Anne Barbour (7 page)

She sighed. How long was she going to have to deal with these people? Her hallucination had already lasted longer than she had expected—though of course, placing a time limit on a hallucination was probably an exercise in futility. Another theory—one that had occurred to her before—snaked through her mind to be squelched yet again. The idea that she had somehow traveled through time to land in the body of young Amanda Bridge was too ludicrous to contemplate. She was not, by God, living within the pages of some lurid sci-fi thriller. No, sooner or later she was bound to return to her senses, and she would do everything in her power to see that it was sooner.

She turned restlessly. It was no use. The din outside seemed to be increasing, and she was not going to get back to sleep. Before she could arise once more, however, a soft knock sounded at the door, followed by the entrance of Hutchings bearing a cup of steaming liquid on a tray, along with two cookies on a plate.

“What’s this?” asked Amanda, sniffing suspiciously as Hutchings placed the tray on her bedside table.

“Why, it’s your morning chocolate and biscuits, miss.”

Amanda lifted the cup to her lips and after the first cautious sip bent an accusing stare on the maid. “This? This is chocolate?”

Hutchings bobbed her head nervously.

“You are in error, Hutchings. This is not chocolate. It smells like chocolate, and it looks like chocolate, but it tastes like sh— that is, it tastes god-awful. What’s in it?”

“Why, it’s made up with chocolate shavings and water and milk, miss, and a little sugar—just how you like it.”

“Wrong again, Hutchings. I do not like it. Are you sure there is milk in here? And the sugar content is way below PDA standards.”

Hutchings merely bobbed her head again, uncomprehending. Amanda sighed.

“Well, never mind that. Tell me, how far is Grosvenor Chapel from here? I wasn’t paying much attention when I was brought here yesterday.”

“Grosvenor Chapel, miss?” asked Hutchings, misgiving writ large on her plain features. “Oh, miss. You aren’t planning—?”

“Yes, I want to go back there.”

Hutchings moaned faintly. “Miss, you can’t! Your papa ... Your mama... They’ll lock you up till you’re thirty—and I’ll lose my place!” Her words ended on a rising note of hysteria.

“No, no,” said Amanda reassuringly. “I have no intention of meeting what’s-his-name there. I just want to go to the chapel. I want to—to, er, meditate.”

“Meditate!” Hutchings repeated the word as though her mistress had just stated her intention of stripping to the buff in the church’s center aisle.

“Yes.” Amanda tried to infuse a few more ounces of reassurance into her voice. “I just want someplace peaceful and quiet to think. I am still very confused, Hutchings,” she continued as the maid remained, seemingly rooted to the floor, staring in bewilderment. “I have not regained my memory and I’m trying very hard to sort things out.” She tried out a wistful smile, and was relieved to see Hutchings relax—a little.

“Oh, you poor dear. I s’pose—under the circumstances,” Hutchings began doubtfully. Her face cleared almost immediately. “But, you can’t just go into the church, miss,” she said in some relief. “It’ll be locked.”

“But, how did Aman—how did I get in yesterday?”

“Oh, that was Mr. Satterleigh’s doing. He paid the verger to open the door for you.”

“Mr. Sat—oh, yes, the boyfriend. Where has he been, by the way? I don’t recall his being in the church, and he hasn’t been here. Has he?”‘

“Oh, no, miss. Mr. Satterleigh wouldn’t dare show his face here. Your papa forbade him the house some weeks ago—right after he was here asking for your hand.”

“Ah,” said Amanda. A pair of star-crossed lovers, no less. This whole scenario was beginning to sound like an old-fashioned “mellerdrammer.” The golden-haired heroine, forced into a loveless marriage, while the wicked father cracked his whip and the evil villain snapped his teeth and twirled his moustache. Except that Amanda’s father proclaimed himself all fatherly devotion and Lord Ashindon, whose dark, harsh-visaged face could easily get him cast as the villain, had no moustache, and had so far refrained from snapping his teeth.

“Well, never mind all that,” said Amanda briskly. “We’ll just have to get the, er, verger, to unlock it again.”

Hutchings frowned doubtfully. “Your mama isn’t going to like this.”

“Mama doesn’t have to know, does she?”

“It’s my belief, miss, that after yesterday you’ll be lucky to make a trip to the necessary house out back without her knowing.”

Amanda sighed in exasperation. “Well, how about a shopping trip? Does Aman—do I like to go shopping?”

Hutchings snorted. “Like a fish likes t’swim, miss, but—”

“Well, there you are. You and I will leave the house, and if Mama intercepts us, we’ll just say we’re on our way to—to—?”

“Oxford Street. But it isn’t all that easy, miss. You’ll have to eat breakfast first—downstairs. You’ll have to call for the carriage, and you’ll need t’send a footman on ahead to roust out the verger.”

“Fine. You take care of all that and meet me in the downstairs hall in an hour.”

Hutchings had more objections to the plan, but by the time she had assisted her mistress into a gown of pale blue lutestring, embellished with rows of lace ruching at neckline and sleeves, Amanda had managed to stem the flow.

Obtaining, at last, a grudging agreement to her plan, Amanda descended the long, curving staircase to the dining room, which, to her vast relief, was empty. A footman stood at the ready near a sideboard laden with steaming breakfast delicacies, and after she had loaded her plate, the young man poured coffee from a silver um and placed it reverently by her side at the table.

She ate in thoughtful silence, and at the prescribed hour hastened into the hall to be met by Hutchings with pelisse, bonnet, gloves, and reticule. Hurriedly donning these articles, she moved to the door, and had almost made good her exit when a shrill voice from above caused her to falter.

“Amanda! What are you doing? Where do you think you’re going?”

Amanda swung about, a bright smile pinned to her lips.

“Why, good morning, Mama. It’s so lovely today, I have decided on some early shopping today.”

“Shopping!” Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Now, see here, Amanda, we will have no more of your tricks. You will march right back up to your room, this instant. I want you well rested before we start receiving calls.”

“Calls?”

“Well, of course.” Serena sighed in exasperation. “The servants will probably have been talking already, and news of your—indisposition will have spread all over Mayfair. We shall no doubt have a steady stream of visitors, and you must be ready to receive them.”

“How am I to do that when I don’t know any of them?”

“I’m sure you will recall their faces when you see them—and I shall be here to give you countenance. You can’t hide away forever, after all.”

Amanda placed little reliance on the benefits of Serena’s support, but the woman was right. There was no telling how long this hallucination thing was going to last, and she might as well face up to whatever—or whoever—it would bring. “Very well, Mama, I shall return shortly, and present myself at—what time can we expect the onslaught?”

“Not until after luncheon, but—”

“Well, then, I have plenty of time, haven’t I?” She waved a cheery hand and turned to depart.

“Amanda, I insist that you return to your room!”

But she spoke to the empty air, for Amanda had pushed Hutchings outside and, exiting herself, shut the door firmly behind her. As the waiting carriage pulled away, Amanda turned her head and waved cheerily to Serena, who stood on the steps, frustrated affront apparent in every line of her plump body.

Some minutes later she stood before the Grosvenor Chapel. It was rather unimpressive, as London churches went, being foursquare and built of brick, with a tall, spare, New Englandish steeple. Inside, the chapel was not dark at all, the walls being painted white and spaced with a profusion of windows. It reminded her a little of the interior of Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg. As before, she was alone in the church, except for Hutchings and the footman who had accompanied them. Instructing these persons to wait outside, she moved to the pew in which she had been seated at the moment of her remarkable—episode. That’s what they called it in medical terminology, didn’t they? She sat down gingerly and, leaning her head against the smooth, dark wood of the pew, she closed her eyes.

All right, now. Relax. Make your mind go blank. Think only of returning to your proper place in time and space. You are a cloud. You are
—

She opened her eyes with a jerk as a door slammed behind her, followed by the sound of a long stride up the side aisle.

“Now, what the devil are you up to?”

She swung about, her mouth dropping open.

“Lord Ashindon!”

“You must know it will do you no good to play the innocent with me.” The earl glanced around the church. “Been stood up again, have you?” he inquired nastily.

Amanda had been about to favor him with an amiable greeting and the explanation she had earlier ladled out to Hutchings, but at his words she shot to her feet. “Don’t you dare talk to me that way, you overbearing oaf!  You have nothing to say about where I go or why. Now, why don’t you buzz off?”

If she had dashed a cup of coffee in his face, his expression could not have been more startled. It took him only a moment, however, to recover.

“I have every right to talk to you like that. We are betrothed, and—”

“The fact that we are betrothed does not give you the right to rag at me like a disapproving parent. What are you doing here, anyway?”

He smiled unpleasantly. “Why, I was carrying out my obligations as a devoted fiancé, presenting myself for an early morning call. Imagine my surprise when I observed my betrothed leaving her house at an exceedingly fast clip. Imagine my further surprise to find her apparently embarked on another assignation.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Amanda coldly. “I am not here to meet anyone. I merely wished to medi—that is, to find a little peace and quiet in which to heal my, er, disordered mind.”

Lord Ashindon’s dark brows slanted upward in disbelief.

“Ah-huh. One would, of course, choose for such a purpose the inconvenience of a distant church over the solitude of one’s bedchamber, or even an early morning stroll in the park.”

“Yes, one would,” snapped Amanda, “Particularly if one were trying to create the same set of circumstances that led to one’s brain disorder in the first place. Now, if you’ll go away and let one alone, one would very much appreciate it.”

To her surprise, the earl loosed a bark of laughter. “Oh, no, I don’t think I can do that. Judging from your mama’s display of indignation on the front steps of your house as I passed, you will be in for a severe hair-combing when you get back. Much better if you arrive at the old homestead in my company.” Without waiting for a response, he slid a hand under Amanda’s elbow and lifted her, without effort, to her feet. “By the by,” he continued, his tone all bland innocence, “was the treatment efficacious?”

“Effica—Oh. No, of course it wasn’t. As you must know, I had barely sat down when you barged in. And, thank you, I do not wish to return home just yet. Oh, very well,” she conceded, noting the unpromising set of his jaw. “I can see that I shall get no peace here. I shall leave, but not with you, thank you. I—I want to do some shopping.”

“Excellent. I shall accompany you.”

Without giving her a chance to utter the protest that boiled visibly on her lips, Ash steered her out of the church and into his waiting curricle. Instructing Hutchings and the footman to return to the Bridge residence and to inform Mrs. Bridge that her daughter was in the unexceptionable hands of her betrothed, the earl set his horses in motion.

“Where to?”
he asked.

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” responded Amanda with some asperity. “You know, of all the high-handed jerks I’ve ever known—and I’ve known quite a few—you really top the list, my lord.”

“Jerks?” repeated Ash. “The term is unfamiliar to me, but I think I would be deluding myself to consider it in any way complimentary.”

“You would,” said Amanda shortly.

Having swung from North Audley Street into Oxford Street, Ash brought the curricle to a halt. “Since you have nothing specific in mind, I propose that we stroll for a bit. We shall peer in the windows like bumpkins just up from the country, and if you see anything that strikes your fancy, we can then consider a purchase or two.”

“Fine.” responded Amanda dispiritedly. “Only, I have no money.”

Ash eyed her languidly. “How can this be? The daughter of the Brass Bridge without funds?” He stopped abruptly in the act of assisting her from the curricle, so that her hands remained imprisoned in his. “Please forgive me,” he said, his voice harsh. “That was inexcusable. I do not know how I came to be so maladroit.”

Ash realized that it was his own self-loathing that had given voice, but that did not make his words any less hurtful. To his surprise, she displayed no discomfiture, merely shrugging her shoulders as she attempted to disengage her hands from his tightly clenched fingers. With an exclamation, he released her.

“Is that what they call him?” she asked, her voice a cool shower on his seething emotions. He nodded reluctantly.

“How very apt,” was all she said, and Ash stared at her. The Amanda he knew would have been swooning at his feet by now in outraged indignation at this vulgar insult to her parent.

He drew her toward a building that proclaimed itself to be Pickett’s Gold and Silversmith. “Not precisely a genteel establishment,” he said, “but perhaps you might see something to please you. At the risk,” he added, driven by a scarcely acknowledged desire to throw her off stride, “of further descending into gaucherie, I do have money with me—my own. I have so far not availed myself of your papa’s largesse.”

Her eyes lifted to his, startled, before she relaxed into a warm chuckle in which he joined her a moment later. He noted with some bemusement that this was the first time he had been able to look at his predicament with even the faintest touch of humor.