Byron's Child (21 page)

Seated some distance away with Roland, Charlotte too seemed worried, her glance flying to the door at each new arrival. Jodie realized she was anticipating Byron’s appearance and wondering what on earth to do when he came.

If Lady Jersey’s party was designed to still slanderous tongues, in one sense it succeeded. The poet’s entrance, with his sister at his side, was greeted with dead silence. The crowd parted before them as they approached their hostesses, Byron limping with thunderous face, Augusta Leigh holding her flaming cheeks high in proud defiance. As they passed, ladies turned away their heads, snubbing Augusta with cruel deliberation. People began to drift towards the other rooms.

Though she had known what was coming, Jodie was incensed by their pitiless condemnation. She laid her hand on Lord Thorncrest’s arm.

“Introduce me,” she demanded fiercely.

He looked uneasy. “I am not well acquainted with Mrs. Leigh,” he evaded.

“Then introduce me to Lord Byron. He is your friend, is he not? You cannot add to his shame by ignoring him.”

“Very well, if you insist.” He gave in to her determination. “Emily, I’ll take you to your brother.”

“No, I shall go with you.” Emily’s quiet determination equalled Jodie’s.

Thorncrest frowned. “My friend or no, George is no longer an acceptable acquaintance for a young lady. Miss Judith is soon to depart. You will still be here for the cats to sharpen their tongues upon.”

“As my future husband’s friend, his lordship must always be an acceptable acquaintance to me.”

“I can see I am taking a managing wife,” the earl complained, but he was smiling down at Emily. “As you will. I daresay I shall in any case be blamed for the whole.”

Lord Byron was leaning against the mantel at the far end of the no longer crowded room. As they approached him Jodie felt disapproving eyes upon her. Nonetheless, they were not quite the only ones to brave censure to speak to him.

A short, red-haired young lady was fluttering her eyelashes at the glowering outcast. “You had better have married me,” she said. “I would have managed you better.”

When he failed to respond she turned away, undismayed.

“Miss Mercer Elphinstone,” Thorncrest whispered to Jodie. “She may be right. George, let me make you acquainted with the Misses Faringdale. Miss Judith is a visitor from America, and her cousin Miss Emily is my betrothed.”

Lord Byron bowed. “Charles cannot fail to make you happier than I ever made Annabella,” he said gloomily to Emily.

Jodie asked him about his travel plans, and they stood for a few minutes discussing his itinerary as if it were to be a journey of pleasure, not a permanent exile. The poet summoned up a pallid enthusiasm when he spoke of Greece, but it was a relief when Lady Jersey came up and they could escape without giving offense.

Though Jodie was not sure whether she had been right to insist on the introduction, she was proud of Emily for her support—even if she had done nothing but clutch Charles’s arm and gaze upon Lord Byron in wide-eyed silence. Judging by the way he pressed her hand, Charles was proud of her too.

He really was not such a bad fellow when you came to know him. Tomorrow, Jodie decided, she would ask him to lend a hand in her project to rescue Byron’s daughter and take her into the future.

Chapter Eighteen

A letter franked by Lord Font awaited Jodie at the breakfast table on Tuesday. Charlotte had not yet come down and Roland had already gone out, so only Emily watched with bated breath as Jodie slit the seal and scanned Giles’s neat writing.

“Saturday,” she said. She reached for her coffee cup and swallowed a gulp. “We go home Saturday. I cannot believe it. I feel as if I had always lived here.”

“So do I,” said Emily sadly. “I wish you had, except that you would then not be you. I wish… No, I am glad for your sake that you are going back to your own family and your own life. What more does Giles say?”

“He and Harry will need to spend Friday setting up and checking the equipment. They will be here Wednesday night—tomorrow already!—and we shall drive down to Waterstock on Thursday in Lady Bestor’s coach.”

“What are you going to tell Roland? How fortunate that he went out early today.”

“Giles has it all figured out. We have received a message from America saying we are urgently needed at home. Urgent! Well, I suppose in today’s terms two or three months can be considered urgent. Our return passage is booked on the ship that brought the news, which will depart from Bristol on Saturday morning.”

Emily looked dubious. “The servants at Waterstock are bound to mention your being there with the scientific equipment.”

“He is going to ask Roland’s permission for Harry to go there after he leaves us at Bristol, to do some experiments with the lightning rods. With any luck, Roland will just think the servants confused if they happen to mention that we were there too.” She pushed her empty plate away. “I’m not hungry. Let’s go and tell Charlotte.”

Charlotte was sitting up in bed with her tea and toast, her blonde curls escaping from beneath a delightfully frivolous lace nightcap. She shed a few tears on hearing that the date of Jodie’s departure was fixed, but she approved the explanation for Roland and promised to smooth over any questions that might arise.

“Only I daresay he will want to lend you our carriage,” she added anxiously, “and then he will know exactly where you went.”

How well she knew her husband, Jodie marvelled, as Roland swallowed the story hook, line and sinker and went on to insist that he would not hear of them borrowing a stranger’s coach. By then, Charlotte had an answer ready.

“Lady Bestor is a very aged lady, dear,” she told him. “She has taken a fancy to Cousin Giles and will be mortally offended if he rejects her aid.”

With a fond smile, he patted her hand. “You are so very considerate of the feelings of others, my dear. Naturally we shall do nothing to distress the old lady. I shall content myself with giving Giles money for the post charges.”

Knowing something of the state of Harry’s pockets, Jodie was glad to accept.

She waited impatiently for Lord Thorncrest to come to take Emily driving in the park. Though she had no idea how she was going to accomplish it, she was determined to take Ada Byron home with her. Of course there would be problems when she arrived with a little girl, but she would face those when she came to them. In the meantime, with Lord Thorncrest’s help surely she could find a way to remove the child from her sanctimonious, overbearing mother.

When Lord Thorncrest heard that she was leaving soon, he willingly agreed to take her up for one last turn about the park. He refused, however, to leave Emily behind so he sent his curricle home and they took the Faringdales’ barouche. Unfortunately, that meant Roland’s coachman was sitting up in front with his ears wide open.

It was a rare sunny afternoon and the park was crowded with carriages, riders and pedestrians. Jodie hoped the coachman would be too preoccupied to concentrate on his passengers’ conversation. The rumble of wheels and crunch of hooves on the gravel, and the voices of the Polite World greeting each other, would partially cover her voice. Nonetheless she spoke softly and tried to make her words innocuous.

“Thorncrest, I need your help. There is a child I want to adopt and take home with us.”

He raised his devastating eyebrows, less than quelling now that she knew him. “Oh?”

“The daughter of a friend of yours. The parents are separated and the little girl is going to have a miserable life. I know she is.”

“A friend we met last night?” he asked cautiously.

“That’s right.” Jodie was pleased with his quickness. “She is presently in the Midlands. I have only three days to make all the arrangements before we depart and I cannot do it without your assistance.”

“You relieve me. You must be mad even to contemplate such a thing.”

“I thought you were a dashing out-and-outer, up to every rig and row,” she said indignantly.

“A dashing out-and-outer, possibly. A kidnapper, no. Are you sure you are warm enough, Emily? The breeze is quite chilly.”

Jodie accepted the rejection with no good grace. She racked her brains but could not figure out how to reach Leicestershire, let alone rescue Ada, without help. Kidnapper indeed, she fumed. Her aim was not to abduct the child but to save her from a wasted life and painful death.

For the rest of the day she had little chance to think about the problem. Roland and Charlotte were determined to spare no effort to entertain her. After a long evening at the theatre, she fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.

~ ~ ~

Emily woke Jodie, gently shaking her shoulder. She blinked up sleepily at her friend then sat up in alarm.

“What’s wrong? Is that from Giles?” She took the paper Emily held out to her.

“No, from Charles, under cover to me, and he says it is urgent. I cannot think what it is about.” Emily settled comfortably on the bed as Dinah came in with a jug of hot water.

Jodie unfolded the note. “He saw Lord Byron last night, dining at the Clarendon with friends. It seems he is distraught at the prospect of leaving England without seeing his daughter once more.”

“The poor man. He did look very unhappy Monday night.”

“Thorncrest says he thinks my notion of taking Ada to the future is an air dream—huh! He does, does he? But if I am willing to take care of her, and if I can be ready to leave by noon, he will drive me to Kirkby Mallory and help me kidnap her. I wish he would not use that word!”

“I cannot believe he means to do anything so shocking.” Emily was horrified.

“Lady Byron will make Ada’s life miserable,” Jodie reminded her. “And….”

“No. Do not tell me more. What does Charles intend to do once you have her?”

“He will take us to Waterstock to meet Giles. He is sure I shall not succeed in taking Ada with me, so then he wants to bring her back to London to see her father, before returning her to her mother. Well, we shall see about that.” Jodie bounced out of bed, full of energy. “I must send him an answer and be ready packed to leave at midday.”

“I shall go with you.”

“Emily, you can’t!”

“Why not? I think you are both fit for Bedlam, but you will need a chaperon. Roland will never let you go alone with Charles.”

“Nor will he consider you a fitting chaperone.”

“We shall take Dinah.”

“Ooh, miss,” squeaked the abigail, “we’ll all be transported.”

Emily ignored her. “Of course we cannot tell him we are going into Leicestershire. Try to think of something that will satisfy him. Dinah, pray fetch our portmanteaux.”

“His lordship’ll never believe as Miss Jodie’s going all the way to America with a couple of portmanteaux, miss.”

“You are right. Have Frederick bring a trunk down. We shall put some of my things in it and leave it at Waterstock. I must go and see Charlotte.”

“Don’t tell her about Ada,” Jodie said, “it will only upset her. Tell her I want to go back to Waterstock early to finish up some research.”

“All right, but we cannot tell Roland that. As Dinah pointed out, he thinks you are going back to America.”

“I know, we’ll say I mentioned to Lord Thorncrest yesterday that I am disappointed not to see the home of my ancestors once more. He realized that by leaving today I would have time to go via Waterstock and meet Giles in Bristol on Friday.”

“He has offered you the use of his carriage,” Emily took up the tale, “He will escort you, and you wish to accept if I can go with you.”

“He’ll have to stay at an inn in Thame while we are at Waterstock, for propriety’s sake, or Roland will have a fit.”

“On Friday night in Bristol we shall be under Cousin Giles’s protection, though.”

“And on Saturday, when Giles and I sail, Charles will rush you back to London. That is a very long day’s journey, is it not?”

“Yes, but I shall not regard it, because I am anxious to spend every possible moment with you before you leave.”

“You are a splendid conspirator, Emily.”

“That last bit is true. Charlotte and I are going to miss you excessively.” Emily gave Jodie a quick hug and slipped from the room to go and tell her sister-in-law the version of their plans tailored for her.

Jodie wrote a note to Giles, to await his return that evening, and sent Frederick off with another for Lord Thorncrest. Emily came back just as she finished dressing and they went together to tackle Roland in his study. He accepted their story with such complaisance that Jodie wondered if he wasn’t just a trifle relieved to be getting rid of her.

She was ashamed of her suspicion when he said kindly, “I know how very attached you two have grown. It is a sad thing to part from friends with little hope of meeting again.”

Much to his embarrassment, Jodie kissed his cheek. “It is your generosity that has enabled us to become friends. We can never thank you enough, cousin.”

“Yes, well, head of the family and all that, you know,” he muttered, red-faced, and patted her hand. “You have done a splendid job of learning to fit in with English Society’s little foibles. At first I was quite concerned—but no matter. Your visit has been a pleasure, Cousin Judith.”

Jodie heard a little snort from Emily and was hard put to it to keep a straight face. If Roland had even an inkling of her less respectable activities in London—but he didn’t, thank heaven.

With a return to his fussy manner, he was giving his sister instructions. “Though you are betrothed, you must have a care to your reputation, Emily. On the journey back from Bristol, Thorncrest must escort the coach on horseback, not travel within. I shall speak to him. Keep Dinah with you at all times, and if you should have to stop overnight en route, which I trust will not happen, she is to sleep in your chamber. I am glad, my dear, that you are willing to entrust yourself to Thorncrest, but remember that you are not yet wed.”

Emily blushed. “Yes, Roland,” she said meekly.

“I should not let you go if I did not know that you are a good girl,” he added with a benevolent air.

That was a statement guaranteed to produce guilt, if ever Jodie had heard one. She hurried Emily out of the room and on the way upstairs kept her occupied with questions about what to pack for the journey.