No Place for a Dame (20 page)

Chapter Nineteen

A
very watched Giles disappear into some back antechamber. She felt bruised and lost and quite, quite out of her depth. There hadn’t been the faintest echo of the youth she’d known or even the Giles she’d thought she’d come to know in the man who’d so callously dismissed her.

“Stings a bit, doesn’t it?”

She looked around. Lord Vedder was standing next to the table, casually leafing through the betting book.

“Being the target of Strand’s rapier tongue, that is,” he said.

She turned her head and snatched off her glasses, polishing them assiduously as she blinked away the tears blurring her vision.

“I’m sorry.”

The unexpected sympathy in Vedder’s voice threatened her composure anew. She took her time putting her glasses back on before turning round. “Thank you, but you have nothing for which to apologize.”

“I suppose I am apologizing for my species.”

She tipped her head inquiringly.

“The London Dandy. An oft-vicious, purposeless breed known for its incessant barking and insatiable appetite.”

His attempt to ameliorate the situation surprised her. He must have read the confusion in her face for he closed the book. “I’m afraid we got off on the wrong foot the other day. I was intent on barking, you see.”

She smiled faintly at his cajolery. He was a very handsome man, she realized. When he was not sneering.

“There. That’s better,” he said, smiling approvingly. “Let’s start afresh, shall we? I promise to behave. I know how it is to feel out of place.”

“You, sir?” Neville asked. She’d almost forgotten him.

Vedder looked at Neville, none of the sympathy he had shown Avery in that brief glance. It roused a tingle of wariness in Avery. But his answer was friendly enough. “Oh, yes. I came to London from the country myself and received any number of lessons similar to the one young Mr. Quinn here has just learned.” He turned back to Avery. “Strand didn’t mean any harm by it.”

“It certainly felt like he did,” she said impulsively, still raw from the encounter.

“Well, you don’t really know him very well, do you?” Vedder asked, coming round the table. He held out his hand, gesturing to the nearby chairs. “If you’d care to have a seat, I shall reveal all.”

She hesitated, unwilling to turn down an opportunity to understand the vast discrepancy between the Lord of Killylea and the Prince of Fops. On the other hand, Giles had clearly wanted her to leave.

Neville had no such misgiving. He plopped himself down as Vedder took a seat. They regarded her askance until she followed suit.

“Something to drink?” Vedder asked. “No? Where were we? Oh, yes. You’re unfamiliarity with your mentor. Tell me, how long have you known Strand?”

It was just a casual question. “A month.”

Vedder clapped his hand on his knee. “There you are. I saw that you did not know him well. His conduct disturbed you. ’Tis clear you’ve involved yourself with a stranger.”

Avery frowned. “I wouldn’t call him a stranger.”

“No? But you said a month. Perhaps I misunderstood. Was there some earlier association?”

“No.” She shifted uneasily in her chair.

“I shouldn’t tease you. I forget how it is to be young, when within the space of a conversation a chance acquaintance can become a treasured friend and one makes choices based on whim and impulse.”

Avery blinked at him. Whim and impulse were anathema to a scientist. “I assure you, sir, I don’t do
anything
based on whim or impulse. It would taint the scientific method.”

“You don’t?” Vedder looked faintly taken aback. “Ever?”

“No.”

“I do,” Neville interjected eagerly then flushed. “At least, I’d like to.”

“Not I,” Avery said. “I am a scientist.”

Vedder studied her with what Avery very much suspected was pity. She scowled. “No,” he said, “I don’t suspect you do. No matter. You did entrust yourself to Strand and you must allow if that was not capricious, at least it was precipitous.”

“I trust my instincts. A good scientist must also trust his inner voice.”

“Of course,” Vedder agreed.

“I would like to trust my inner voice,” Neville murmured, drawing their attention. “But it too often suggests impossible things. Things mo—others would never allow.”

What, Avery wondered, would this nice young boy consider impossible? Flouting his horrible mother’s orders?

“You shouldn’t ignore it,” she said decisively.

“I agree,” Vedder said. “Nothing is impossible.”

“You don’t understand. My mother…” he trailed off miserably.

“But I do,” said Lord Vedder. “This is London, Lord Neville. Anything is possible. Anything can be done. Anything
is
done. And nothing is disallowed. Trust me. If you don’t allow yourself freedom here, you will be a slave everywhere.”

Avery wasn’t sure she’d go quite
that
far.

With a little groan, Neville slumped backward in his chair and fell silent, his brow furrowed and his chin resting on his chest as he stared sightlessly at his boot tips.

“Where did you meet Strand?” Vedder asked her.

The abrupt question caught her off-guard. “Strand? I… in… in the Netherlands.”

“Where in the Netherlands?” He brushed a bit of lint off his leg.

“Ghent.”

“Ah, Ghent.” He nodded comfortably. “I have relatives there. They live near the cathedral.”

“You mean the basilica.”

“Of course.”

She was beginning to feel anything but comfortable. The conversation had taken on the flavor of an interrogation. Rather than learning anything about Strand, she was revealing things about herself. She swiveled around and fixed Neville with an imploring stare. “Lord Neville, did you not say you were bespoke to your mother this evening? It’s close on six o’clock.”

“What was he doing in Ghent?” Vedder asked. Neville was still lost in unhappy contemplation of his boots.

“I am sure I do not know,” she answered stiffly. “Nor would I have asked.”

He ignored her icy tone. “Was he with friends?”

“Friends? No.” A bead of sweat had started trickling down the back of her neck. “I mean, I don’t think so. We didn’t travel back to England in the company of anyone else.”

“Oh? Hm. Odd. I thought I’d heard him say he had joined up with friends on the continent.”

He had
? Wouldn’t Strand have told her if he had made up a story about their supposed meeting? But what if he hadn’t had time to tell her? She had to be careful.

She shrugged. “Oh? Perhaps he did so before we met. I cannot be certain, I didn’t really pay much heed to what he was doing, or with whom, before we met.”

“And how did you meet?’

“At a planetarium. Neville!” She pushed to her feet, startling the large young man out of his stupor. “Your mother will be anxious.”

“Mother?” Neville blinked and looked at the standing clock by the doorway. He jumped to his feet. “Oh, lord! We best be straight off! Thank you for your good advice, Lord Vedder. And thank you for your hospitality.”

He secured Avery’s upper arm in one ham-sized hand and hauled her
bodily out the door. Or would have, had not Avery broken free and got there ahead of him.

“Something odd there.”

Vedder swung around to find old Douphton standing in the doorway opposite the one by which Mr. Quinn and Lord Neville had just left. He was scowling. But then Douphton was always scowling about something or other or what someone had done or might do or shouldn’t do. The man was a bore and a pedant. But in this case Vedder agreed with him. There was something odd about this Mr. Quinn. He just couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.

“You mean his appearance? Podgy little blighter. I suspect some sort of family taint accounts for the shape and beardlessness. Good enough features, though.” Which made the portly little physique all the sadder. He wondered if Quinn were a castrato. Shouldn’t be surprised to find out that he was. Likely an accident of some sort.

“You think so?” Douphton sniffed. “I daresay Strand shares your same opinion.”

Vedder, who had learned a few things in the years since he’d somehow become Jameson’s cur, knew a man who wanted to say something when he heard one. Douphton was dying to add something to his comment.

The older man contrived to look casual as he came into the room, but he moved too quickly and his attitude was eager. “I saw him helping the boy out of that gig in the streets. He caught him round the waist to do so.”

Vedder shrugged. “So?”

“It made me uncomfortable.
Damned
uncomfortable. Looked like he was… well, more interested than was natural.”

Vedder regarded Douphton with pity. The man was pathetic. Seeing sin and depravation in every act. And while Vedder certainly allowed sin and depravation to be in no short supply, the idea that Strand might be a molly was absurd. Not only had there never been a hint of any such thing attached to his name before but there were any number of ladies who would happily testify to his sexual preferences.

Besides, if the gloriously handsome Lord Strand were going to experiment with boys, he would certainly pick an equally glorious-looking one, not some bushy-browed little dumpling.

Douphton was watching him intently, waiting for him to speak. Vedder hesitated. He didn’t want Douphton to think for an instant that he gave any credence to the idea. There was no end of ears in a place like this and even if Douphton didn’t have a care for his hide, Vedder did. One did not make that sort of suggestion without courting severe consequences. Strand was not only a dab hand with a pistol but a brilliant swordsman.

Douphton would get himself killed if he didn’t watch his mouth. But he was the sort of lunatic who felt he had a sacred duty to reveal whatever sins he’d unearthed. His eyes practically glowed with religious fervor. Tiresome man. Still, Vedder already had enough worrying the little kernel of a conscience that had managed to survive all these years. Besides which Douphton sometimes lent him money at the gaming table.

“Shouldn’t let it make me too uncomfortable if I were you, Douphton, lest you find yourself discomforted into sporting a bullet hole in your head, if you take my meaning.”

Douphton glowered at him. With an inner sigh, Vedder decided to give him one last warning. “I’m sure it was nothing to speak of. Nothing at all.”

And without looking to see how this was received, Vedder gave a quick tip of his head and went in search of his greatcoat.

He had a report to make.

Chapter Twenty

B
oy says he met Strand in Ghent.” This time Vedder did not make the mistake of taking a chair but remained standing. The sooner he’d finished his report, the sooner he could leave Jameson’s domain, always an uncomfortable province.

“Do you doubt it?” Jameson asked without looking up from a map spread across the otherwise empty table.

“Not really. I told him I had relatives in Ghent. Had he been lying he would have equivocated. He didn’t. He knows Ghent. Whether that’s where he actually met Strand, I don’t know.” He shrugged. “But I would wager there’s something he knows that he’s not saying. Makes him uncomfortable, too.”