Vanity (29 page)

She pulled the bell for Nell and began to throw off her riding dress. What could have possessed her father to assume the role of host? He never showed the slightest desire to take part in the life of the household, apart from joining Rupert and Octavia for dinner when they dined alone. He’d always been reclusive, even at Hartridge Folly shunning the company of all but his few intimates. Octavia had gone into local society chaperoned by the squire’s wife, whose eldest daughter was her own age.

“Nell, fetch me the lilac silk,” she instructed as her maid bustled in bearing a jug of steaming water. Her stomach
growled as she bent to splash hot water on her face, and she realized she’d had no dinner. But there was no time now. She had to get downstairs and see what damage had been done in her absence. If she hadn’t gone after Rupert, none of this would have happened.

And if she hadn’t gone after him, maybe he wouldn’t have escaped from the Runners. Maybe he would even now be in Newgate.

Impatiently she stood still while Nell hooked the gown of lilac silk edged with dark-green velvet ribbons. “No, I won’t dress my hair tonight,” she said when the maid picked up the thick horsehair pads over which she would pile Octavia’s hair in a fashionably high style. “I’ll wear it loose, confined with the silver fillet.”

It took only a few minutes to fasten the silver fillet around her brow and comb the glowing ringlets around her face and onto her bare shoulders. It gave her a rather medieval look that in any other circumstances would have pleased Octavia, but she was too anxious tonight to get downstairs to give more than a passing thought to her appearance.

“That’ll do, thank you, Nell.” She drew on her long silk gloves, picked up her fan, and hurried out of the room. The sounds of merriment still came from the salon, and she heard Rupert’s light tones. Presumably, he hadn’t troubled to change. But riding dress on a man in the evening wouldn’t elicit too many raised eyebrows, particularly in his own home.

She entered the salon, her heart in her throat. One swift, all-encompassing glance revealed neither Hector Lacross nor Dirk Rigby. Relief flooded her, followed immediately by the thought that they might have been there earlier and already left.

Oliver Morgan was standing beside the window, deep in conversation with the Earl of Wyndham. Her father was dressed in a wine-red velvet coat, deep ruffles of Mechlin lace at throat and wrists. It was old-fashioned elegance, but it suited the patrician features, the thick mane of white hair.

“Ah, here’s my daughter.” He greeted her with an
expansive gesture. “The Earl of Wyndham, my dear Octavia, is almost as well versed in the theories of Pythagoras as your husband.”

Octavia crossed the room, hoping her smile was not as strained as she felt. “Papa, it’s not like you to grace the salon.”

“Well, child, in the absence of the true hosts, I did what seemed best,” he responded with a somewhat ironical smile. “It seemed my duty to take your place. Your husband has been regaling us with your adventures.”

Octavia shot Rupert a startled glance. “Oh, yes?”

“Highwaymen, madam,” Rupert said blandly. “I was describing how we were held up on Hampstead Heath when we went for a ride this afternoon.”

“Oh, yes … Hampstead Heath,” she said faintly. “Yes, it was quite terrifying. Fortunately, Rupert had his pistols and was able to drive them off. There were at least five of them, isn’t that so, Warwick?”

“Five … oh, you exaggerate, my dear,” he returned. “No more than three, I’m certain.”

“You’re to be congratulated on a narrow escape, ma’am,” one of their guests said from the faro table. “Footpads and highwaymen are the bane of our lives. A man can’t travel in peace anywhere after dark these days.”

“How true,” someone agreed, taking snuff with an overly liberal hand. “The roads won’t be safe until we’ve strung ’em all up at Tyburn Tree,” he stated through a series of violent sneezes. “Every man jack of ’em.”

“Lady Warwick is to be commended on her fortitude,” Philip observed quietly. “Most ladies would be prostrate upon their beds for a week after such an ordeal, and here you are, as radiant and glowing as ever.”

“Oh, I’m made of sterner stuff than that, sir,” Octavia said. “But I confess to being starving. I missed dinner in all the excitement.”

She pulled the bell rope for Griffin. “Prepare supper in the dining room, Griffin. We won’t wait until eleven tonight.”

“Well, I think, if you’ll excuse me, I shall leave you to
enjoy the rest of the evening.” Oliver bowed to the company in general and made his way to the door. “I have some reading to do.”

Octavia accompanied him to the door. “Thank you, Papa, for stepping into the breach.”

“Not at all. If the truth be told, I rather enjoyed it,” he said with a chuckle. “Much to my surprise. But you and Warwick should be a little careful, my dear, when you go about your business.”

Octavia looked at him sharply. Was he referring to something other than footpads? Had he met Rigby and Lacross? But his tawny eyes seemed perfectly candid, his smile quite without artifice.

“Were there any other guests earlier, Papa?”

He shook his head. “I don’t believe so, unless they arrived before I came down and left in the absence of a host.”

She didn’t think he would he to her. “Good night, Papa.”

She kissed him and curtsied as he left the salon. Her eyes darted to Rupert. Had he discovered whether or not Rigby and Lacross had been there earlier? He shook his head infinitesimally and turned back to his game of E and O.

Octavia strolled over to Philip Wyndham. As she passed Viscount Ledham, her hand brushed over his coat. The viscount was too absorbed in making a wager on the chances of a red spurt in the fire coming before a blue one to be aware of anything more than his hostess, standing for a moment very close to him, smiling and paying flattering attention to his absurd wager.

She moved on, the viscount’s fob watch tucked in the palm of her hand. “Lord Wyndham, do you care to wager on the fire’s conduct?” She put her hand behind her on a marble-topped pier table, then stepped closer to the earl. The fob watch lay innocently on the table.

Wyndham shook his head. “Ledham will wager on the speed of a raindrop on a windowpane.”

“He’s not alone. It’s considered a poor-spirited man
who won’t wager on every absurdity offered him.” She smiled with a conspiratorial gleam in her eye. “I find it refreshing, my lord, that you at least don’t slavishly follow where society leads in such foolishness.”

Her hand brushed over his, and her head was very close to his shoulder, so he could inhale the fragrance of her hair and body. “It takes a wise and courageous man to stand alone.”

Philip’s head reeled at the contrast of Octavia’s freshness with the prevailing scents of powder, pomade, and perfume, heavy and ripe, disguising the odors of none-too-clean linen and sweat-stiffened velvets and brocade.

She was a true original, he thought. Even the way she conducted this flirtation was different from anything he’d experienced before. She was light and fresh, nothing vulgar or overeager about her promises. Much to his surprise, he was willing to play the game at her pace. If any other woman had withheld herself for as long as Octavia Warwick, he would have taken her by force or abandoned the pursuit in disgust. But she weaved a spell around him, entangling him in the gossamer threads of her suggestive smiles and her kisses, where her natural passion lay barely hidden.

He glanced across the room at her husband. Rupert Warwick was deep in play, his expression unreadable. The man made Philip’s skin crawl. He had a particular smile that filled him with a violent revulsion, almost as if the smile was poison. Just being in his presence disturbed Philip almost beyond endurance, and yet he had to endure it in order to pursue the lady.

But the thought of eventually enjoying the wife of a man he loathed with such a visceral hatred made the hours in Warwick’s company bearable.

Octavia was smiling, her hand lightly caressing his flank. His skin prickled, his loins grew heavy. He looked down into that serenely beautiful oval, where the lambent eyes glowed like a tiger’s in the dark.

“Supper,” she said as Griffin appeared portentously in
the doorway. “I am famished, my lord. Will you accompany me?”

“With pleasure, ma’am.” He bowed and offered his arm.

Philip Wyndham’s silk-embroidered handkerchief fluttered to the floor as she accompanied him to the door. A golden sovereign clinked gently onto a table as she passed.

T
he warehouse just south of London Bridge on the south side of the Thames was a squat redbrick building with barred windows. The river lapped at the base of one wall, leaving a green slime against the brickwork.

The hackney carriage disgorged its two passengers before an iron-barred door at the rear of a narrow courtyard. The jarvey looked around from beneath lowering bushy brows. “Ye’ll be wantin’ me to wait, gents?”

Dirk Rigby wrinkled his nose at the prevailing stench of rotting weed, fish, and cesspit. He glanced at Hector, who was nervously touching the blinding white folds of his cravat. This run-down neighborhood seemed a most unlikely venue for a meeting of investors.

“Yes,” Hector said brusquely. “Wait for us.”

“I’ll ’ave me fare this far, though, guv,” the jarvey stated as his passengers turned toward the door. “Jest in case anythin’ ’appens, like.” He guffawed, wiping his eyes on a red-spotted kerchief.

“Don’t be absurd, man,” Dirk said. “We’re here on business, and you’ll remain here until that business is concluded.” So saying, he rapped sharply on the door with the silver head of his cane.

The jarvey subsided on his bench, muttering. He knew the type. They expected a man to spend half his day waiting on them, losing fares by the minute, and then he’d be lucky to get an extra shilling out of them at journey’s end.

The door bolts screeched in oilless protest and the great door swung open, revealing a dark cavernous area within. An elderly man stood in the doorway, holding a guttering tallow candle. His shoulders were hunched in a rusty black coat, grease shining on the lapels, and his hair was covered in a ratty bagwig.

“There y’are,” he said in a creaky voice. “Late, y’are. Master was about to give up on ye.” He peered around them at the hackney standing in the entrance to the court. “Best keep ’im. Don’t get much traffic in these parts. Wouldn’t want to walk these streets on yer own, neither. Not such fine gentlemen.” He cackled and turned back into the interior of the warehouse.

Hector and Dirk followed him. The old man darted backward with a sudden spritely movement that belied his age and hunched impression of infirmity. The great iron door clanged shut as he kicked it. The candle flared and guttered, and they were suddenly in darkness.

“Odd’s blood, man! What are you playing at?” bellowed Hector, hearing his own uncertainty beneath the bluster.

“Just the wind … just the wind,” the old man muttered. “’Ang on a minute.” He shuffled around in the dark, flint scraped on tinder, and the candlelight flickered and steadied again.

They were in a vast, empty space, with a ceiling so high it disappeared into the darkness. In the meager yellow light, Dirk and Hector could make out against the walls shapeless piles that could have been anything. The air was thick with dust and wood shavings, cold and damp despite the balmy evening outside.

“Damn smoky, this,” Hector muttered to his companion as their escort led them across the area toward a curving iron staircase against the riverside wall. “You sure this is the place Warwick meant?”

“The man seems to be expecting us,” Dirk reminded him, but he was as uncertain as his friend. They were there to discuss a speculative venture that promised to bring substantial riches. These seedy, somewhat menacing, surroundings didn’t lend themselves to confidence in any venture.

The iron staircase curved upward, and they followed the flickering candle, its light throwing their grotesque, wa-very shadows ahead of them. The staircase stopped at a small wooden landing; the irregular planks creaked under their feet, treacherous spaces between them.

“’Ere we are, gentlemen.” Their escort scratched at a door at the rear of the landing. He put his ear to the oak and listened, then nodded as if satisfied and raised the latch.

“Those coves you was expectin’, master. They’re ’ere.”

“Then show ’em in, you lazy rogue.”

The response was reassuringly loud, if somewhat acerbic. Rigby and Lacross stepped past the old man with his candle and entered a square apartment, lit by an oil lamp and a small black-leaded stove, sputtering in the corner. Heavy shutters blocked the windows that would have looked out over the river to the north bank of the city.

A tall white-haired gentleman rose from a desk against the far wall and stood examining them through a quizzing glass.

“Well, come in, gentlemen, come in,” he said, his voice rasping as if he had a sore throat. Indeed, he had a muffler wrapped several times around his neck and drawn up over his chin. His linen was grubby, his coat of brown wool spotted with the residue of several past dinners. He wore fingerless mittens, and his cuffs were frayed. A ragged black ribbon tied the queue at the nape of his neck.