The Saint (18 page)

Hopefully, when Jane arrived at Laclere Park, she had managed to retire abruptly with complaints of a chill. Snuggled in Bianca's bed for a few days, wrapped and capped and sleeping off an illness, she might just avert discovery of her true identity.

If not, Bianca expected to return before a full alarm could be raised.

The biggest inconvenience in the plan, besides her numb extremities, was the fact that she had not been able to bring any baggage with her. The only items of toiletries and clothing that she carried were stuffed in her reticule and inside her bodice.

The coach sped into the environs of Manchester, making a series of quick stops as the countryside gave way to sprawling villages that then bled into the edges of the city itself. An odd combination of raw newness and old squalor flanked the residential streets. Perhaps on sunny days, and if a visitor weren't bone-chilled and hungry, it would not appear such a dreary place. One knew without being told that this was a growing city. The congestion spoke of too many people cramped into too few domiciles.

Their pace slowed until the driver pulled to a halt. Two other passengers gathered their belongings. “If you want Manchester, this is it,” one said. “Coach heads to Liverpool now, and the mail for the city will be picked up here by others.”

Bianca stepped out into the drizzly mist. She entered the coaching inn and asked the man in charge where she could hire a gig and driver for a few hours.

Soon she was back in the damp again, this time squashed beside a portly driver snapping the gig through the city streets. She huddled inside her thin cloak with the hood pulled low against the mist.

“Is the Clark mill far away?”

“East a bit. Newer mill than somes the others, and a bit off on its own. Hard to believe it was almost open country there just ten years ago. City just keeps getting bigger, like a spider getting fat from eating those coming in from the land.” He pointed to a young man standing against a building. “Like him. Can always spot them. They have that bewildered look. Then, if they find work in a good mill, they grow contented, and if they don't, they get mean.”

“What is a good mill?”

“One with decent wages, such as they are. Where the machines are kept safe. Where families work the same times.” He cast a sidelong look at her. “None of my business, but you sure you want to go to this mill today? There's been a spot of trouble popping up here and there the last few months. Been gettin' worse, it's said.”

“I must go today. I am sure that Mr. Clark has one of the good mills, so there should not be a problem.”

He laughed. “When trouble spreads, there are no good mills.”

It took almost an hour to make their way to the eastern environs and the long, low buildings of the Clark mill.

The driver hopped down and helped her descend. “He would be in there.” He pointed to a two-storied stone square. “Manager's house. Not as fancy as some.” He raised his head like a dog sniffing. “Seems quiet enough.”

“Wait here, please. I will want to go back to the coaching inn for tonight.”

She gathered her limp cloak around her and marched into the house. A young man sat at a desk in the building's first chamber.

“I have come to see Mr. Clark,” she explained.

He gave her the once over and was not impressed by Jane's serviceable cloak. “He is in the works right now. Perhaps I can help you. I am Mr. Thomas, his secretary.”

“Thank you, but it is Mr. Clark himself with whom I must speak.”

He examined her critically again. “They don't usually send such young ones. Which reform group are you from?”

“I am not from a reform organization. I have business of a most critical nature with the manager.”

“Tell me your name and I'll go see if he knows of this business.”

“Mr. Thomas, I have no intention of giving you my name. I will wait on Mr. Clark's return. I promise you that he will not thank you for any interference.”

His startled reaction hovered between a laugh and a frown. Amusement won. He showed her into the office.

A fire burned in its hearth. She stood close and savored the warmth that began burning away the damp.

She turned to give her back a little roast, and surveyed the office. The furniture was solid but plain. The desk's surface held only writing implements and a neat stack of documents. The whole room appeared rather blank. If it reflected the manager's personality, he was a colorless, uninteresting man. Hopefully that did not mean that he lacked imagination. She needed him to see that her proposal actually gave him what he wanted.

And gave her what she needed. The chance to get away.

She turned back to the fire. She pictured herself walking sunny streets and being gay and happy and singing for hours. Her life would be so bright and exciting that she would never think about this horrible interlude in damp, cloudy England, and how it had scrambled her emotions and turned part of her into someone she didn't recognize.

This would all become a brief memory, a stage stop on her journey to womanhood. Once she was gone, the ache that she carried inside her chest would disappear. A wonderful future waited. She would grab it bravely and not look back and—

A sound behind her broke into her hopeful reveries. A door opened and one footstep fell.

“Mr. Thomas said that you wished to see me, madame.”

Images of Italy fractured like a hammer had smashed them. The fragments rained through her stunned mind.

Her mouth dropped open as she swung around and looked into the blue eyes of the Viscount Laclere.

chapter
12

H
ell.”

The low curse floated on his delayed exhale. They stared at each other for a dazed interval.

Slowly, her wits absorbed the implications of his presence.

Vergil and Mr. Clark were one and the same.

What a stunning discovery.

What an incredibly bad stroke of luck.

Then again …

He recovered first. “What in damnation are you doing here?”

Amazement left her speechless. Amazement, plus the fact that her explanation would hardly soften his expression. To say that he was less than pleased to see her was putting it rather too finely.

He looked subtly different. Still Vergil. Still tall and dark and stern. Still chiseled face and startling eyes. But his black frock coat was cut more austerely than usual and seemed of poorer quality. His collar points were less perfect somehow, and he wore a black cravat tied in a casual knot, something she had never seen him do before.

He was presentable enough in a dark, menacing way, but she couldn't shake the sense that he appeared a man new to fine garments, who didn't quite know how to put them together yet, and who lacked a good valet to show him. A wealthy man, but not born to it.

“I asked what you are doing here, Miss Kenwood?”

Despite her cursed outspokenness, she knew that there were times when silence was the best course. It would hardly do to blurt out that she had come to extort money from Mr. Clark so that she could escape her evil guardian.

“How did you get here?”

“The mail coach.”

“That explains why you look half-dead. Is that your gig outside?”

She nodded.

“Where is your baggage? Did you leave it at your inn with Jane?”

Oh, dear. “No.”

He frowned. “You came all this way with no baggage?”

Her lack of response did not delay the conclusion. He raked her with a very sharp look. “In fact, you came without Jane, too, didn't you? You made this journey alone.”

She would have spun a story, an outright lie, if she could think of one. Her mind simply wouldn't cooperate.

“That was very, very reckless of you, Miss Kenwood.” He abruptly opened the door and left.

A few minutes later he returned.

“I expect that you are tired and cold, but I must delay your comfort for a while longer. I have paid your coachman and sent the gig away. My carriage will be here shortly. While we wait, I want you to tell me how you arranged this journey, so that I can determine just how large a calamity you may have created.”

Feeling more like a naughty schoolgirl than she liked, she explained the brilliant plan that had abruptly lost its luster. “So, if Jane remains undetected, there may not be any calamity at all,” she concluded.

“And if your ruse was discovered, Penelope might already be raising the hue and cry all over England.”

“She will know once she speaks with Jane that I was not abducted. I expect she would wait a few days for my return.”

“Does Jane know where you went and why?”

“I did not confide the details to her. If you send me back at once, no one will have reason to seek out Mr. Clark. No one will know your secret.”

“
You
will know. Until I decide what to do about that, I have no intention of sending you back. However, we cannot discuss that here.”

The sounds of the coach rattled outside. Vergil disappeared into a side room and returned with his great coat. He draped the heavy garment around her shoulders and escorted her through the front office to the door.

Morton held the reins in the coachman's seat of a vehicle that bore no aristocratic insignia. The mouth buried between his beard and mustache opened in surprise when Vergil guided her out of the building.

“Well, now, my lord, this is an inconvenient complication.”

“You have a gift for understatement, Morton.”

“Rather bold of her, if I may say so.”

“Yes.”

“On the other hand …”

“Exactly.”

What was that supposed to mean? The way she saw it, all of the “other hands” belonged to her.

Vergil settled across from her. He found a coach rug and tucked it around her legs. “Your shoes are damp. Silly, flimsy things to wear on a mail coach.” He unstrapped both shoes and slipped them off, then swathed her feet in the fur rug.

He tucked and wrapped like she was some child. He pulled the coat snugly around her until her head stuck out of a huge bundle. It was very disarming of him to fuss like this, especially since the light in his eyes suggested that he thought she deserved it if she caught a fever from this escapade.

Morton guided the coach across a bridge and they headed south.

“Where are we going?”

“I have a manor nearby. We should reach it in less than an hour.”

The manor. She wondered if the mistress was in residence. Since she already knew about that woman, she wondered if he would bother to keep her hidden for the few hours they might need to settle this “inconvenient complication.”

He kept regarding her with intense speculation. It was the sort of calculating expression one sometimes catches on a person who thinks no one is looking. Having it directed at her for this extended length of silent time was very unsettling.

She felt no danger for her safety. Quite the opposite. But she couldn't shake the notion that the man sitting across from her had become very unpredictable all of a sudden, and that Mr. Clark might not play by the same rules as the Viscount Laclere.

“Unless you want me to conclude that you made this journey because you could not bear to be parted from me, you had better explain yourself.”

The cool allusion to that other part of their relationship sent a peculiar alertness blotting through her.

“I came to see Mr. Clark.”

“Why?”

“To have a little chat. To make his acquaintance.”

“I am not in the mood to have my wits insulted. Since I am Mr. Clark and we made our acquaintance long ago, you will state your business now.”

“Well, if Mr. Clark had been amenable, and I'm sorry to say that I do not think he will be, I intended to propose a mutually beneficial arrangement. Mr. Peterson told me about the offer to buy the mill and how Mr. Clark—that is, you—did not want to sell, and how if I sold and Nigel did, too, then … oh …
oh,
so that is why you tried to force me to marry your brother. To secure ownership of that mill. Really, Laclere, I am very disappointed in you.”

“You have many reasons to be, but this is not one of them. I never tried to force you to marry my brother. You were supposed to be a meek, provincial orphan, who, like all women, would swoon with delight every time Dante smiled. You would fall in love, marry him, and that would be that. There was nothing dishonorable in the plan. As for what happened later, may I remind you that if you had not thrown yourself at Dante I would not have—”

“I hardly think
thrown
myself is a fair way to put it.”

“—
thrown yourself
at Dante, I would not have found myself in the contradictory situation of trying to negotiate your way out of a marriage that could only benefit me.”

“Why did you, then?”

The look he gave her knocked the breath right out of her.
You know why,
those eyes said.

“It has never been my intention to trap you into something that you did not want.”

They were speeding past farms clouded in mist, leaving the city far behind. Potentially perilous did not begin to describe her situation. But this was Vergil Duclairc. A saint. Besides, he would hardly importune her when his mistress resided in the house.

“Morton obviously knows who Mr. Clark is. Does anyone else?” she asked.

“No.”

“No one? Penelope or Dante?”

“No.”

“Fleur?”

“Least of all Fleur.”

“You will have to tell her. A man can hardly hide such a thing from a wife any more than he can from his valet.”

“Fleur and I will not be getting married. She has no interest in it. Our courtship has been a feint to remove her from the marriage market for a while. I expect in a month all of society will know that she broke it off.”

“I am sorry. I would never have expected her to deceive you.”

“You misunderstand. I knew from the start. So you can acquit me of at least one crime. I did not make love to you even while I courted a fiancée.”

She could do without him blithely repeating references to that. “It is odd no one ever found you out.”

“The ease of the deception surprised me at first. But Mr. Clark keeps to himself mostly, and lives out of town. Refuse social invitations often enough and eventually they stop coming. I am not unknown in Manchester, especially among the other men of business, but I avoid gatherings where I will not know who will attend. Of course, the
haute ton
do not mix with mill owners, and the city has no representation in Parliament, so there were no members of the Commons about who would recognize me.”

“Maintaining a double life must be very difficult and uncomfortable. I do not understand why you have done this. Why not be open about it?”

“Surely your perceptions are more astute than that. Gentlemen do not engage in trade, least of all this one. We invest in certain ones, shipping and canals, but the mills are too sordid. And we never actively manage those businesses.”

She remembered Mr. Peterson speaking of mill owners as beneath him, and Lord Calne calling their owners base. It would probably be very scandalous for a viscount to take his place among such men. Scandalous enough to ruin the social standing of his whole family.

Dusk was falling when the coach lumbered off the main road. They slowed as they passed some farms.

“Are these yours?”

“They are attached to the manor but are mortgaged to the hilt.”

“Is Laclere Park mortgaged too?”

“The estate is entailed to prevent that, not that I would have ever done so anyway. A man does not gamble with his family's patrimony.”

She kept her gaze out the window, looking for signs of a village. With an inn.

Morton took a turn and they trotted up a hill. An old Tudor manor stood at its top. In the waning light she made out a rambling collection of half-timbered beams crossing plastered walls that rose up from a stone first level.

Vergil hopped out as soon as they pulled up in front of the house. Not a single light shown through any window. The place possessed an eerie mood. It looked like the sort of manor one read about in the more fantastic stories. The sort where young innocents came to no good.

Vergil waited as if he knew that, whatever her misgivings, she would conclude that she really did not have any choice except to go in.

She fought her way through the swaddling coat and rug only to remember that her shoes were off. He fished for them, slipped them on, and buckled them as if she were incapable of dressing herself properly.

An old man led the coach away and Morton hurried inside ahead of them.

“It looks deserted,” she said as Vergil took her arm to support her under the weight of the clumsy coat.

“I do not keep staff here, except for old Lucas to tend the horses and serve as caretaker. When I am in residence, Morton does for me. He was army in his younger days, and is amazingly competent even in a kitchen.”

No servants. She glanced askance at him. In the dusk his expression appeared dangerously alert.

The large, square entry hall held a hearth and chairs and settee. Old armor glimmered in the corners and an ancient tapestry hung on the wall leading up the stairs. Overhead one could see the beams that supported the second floor. Everything appeared in decent, if worn, condition. All this dark wood could use a good polishing, but Morton had managed to keep things clean.

Morton moved two chairs near the fire he had built. She swayed under the great coat while she walked around and peered through open doors into the rooms giving off from the hall. There was a library at one end and a proper drawing room at the other end beside a dining salon.

Vergil watched her inspection. “Are you looking for my mistress? I keep her chained up in the attic. Morton, don't forget to bring my love slave her supper.”

“That is not humorous, Laclere.”

“She thinks that I am making jests, Morton. The thing is, that wench upstairs begins to bore me. Perhaps I will send her home and keep Miss Kenwood to take her place. What do you think, Morton?”

“A bit sharp-tongued, my lord, but a comely young woman.”

“The luck of it is, no one will ever know. No doubt you will find it difficult to believe that any woman could be so foolish, Morton, but she snuck away from Pen and Dante and came north all on her own. Told no one where she was going. Left herself with no protection whatsoever. If she disappears, who is to say what happened? All sorts of accidents and mishaps could have occurred on this adventure. They won't even know where to begin looking for her.”