Almost a Gentleman (10 page)

As things stood, though, she might run into him anywhere the
ton
gathered. At the club where she'd agree to dine tonight, or at the theater afterwards. Or at Vivien's? No, he wasn't a gambler; she wouldn't see him at Vivien's.

But how about the day after tomorrow at Almack's? Yes, surely he'd be there.

For a glorious, forbidden moment she allowed herself a tiny fantasy: Lord Linseley approaching and asking her to dance, her own veiled smile and nod of assent, and then the touch—light yet firm, she could imagine it perfectly—of his hand at the small of her back. She'd wear a gown of the thinnest silk… his hand would be warm through his kid glove…

Blast it all! The touch of his hand was the
last
thing she should be imagining
.

She slammed her fist down on the foyer table, shaking it so violently that the Chinese vase—made for an emperor five hundred years before—tipped, tumbled, and shattered into a thousand pieces.

"Ah, Simms. No, it's nothing. Well yes, of course it is a shame. A damned shame—it's, it was… a beautiful thing I—destroyed.

"Yes, thank you, I do need to bathe and dress. The water's hot? Excellent. Yes, I'll go up now."

The Coal Hole had been almost empty and dim as its name suggested when David pushed open the door; the only other customers were two men monopolizing the prime seats by the fire. Street ruffians, David thought at first: the big, bearish fellow with enormous, hamlike fists was certainly a type you'd want to stay clear of. But upon a moment's scrutiny he decided that the man was too heavy and clumsy to pose much threat to himself or his illustrated book. And the second man clearly wasn't dangerous in the least. Half hidden in shadow, he spoke in a thin, piercing upper-class voice pitched somewhere between a whine and a bray. Turning his back to the two men, David quietly ordered an ale and sat behind a pillar at the window table to look at his book by the fading late afternoon light.

An hour must have passed before he once again became aware of the voices by the fireplace. The upper-class gentleman, forgetting that they weren't alone, suddenly spoke out in angry, impatient tones.

"No, no Stokes, I don't want him severely beaten. Just a bit roughed up, you know. Humiliated. You might knock him into a ditch and get him all dirty if you wish. Or give him a black eye, something like that. But what I'm paying you for—and very well, I might add—is for you to follow him. Learn where he goes on these little vacations of his. For he seems to disappear into thin air. We all know he's hiding something. I want him unmasked, exposed, humiliated just as…"

The thin, angry voice trailed off.

"Just as wot, Baron… ?"

But the older man interrupted him quickly.

"Dammit, I told you to call me Mr. Bradley."

He's not about to share his humiliation with the thug he's hiring, David thought contemptuously. And he's too timid to do the dirty work of personally confronting the man who'd insulted him.

The craven scoundrel was even too low to use his own name. David tried to turn his attention back to his book. But the conversation had captured his attention.

"Aw right, then, Mr., uh, Bradley, so it's Marston I'm to go after, is it? Mr. Philip 'Phizz' Marston in Brunswick Square."

"Marston on Thursday next. Here's ten guineas now, and forty more to come when you tell me where he goes on these mysterious excursions of his."

"And I ain't to rough him up so bad, eh? Rather takes the fun out of it for a lad like meself."

"There should be enough fun in forty guineas, Stokes. And you can rough him up later, when we've got him where we want him. When he's learned not to lord it over a real gentleman."

"Like yerself, Mr. Bradley?"

"Exactly, Stokes. Like myself."

Phoebe passed an entirely unremarkable night of engagements, encountering no trace of Lord Linseley no matter how many festivities she visited or how long she stayed at them.

Are you satisfied
? she asked herself with a shrug and a grimace the next afternoon. Well then, she thought wryly, you
could
try doing something useful. Time to open the mail.

Nothing special. Nothing interesting. She scrawled her replies quickly. But what was this?

The envelope was of heavy paper, like all the others. But there was no crest printed on it in raised type. She didn't recognize the handwriting either. Nor was there a discernable seal on the blob of wax that closed it.

The message, constructed of letters cut out from the newspapers and glued to a piece of flimsy paper, was simplicity itself. YOU ARE BEING WATCHED.

Unpleasant, that one.

She allowed herself a shudder, but didn't succumb to her initial temptation to toss the nasty thing into the fire.

Instead she marked it with the date, folded it, and put it into a gracefully carved box with the two dozen or so of its fellows that Marston had received over the years.

The box was of sandalwood—too fragrant, really, for the stinking missives it held; most of them reeked with hatred and cowardliness. Not a one of their authors had ever confronted Marston directly. Which was partly why she saved their letters—to remind herself how stupid and innocuous Marston's enemies really were.

Of course, most of the messages were longer and less coherent than the one she'd just opened. Scrawled and blotted, they accused Marston of a wide variety of treacheries: she'd been especially diverted by the one charging her with spying for the American Republic; she'd also enjoyed the one that had insisted she was of Negro parentage. Sexual insults abounded. It was interesting to learn the words evidently used to describe a gentleman who took other men to bed with him—from the homey
Nancy
or
Molly-boy
, to the classical
catamite
or
Ganymede
, to the puzzling
morphodite
. Marston's enemies must especially enjoy using this specialized vocabulary, she thought. Language was power, especially for those too timid to do more than fantasize about action. There were also a few gruesome specimens that threatened to "geld" or "unman" her—which would be quite an impressive feat, she thought.

Most of the letters, even if threatening, had clearly been written with the sole aim of aggrandizing their authors' self-regard or helping them recover from some passing fit of pique. Whatever Marston's enemies imagined doing to him was usually satisfied by writing it down on paper and posting it to him. Which was probably, she thought, why this last letter had given her a bit of a start. For it seemed less an end in itself than a promise of something more to come.

Still, there was certainly no cause for alarm. Nor any reason to be intimidated.

She tucked the box into its cubbyhole in her mahogany secretary and turned back to the tedious business of declining a fortnight's worth of invitations. She'd have to hurry, too, for she hadn't yet chosen everything she wanted Mr. Simms to pack for tomorrow's journey. And later this afternoon Mr. Andrewes would be arriving with a new jacket and pair of trousers. She'd wear them to Almack's tonight if the fit was good enough. If the fit was as smooth and perfect as the fine silk gowns she'd never wear again.

"No, Wolfe, no dancing or young ladies tonight. I want to be fresh for my journey back home tomorrow."

"But look here, Linseley, I thought you postponed that journey an extra day just to give yourself one more crack at the marriage mart. Isn't that what you said?"

"Hmmm, did I say that?"

I might have said that
, David thought ruefully.
Who knows
? For he often made a muddle when not strictly telling the truth.

He'd sent a note to his steward telling him that he'd be back a bit later than he'd originally thought. Legal matters, he'd written. And in fact he had been terribly busy, buying up all the common lands that had suddenly gone up for auction in Lincolnshire. He'd even got a few tracts that Crashaw had had his eye on. And as soon as he'd taken full ownership, he'd proclaim to the neighborhood people that the lands were once again available for their crops and herds. He just hoped that they wouldn't lose too much work between now and then. The farming calendar wasn't a forgiving one—not that an absentee lord would know that.

He did need to get home, though; he had work of his own to do. Still, another day or two out of the way wouldn't matter. For he couldn't go home quite yet. Not when there was urgent need for his services in Brunswick Square.

"It's nine in the morning, sir. I've brought your coffee." There was no sound from the bed except a smothered groan, as Phoebe burrowed more deeply beneath the eiderdown and embroidered coverlet.

But it's her own fault, Mr. Simms told himself. For she promised to come home early last night. Instead of waltzing and gambling into the wee hours. I wonder if she remembers that when she came home at five this morning she made me a gift of a thousand pounds?

"Sir?" Mr. Simms tried not to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. Perhaps the minx intended to bribe me, he thought, in return for another hour's sleep. And for pretending not to notice the bad language she's taken to using lately.

Well, it wouldn't work. She needed to wake up directly and to watch her manners too.

Mr. Simms had taken it upon himself to accompany Miss Vaughan back to London after she'd announced this harebrained scheme three years ago. Masquerading as a man was a risky business, he'd insisted. She'd need someone to look after her—and who better than someone who loved her and her brother like the children he and his wife had never had?

Of course, it hadn't hurt that he'd always taken a whimsical delight in masquerade and theatricals. And that he was bored and lonely living the life of a widowed, retired tutor in a Devonshire backwater. The clever, mischievous Vaughan children had been the lights of his life, especially the girl, who'd had as good a mind for Latin and mathematics as her brother. And who'd had to study in secret, away from her silly mother's prying.

He knew how to awaken her this morning, too.

He bent over the coverlet, and—softly, so that none of the other servants could hear—whispered in particularly piercing and agonized tones, "Miss Vaughan!"

"Wha…"

"Phoebe!"

"Phoebe, put away that Latin text right now! Your mother's coming!"

"What! Where?"

A tousled head emerged from under the coverlet. A pair of clear gray eyes flew open. Her face was anxious and frightened. And then her expression cleared.

"Simms, you bloody devil!"

Quite nimbly for a man his age, Mr. Simms stepped aside as she pelted him with pillows and bolsters.

"Do have some coffee, Mr. Marston. Your bath is drawn and your traveling costume is spread out there on the chaise longue. You know that you ordered the carriage for ten o'clock. And you wouldn't want to keep Lady Kate waiting, would you?"

"I should fire you, Simms."

"Indeed you should, sir, before you make me any more extravagant gifts like last night's. One might almost have thought you inebriated. And might I thank you again, sir?"

"You deserve it, Simms. And I'm never inebriated. Is it a fine morning?"

Mr. Simms opened sea-green velvet drapes to let the morning sunlight stream though the Valenciennes lace at the tall windows.

"A very fine morning for traveling, sir. Or perhaps for a little nap in the carriage."

"I never take naps. I've got the novel that Kate sent to amuse me during the journey."

"Of course, sir. But might I point out that a gentleman covers his mouth when he yawns so enormously? And certainly a gentleman ought to watch his language more carefully than you have been doing these past few days."

She got him with one last small hard bolster, aiming directly for the back of his head as he quitted her bedchamber.

Grinning at her small triumph, she stretched and strode to her bathroom. She'd miss Mr. Simms this fortnight. But it would nonetheless be refreshing to be out of Town for a while, and not constantly on the lookout for a certain gentleman she'd convinced herself she didn't want to meet.

Lord Linseley's coachman had parked in a small alley a bit before nine, affording an excellent view of Brunswick Square, though all David had seen so far were some housemaids shaking linen out from upper windows and gardeners trimming the neat yew hedges. It was far too early for any of the householders to be up and about yet.

The horses were a bit restive. The coachmen stepped down to calm them.

And I'm a bit restive too
, David thought.

What a ridiculous scheme he'd concocted. It seemed sillier with every passing minute, particularly in the clear light of an unusually sunny and delightful morning. He couldn't see any sign of Stokes. And anyway, who knew what it all might mean, or whether Marston was really going anywhere today?

It would have been wiser to call on Mr. Marston and simply to tell what he'd overheard. No doubt Marston knew this Baron, and would be able realistically to assess the danger—if there were any real danger at all.