No Place for a Dame (8 page)

Had she been vain she would have been embarrassed by her appearance. She was not vain. Having people think she was a fat young man suited her purpose. If they were looking at her waistline they would not be looking at her face.

She and Strand had parted ways nearly three weeks earlier. Strand had given her a purse full of coin and explicit instructions: In twenty days’ time, Miss Avery was to take the stagecoach to Whitchurch, procure a private room at the last coaching inn, and there transform herself into Mr. Quinn. Before daybreak the next morning she was to leave the room by way of the window and wait outside the inn until the coachman arrived to rouse the other passengers. Once in London she was to hire a hackney carriage to take her to Strand’s house. She would be expected.

“You planning to stand there interferin’ with traffic all day, son?” the innkeeper shouted at her from the tavern’s open door. She looked around uncertainly and spied a hansom carriage parked just outside the courtyard. Hefting the valise to her shoulder, she trudged through the icy muck to its side. The driver leaned over from his seat, looking her up and down. “You kin pay?”

“Yes.” She nodded, squinting up at him through the thickening drizzle.

He eyed her doubtfully. “Let’s see the color of yer coin.”

She reached into her pocket and withdrew the tightly laced purse, untying it with cold fingers. She pulled a pair of shillings out and held
them up for his inspection. He gave a grunt, bent at the waist from atop his perch, and yanked open the door.

“Where to?” he asked as she shoved the valise inside.

She gave him the address on Half Moon Street, drawing a low appreciative whistle as she climbed in and shut the door. “Is it far?” she called up once settled inside.

“Far?” She heard him laugh. “Nay. T’aint far. But in London, lad, it’s never how far a thing is away, it’s how long it takes to get there!” And with a flick of his whip, he sent the carriage lurching forth.

An hour later, Avery understood what he meant. They seemed to spend more time standing, backing up, and skirting around things than moving forward. Traffic choked every avenue and street. A van lying on its side obstructed traffic for blocks, its spilled contents swarming with a hoard of raggedy children darting beneath the cudgel-wielding arm of the driver trying futilely to defend his goods. Men unloading a brick wagon clogged another intersection and everywhere a river of pedestrian traffic flowed thick as sludge.

Just when she thought she might never reach her destination and that she would end her days in this carriage, the traffic abruptly loosened. The congestion petered away in mere blocks. She stared out the window as the carriage entered a short block lined with tall, white edifices built cheek-to-jowl across from a small park blanketed with a recent snow, a hedge of holly brilliant against the white.

Each house looked much like its neighbors. White Greek columns flanked the entrances and each one boasted identical sets of tall French doors along their first floors. These, in turn, opened to identical balconies enclosed by shining black wrought-iron rails. More rows of windows gleamed in orderly procession from the upper stories.

The carriage halted midway down the street and the driver jumped down and opened the door. She hesitated only a second before leaping down.

“ ’At’ll be a shilling three,” the driver said as he pulled her luggage free and dumped it at her feet.

She dug the coins from her purse and handed them to him. He tipped a finger to his hat and climbed back to his perch, setting off at a smart pace. Wearily, Avery trudged up the stairs, her valise bumping her thighs
on one side and her books bumping the other. At the top, she set the valise down and rapped on the door.

She waited, cold and weary, but with an undeniable sense of achievement. She’d done it. She’d passed her first day as a male without being found out. The older lady in the coach had given her a few tense moments, but in the end people had done exactly as she’d expected them to do: They’d accepted what they saw without questioning it.

Now, all she wanted was a bath and out of this contraption. Later she could meet with Strand and find out what arrangements he had made to introduce her to various members of the Royal Astrological Society. Perhaps they could dine together in her room with Travers—who’d arrived earlier in the week—to attend them. Then she could dispense with the male garb for the evening. Though masculine clothing
should
have allowed for greater and easier movement, the cotton batting protruding like a prow from her front curtailed any benefits the attire might have offered. It would take some getting used to.

The door swung open. A footman in livery stood before her. He was tall, at least a head taller than she, and very blond and startlingly handsome—almost as handsome as Strand. He looked down at her, his expression carefully neutral.

“Mr. Quinn?”

Where was Travers? Travers was supposed to meet her. Or at least that’s what she had assumed… She nodded, resigning herself to prolonging her charade for a bit longer.

“You’re expected, sir. I am Burke,” the footman said, taking her packages from her and stepping aside.

She looked around the entrance. The walls were painted a pale, celestial blue surmounted by a white ceiling, the plaster moldings carved into an intricate Greek key motif. A single round pedestal table stood in the center of the entry, graced by a silver bowl brimming with yellow hothouse roses and blue larkspur.

“If you’ll follow me, sir.”

She nodded and Burke led the way down a long hall, stopping at the first door and opening it, then stepping inside. She frowned. She would rather go to her rooms and clean off the travel muck before seeing Strand but she supposed she had little choice.

“Mr. Avery Quinn, m’lord,” Burke announced.

“Strand,” she said a little irritably, starting past the footman, “if it is all the same to you might we delay this interview until after I’ve changed clothing and…”

Her voice trailed off as a room full of strangers turned towards her.

Chapter Eight

A
t the sound of her voice, Giles turned, saying, “Ah, this must be”—his eyes widened at the sight of her—“my boy genius.”

Whatever surprise Avery’s appearance might have occasioned, it took less than a heartbeat for him to recover. “I was just telling my guests all about you and here you arrive, like Hamlet’s father, and no less pale.” His gaze swept over her. “Though a good deal more corpulent. We shall have to withhold the sweets, m’lad, lest you need a new suit of clothes before week’s end. Here, let us at least shed the coat. You’re dripping.”

He came towards her, his back to the assembled company. “And take off your hat,” he said in a voice pitched for her ears alone. “You’re supposed to be a young gentleman and there are ladies present.”

She flushed and snatched the hat from her head, tousling the short auburn curls beneath. How dare he chastise her when he was the one who’d played foul?

He stared at her cropped curls, his hand moving fractionally as though to touch them before falling to his side.

She attempted a smile, speaking in an equally low voice through clenched teeth. “If you hope that by thrusting me all unawares into the
middle of a party I will reveal myself and you will be done with our bargain, you are doomed to disappointment. I am made of sterner stuff than that.”

“I should hope so,” he replied. “Or we are, indeed, doomed.” He looked her up and down. “The glasses are a nice touch.”

He turned to the footman. “Burke, take Mr. Quinn’s things to the garden-facing bedchamber and have the maid dry his coat.”

“Good heavens, Strand, are you never going to introduce us?” A stout middle-aged woman resplendent in a purple velvet turban slapped her fan on the table beside her.

“I hope I’m not interrupting, Lord Strand,” Avery announced in the low raspy whisper they’d agreed she’d adopt. If queried, she could claim it was the result of a childhood infection that had affected her voice.

“Not at all.” He took her by the elbow and propelled her over to the couch where the lady roosted like a fat pullet alongside a tall girl with overly frizzed yellow hair and a shy smile. At Strand’s approach, the girl shrank back against the cushions.

“Lady Demsforth and Lady Lucille Demsforth, may I present Mr. Avery Quinn?” Strand said. “Make pretty, Avery.”

Avery pushed the spectacles up higher on her nose, uncertain what “making pretty” entailed, while the ladies regarded her in offended puzzlement.

With a light
tch
of his tongue, Strand bent confidingly towards Lady Demsforth. “Brilliant,” he said apologetically, “but, as is so often the case with these brainy sorts, lackin’ in the social arts, eh?”

With a quick start of understanding, Avery jerked forward at the waist, feeling the blood rising in her cheeks. “A pleasure to meet you, ma’am. Miss.”

Lady Demsforth took one look at the pedestrian cut of Avery’s coat, sniffed, and nodded dismissively. Lady Lucille, however, gave her a sympathetic smile. “How do you, Mr. Quinn?”

Before she could reply, Giles secured her elbow and led her towards a pair of gentlemen standing at the far end of the room, one quite large and young and the other a haughty-looking fellow closer to Strand’s age.

“Vedder,” Giles said to the older man, “my protégé, Avery Quinn. Avery, Lord Vedder.”

Lord Vedder, Avery felt confident, was what the popular press deemed “an exquisite.” He was good enough looking, with heavy-lidded eyes and a haughty expression, and with somewhat pinched nostrils. Though if his nose had not been so elevated, this minor detraction would not have been nearly so notable.

His indigo blue coat fit him as seamlessly as a second skin, a spray of pink sapphires securing the snowy folds of his cravat beneath his chin. Pink threads also embroidered his gold-colored silk waistcoat and encrusted the ebony head of the cane he swung lightly from his fingertips.

He smiled and something in his hooded eyes told her that he intended to have a spot of sport at her expense. It did not alarm her. In fact, it felt oddly comforting. She had seen that look countless times in the eyes of young men who thought themselves her intellectual superior and wanted to draw attention to their primacy in front of an audience.

They invariably failed.

“I confess,” the exquisite said, “I find the notion of Strand suddenly showing up towing a protégé in his wake most curious. How do you account for it, young sir?”

She’d anticipated a question like this. “Lord Strand recently experienced an epiphany.”

“Yes,” Lord Vedder drawled, “but I wasn’t talking about his revelations concerning Miss North.”

His words obviously intended to shock and succeeded. She glanced at Giles. Though his expression remained perfectly neutral, he could not be amused by the inference that he had discovered something about Sophia that caused
him
to break off the engagement. No gentleman broke off an engagement, for
any
reason. To do so was unspeakably dishonorable. And a gentleman was nothing without his honor. Or so Avery had been told.

“Whatever do you mean, Vedder?” Giles asked.

Vedder’s brows rose. “Why, only that you made the unhappy discovery that Miss North did not wish to marry you,” he said innocently. He turned back to her. “What epiphany were
you
referring to, Master Quinn?”

She pushed her spectacles back up her nose, buying time. She felt out of her depth and did not like the sensation. “I meant that Lord Strand realized that by acting as a patron to the intellectual community he
might benefit society rather than”—she looked pointedly at Vedder’s walking stick—“adorn it.”

Lord Vedder’s head snapped back. Avery carefully refrained from glancing at Giles. She suspected he’d like her
bon mot
no better than Vedder’s.

“Oh, my!” Lord Vedder murmured. “It has teeth. What a fierce little cub you’ve found yourself, Strand.”

Giles gave an exaggerated sigh. “You can appreciate how hard it’s been for the wretched boy to find himself a sponsor,” he murmured. “I believe I am one of the only people in Europe he hasn’t managed to offend.”

“How do you do it?” Vedder asked.

She fumed inwardly. She hated being spoken of as if she weren’t present.

Giles’s smile was beatific. “I take the higher ground. For all his faults—and you are seeing but a scant portion of them—the lad
is
a genius.”

She could stand it no longer. “The lad is
here
.”

“So, you are,” Giles said in the kindly manner of an uncle speaking to a spoilt child.

“What a collector of oddities you’ve become, Strand. First you sponsor the redoubtable Colonel Seward and now this boy.”

Giles did not reply. Though not a muscle moved in his face and his smile remained unaltered, an alertness had entered his gaze that been missing before.

“Where is your erstwhile friend, Strand? I haven’t seen him or his delectable wife in a cat’s age.” The salacious quality flavoring the query made Avery shift uncomfortably.