Ah’ about it!” Tony snarled. “If I’d rather study the harp than pugilism, so what?”

There were, Julie reflected, some advantages to not having had a parent. “You know your own business best.”

“Tell that to Maman. She thinks she knows more than I do. Said that she would
fix
me. I don’t want to be fixed. Perfectly happy the way I am.” Tony reconsidered. “Or I was! About that statue. I don’t suppose you’d care to give it to me? Or tell me where it’s hid?”

“I would not.” Someone knew she had Ned’s statue. How?

“I thought you’d say that.” Gloomily, Tony studied her. “That’s a dandy bruise you have on your chin.”

So it was, and a thick application of rice powder hadn’t hid it. “I walked into a door.”

Tony snorted. “I ain’t enough of a corkbrain to believe
that
clanker. What really happened?”

“The Cap’n, that’s what happened,” Julie hissed.

“Heigh ho!” said Lady Georgiana, behind them, causing both to jump. “What are the two of you whispering about? I’ll tolerate no more secrets, do you hear me? Come along. We have other errands to run.”

Tony awarded his mama an unappreciative glance. “It ain’t polite to interrupt.”

“Fiddle faddle!” Georgiana swept them before her through the shop like they were dirt and she a broom. “It is time, son, that you choose a companion for life. Madalyn Tate is from all accounts a biddable enough female. Dorset has thrown her over, and she will be grateful for any crumb. Furthermore, she has already proven she can produce a son. Understand me, Tony. There
will
be a son.”

Son? Wife? Had he just been called a ‘crumb’? “You don’t like children. Said so yourself,” protested Tony, appalled.

“Try not to be more of a sapskull than you can help.” Georgiana pinched his ear. “You are a viscount. Viscounts require heirs. This predicament is entirely your fault.”

His fault?
His
fault? It was not his fault but Georgiana’s that they were in this pickle. Were she not so clutch-fisted, Tony would have had the wherewithal to pay off his vowels.

If only, when his papa unexpectedly expired, Tony hadn’t permitted his mama to meddle with matters of finance. At the time he had been too overwhelmed to protest. Now he didn’t know how to wrest away the purse-strings without her
raising a rumpus, and turning blue in the face, and drumming her heels on the floor, which was a sight no man wished to see, especially if the rumpus-raiser was his own flesh and blood. However, if she
was
discovered to be in her dotage— Tony was a grown man, and should be able to manage his own affairs.

Should
be able to. He hadn’t done an impressive job of it so far. Georgiana was still going on about scandals, sick-making prospects, and prospective brides. “Maman,” he interrupted, “cut line.”

“You raise your voice to me, you ungrateful child?” Georgiana pressed a hand to her breast. “You might spare a thought for my indifferent health.”

“Why should I?” inquired Tony. “If you was half as sick as you wish the world to think you are, you wouldn’t have the energy to be always cutting up stiff.”

“I never!”

“Yes, you are. Doing it right now.”

Julie was stiff from standing. Her jaw hurt.
Wanting no part of another Ashcroft family squabble, she was first out the shop door. Behind her, mother and son continued to batter one another with uncomplimentary terms. Georgiana got in two good thrusts with “rattle-pate” and “cabbagehead”. Tony retaliated with “nasty, twitty old flap-dragon.” Georgiana fumbled for her vinaigrette.

Pedestrians thronged the busy street. Coachmen shouted and cracked their whips. Hooves clattered against cobblestones. Street sellers shouted out their wares. The sun shone brightly for a change, and people had ventured out of doors to enjoy the treat.

Julie was suddenly hungry for sheep’s trotters, or a Chelsea bun. She watched as a pickpocket walked boldly toward his prey, took an expensive handkerchief from his pocket as if to wipe his nose. This was done with a horizontal flourish in front of his quarry’s chest. Under cover of the flourish, the thief’s other hand moved up unobserved to draw the pin clear of his victim’s scarf.

Julie wistfully recalled the days when she’d had no more to worry about than her next meal. Life had been simpler then. Before she wound up in Newgate, and met Pritchett, and Ned.

She was nobody. Ned was an earl. Yet he’d taken her to Astley’s,
just as if she was a lady, and she could have thought herself in heaven if not for Cap’n Jack.

And then Ned had rescued her, taken her to his home and found her clothes and given her a bath. He didn’t take advantage, much as she had wished he would, and so she had boldly placed his hand on her breast. Had felt him against her bottom, growing hot and hard. If not for Clea interrupting, Julie might have said goodbye to her girlhood in that great carved bed.

She’d resented the interruption greatly in the moment. Now she didn’t mind so much. There was nothing romantic about her being battered and bruised and dressed in a boy’s clothes.

‘Romantic?’ Now she sounded as sappy as Rose. Julie had sent off a note this morning warning her friend to be on guard. She watched a chariot rattle by, drawn by cream horses and heralded by trumpets and drums, advertising the Pleasure Gardens at Vauxhall.

Behind her, Lady Georgiana’s arguments trailed off. Julie half-turned— And felt a sharp blow between her shoulder blades. She
stumbled out into the street, smack in the path of an iron-wheeled carriage traveling at considerable speed. The driver’s horrified face loomed terrifyingly close as he hauled back on his reins.

A strong arm scooped around her waist and hauled her out of danger’s path. “You must be more careful where you step, Miss Wynne,” said Lord Saxe.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

You cannot put the same shoe on every foot.
— Pubilius Syrus

“She was pushed,” said Kane. “I have no idea by whom. Niddicock would like to think it was an accident.”

“Niddicock,” retorted Ned, “is caught fast under a blackmailer’s thumb. He might have pushed Julie himself.” He brought his companion current with recent events, not the amazing equestrian feats at Astley’s, but the aftermath. “The puppet-master’s name is Cap’n Jack. No sooner did Julie tell me than she was almost snatched up. Since she received the note
before
she told me, the thing must have already been planned. If this is an example of how the Cap’n reacts
when thwarted, Julie is right to be afraid.” The only thing preventing Ned from going immediately to reassure himself that she was unharmed was a reluctance to tip his hand. If the Cap’n didn’t know yet that Julie had betrayed him — and how could he know? Ned disregarded Kane’s speculation that Julie might be playing a deep game — then Ned must do nothing to suggest that he knew more than he should. Which meant he must pretend it was a normal occurrence for a girl dressed like a boy to be set upon for purposes of being imprisoned in a brothel, and the next day came perilously close to falling in front of a speeding carriage. Why Kane had been present to affect so miraculous a rescue, Ned didn’t need to ask. Kane was sufficiently suspicious of Julie to be keeping an eye on her himself.

Kane’s suspicious eye was currently fixed on Ned. “Niddicock wouldn’t have had the brass to push her,” the baron pointed out.

Ned was not so certain. Impossible to predict what a man might do if driven to take desperate steps. He felt like resorting to dramatic measures himself.

“This might be about the codebook,” he said aloud. “The one that Julie filched not being the one the Cap’n wants.”

“Ah.” The codebook in Kane’s own possession, with notations of payments made for clandestine intelligence services rendered, would greatly broaden a blackmailer’s  scope. “A spy, perhaps?”

“Or in the employ of one.” Ned gazed at the glittering throng massed in Lady Escue’s reception rooms. “That might explain how he knew about the notebook in the first place.”

As if matters were not already complicated enough, reflected Kane. “M’sieur Morel claims to have no idea why his wife hanged herself. If he has a mistress, he informs us, what Frenchman does not? His wife never showed the slightest interest in the details of his work, and why should she have, pray? Everyone knows that political matters are beyond the grasp of the female brain. There will naturally be an inquest.”

“And the foregone conclusion, that Amélie Morel died by her own hand,” remarked Ned. “I, for one, am not convinced.”

“Nor am I. You look like you are bent on mayhem. A more amiable expression would not be out of place.”

Ned bared his teeth. It was the closest he could come to a smile. Julie was tucked away at Ashcroft House, Lady Georgiana’s nerves having been so over-taxed by the near-accident that she
took to her bed. Tony too was spending the evening at home, upset that something had happened, or almost happened, to a
young woman residing under his roof, and if she hadn’t been under his roof at the fateful moment, he was still responsible for her, so she should remain indoors where she’d be safe.

Safe, thought Ned. Safe, that was, unless either Lady Georgiana or her muttonheaded son were responsible for Julie’s stumble out into the street, which might be assumed to be the case if she next took a sudden tumble down the stair. In that case, Ned would deal with the Ashcrofts himself, and be damned to behavior fitting an earl, a subject about which he had heard a great deal tonight, having been badgered into serving as his cousin’s escort during her reemergence into the Polite World. Ned had been fit to throttle her
until Kane and Sabine arrived, an event which made Hannah gnash her teeth, because she had no sooner set out to squelch the rumor that Ned was meant for Sabine Viccars than Mrs. Viccars contrived
to neatly cut him out of the flock of marriage-minded females, remarking at the same time that Maddie Tate was a good sort of girl and wasn’t it a pity that there were those who had nothing better to do than make up unkind tales out of whole cloth.

Three ostrich feathers swayed in their direction, attached to a small satin hat perched precariously atop Hannah’s head. “I suggest the library,” said Kane. “Lady Dorset does not strike me as a female with an affinity for books.”

Kane was not in the most amiable of moods himself. He had earlier spent several hours at the Guildhall, where the City of London was entertaining the Allied Annoyances and seven hundred assorted guests at a cost of £20,000, approximately a quarter of Napoleon’s entire budget for a year on Elba. Sabine had also been privileged to attend, along with Countess Lieven and the Duchess of York, result of the Grand Duchess having decided at the last minute, despite the fact that females were not invited to civic occasions, to accompany the gentlemen.

Matters had deteriorated rapidly from that point. Prinny, who had planned to share a carriage with the Czar, thereby avoiding being boo’d by the crowds, was not pleased. He had been even less pleased when, after being forced to await the arrival of Alexander and his sister for an hour, he was kept waiting
longer while they stopped to talk with two of his most bitter enemies. The Grand Duchess then took exception to the music.
Prinny had been forced to beg that she allow the National Anthem to be sung. At last, reluctantly, she conceded, causing Lord Liverpool to remark that if people didn’t know how to properly behave, they should stay at home.

Kane wished he might have done so. When Prinny left the Hall at half past eleven, he and Sabine escaped. Now here they were at another tedious entertainment, result of Sabine being again set on rescuing Ned. Her efforts to discourage the matchmaking mamas by claiming a romantic disappointment had backfired: any number of young ladies now wished to try to help mend the earl’s
broken heart; would probably still have wished to do so — so great was the lure of becoming a Countess — if he wasn’t pretty as a picture (as one admiring young lady put it), but had a limp, or a squint, or stank like a goat.

Kane knew how it felt be hunted. As an astonishingly wealthy baron, he was only marginally less eligible than his friend. However, his reputation as a dangerous flirt stood him in good stead. Ambitious parents tended to eye Lord Saxe askance, aware he’d not easily be brought up to scratch.

Sabine’s arrival caused a stir. She wore a long-sleeved gown of claret-colored velvet, cut low in front and behind. Ruby drops gleamed at her ears and throat. Her fair hair was gathered into curls on the back of her head. She wove her way toward them through the crowd.

Sabine Viccars was the most beautiful woman Kane had ever seen.
As well as the most calculating. He imagined she’d been busy spreading rumors that would put Hannah further out of charity with them both. Kane waited until
they reached the solitude of the library, the door firmly closed
behind them, to relate the
latest news.

As Kane spoke, Ned strolled around the tidy library, which was much unlike his own; it contained a great deal of gleaming dark wood and leather-bound volumes lined up neatly on the shelves. He thought the chamber would have benefited from Cerberus sprawled on the hearth and Clea snuggled in one of the deep chairs, reading Ovid and/or a fashion magazine.