Joan Smith (4 page)

Her Blue Saloon at eventide was gloomy. The walls were, hung in a dark blue patterned paper that soaked up the light of three elegant lamps, without much brightening the chamber.

“I assumed some new tribulation had sought you out. I cannot for the life of me understand how every affliction finds you, so well as you hide yourself in this cave.”

“It’s Peter,” she breathed through the folds of her moist handkerchief.

“What?”

“Peter and that woman. He
lied
to you, Luten. My own flesh and blood turned out a liar and a womanizer. I doubt I will endure this blow. When he comes back, he will find me stretched under the elms of Hanch House with his father.”

“In the meanwhile, can you revive yourself sufficiently to tell me what is going on?”

“He has been back to her, after promising it was over. Last night, and again this very morning after he left me.”

“He told me he was at the Daffy Club!” Luten exclaimed, harking back to the morning’s visit. He remembered the pale face, the dark circles under Peter’s eyes, but he couldn’t remember any signs of lying.

“Oh, can human heart bear it!” Lady Clappet sighed. “Last night the hussy urged him to tell me about her. It is marriage, no less, she has in her eye, you see. Why else would she ask him to tell me? Then this very morning as Nettie Rolfe was leaving the door to bring me the dreadful news, he went again. She overheard him say, for of course she lingered in the hallway when she knew he was there, that he would write her, and that he would be back soon, and he would take care of the
linens
for her. If the greenhead is not off hiring up a cottage and furnishing it this minute, it is more than I dare to hope. It sounds dreadfully like a misalliance, does it not, Luten?”

“It sounds more like a love nest to me,” he replied. “If it were marriage he had in mind, he’d install her at Hanch House, or here.”

“One hardly knows which is worse. Dear Clappet was strongly averse to irregular liaisons. Oh, I know you bloods feel differently nowadays. You think me an antique, but for a grasping divorcee to have got her clutches on poor little Peter is more than I can endure.”

“It’s not as bad as getting her clutches on his name and title. I didn’t think Peter would lie to me,” Luten said softly, with a frown pleating his brow. “He assured me it was over. Why would the woman not go with him, if the purpose of his trip is to find her a cottage? Mrs. Rolfe said she stayed behind?”

“Yes, he is to write her and see her soon. She has sent him off to make the place ready for her, you see, as though he were a servant.”

“You’re jumping to conclusions.”

“Indeed I am not! He said he would see to the linens for her. Where does one put linens but on a bed? And where does one put a bed? In a bedroom, which is bound to be in a house. He is hiring a house. Oh, and there is more evidence than the linens.”

His raised brow invited her to continue. “Money—he has drawn
every penny
of his quarter allowance out of the bank.”

“How the devil did you learn that?”

“Quite by accident. I needed some funds and sent to the bank for them. They sent back a note for Peter, which I took a little peek at only because I thought it might be urgent, and he was not at home. The note concerned a loan,” she announced with awful solemnity. “No amount was specified, but it said that as he had emptied his account, he would require the signature of either you or me before the loan he requested could be approved. What would he want with a thousand pounds, if not to hire her a house? And that is not to be the end of it either. She is making him take out a loan.”

Luten’s brows drew together in a black scowl. “Let me see the note,” he ordered.

“I’ve pasted the letter up again. Peter takes a fuss if I snoop. Not that I ever do!”

“Get it,” he repeated.

He had no hesitation in ripping her careful work apart and reading the missive. He tapped his toe on the floor when he had finished. Watching him, his elder sister recognized the signs of rising temper. Much as she wanted Peter home safe, she did not wish him to have to endure one of Luten’s towering rages. They threw even her into a fit of dismals, and she was ten years Luten’s senior.

“I’ll take this,” he said, folding the letter up and putting it into his pocket. “I’ll speak to them at the bank. As I’m Peter’s guardian, they won’t hesitate to let me know what’s going on. Loan indeed! Lying about his doings is more infuriating than all the rest. I suppose there is no point in dashing off to Newmarket. He won’t be there. That was dust in our eyes.”

“He wouldn’t have stripped his closet clean to go to Newmarket for a few days,” Lady Clappet said; she’d forgotten that detail. “His valet, Uxor, hauled away trunks of stuff, and the foolish servants didn’t tell me. I had to see for myself his dear little room, with the drawers empty of every stitch of linen, and the clothespress holding nothing but empty hangers.”

“That settles it. The jackanapes has peeled off,” Luten said grimly. “He told me he’d see you before he leaves— another lie.”

“What will you do about the woman?” Maggie inquired, eager to detour the blame to its proper target. “You must go to her, Luten.
She
will know where he is gone. Not that she’ll tell you, the brazen strumpet. She is so sly there’s no standing it.”

Luten’s nostrils pinched dangerously, and the cold flash of his eyes would have frozen fire. “She’ll tell me if she takes the idea I’m not interested.”

Lady Clappet directed a withering look at this piece of obtuseness. “She will
know
you are interested. Why else would you be there—Peter’s uncle.”

“She
doesn’t know that.”

“You may be sure the ninnyhammer has been boasting of you. He always does.”

“He won’t have showed her my picture. It’s not Peter’s uncle that will call, but Mr. Somebody or Other, who wishes to learn Latin. That is her story, according to Nettie Rolfe, is it not, that it is Latin lessons she purveys?”

“Yes, that’s what she says.”

“Let us see how she handles a
homo bellicosus
,
”
he sneered, and arose from the sofa.

“You won’t go to her at this hour?”

“It’s only evening. Her sort open their doors after dark, Maggie. They don’t close ‘em, not on well-inlaid gents. I’ll not be back till tomorrow.”

“I shan’t sleep a wink all night.”

A parody of a smile pulled Luten’s face into a grotesque mask. “With luck, I may not either,” he said, through thin lips.

Lady Clappet sat wondering what he could possibly mean, till she happened to remember her laudanum, and sent off for it.

Luten went home to add to his toilette those expensive and gaudy ornaments that might appeal to a Cyprian. His largest diamond stud was inserted in his cravat, an emerald ring with a stone too big for its setting was slid onto his finger, and two or three gold fobs attached to his watch chain.

With a shrug of his shoulders, he picked up a quizzing glass that lay on his dresser and attached it to a ribbon. He patted his pocket to ensure the presence within of a hefty wad of paper money. He had no intention of parting with any of it, but a thick wad of bills would impress an avaricious female of Mrs. Harrington’s sort.

His preparations complete, he had the team removed from his crested carriage and harnessed up to a plain black one that was seldom used. Mr. Mandeville, whom he was about to become, would not drive a crested carriage, but in all other respects, he would be the pink of the ton. A financier perhaps, having the sound of big money attached to it, would impress the female.

Inside the upper apartment on the corner of Conduit and Swallow streets, Mrs. Harrington got up off her chair, stretched her arms, yawned, and said she was for bed.

“It’s only nine-thirty,” Trudie pointed out.

“The light is too poor to knit on these dark woolens, and I have read the newspapers. I could write a few letters,” Mrs. Harrington said listlessly.

The ladies had spent the entire day without company, except for Peter’s flying visit that morning. It had been a long, extremely tiresome day, and the immediate future promised more of the same. It was frustrating for Trudie to know that bustling, teaming, social London was out there, just at her fingertips, but held aloft from her by the lack of connections, and the inelegance of the apartment. In fact, they didn’t even have a carriage to accept an invitation in dignity, should one be offered. But she refused to admit to Aunt Gertrude that she was suffering. She had encouraged Norman in this plan, and for a year she could stick it.

There was no warning sound of footfall on the steps, for Luten had crept up softly and held his ear to the door a moment before knocking. The first knowledge of a caller was a sharp rapping at the door. “Who could that be?” Mrs. Harrington asked in alarm.

“I’ve no idea,” Trudie said, but she walked with hopeful anticipation to the door, expecting nothing more than a call from one of the neighbors. She was greeted by a tall, elegant gentleman with dark hair and eyes. His wide shoulders nearly filled the doorway, and on the shoulders sat a jacket that bore little resemblance to the provincial tailoring she was accustomed to seeing on gentlemen. It looked as if it had been poured on him, so smoothly did it sit.

No sooner had she ascertained he was a stranger than she noticed the large diamond stud he wore. It was impossible to miss it, twinkling and shooting off sparks from the hall light. She was sure it was some mistake—the man wanted Nettie Rolfe probably—but it was the most pleasant mistake encountered thus far in London, and it brought a smile to her lips.

“Mrs. Harrington?” the man inquired in a polite, well-modulated voice as he smiled in apparent pleasure at the lady who stood before him.

“My aunt is home. May I tell her who is calling?” she asked, and opened the door to admit him. Her mind was alive with conjecture. Who could he be? Was it possible Gertrude had a rich young cousin about whom she’d remained silent all these years?

The ladies had brought with them one female servant for the cooking and cleaning, and her husband, Bogman, to act as general factotum for the heavier work, and protector from the evils of the city. Bogman also donned his best jacket and answered the door upon occasion, but this evening he was polishing their shoes in the kitchen with a towel around his waist. His presence on the premises, however, made it possible to admit an unknown man.

“Mr. Mandeville, a friend of Sir Charles Nicolson,” he told her.

Trudie’s first reaction was disappointment, and her second was curiosity as to why Sir Charles should have sent a friend to Gertrude, who cordially disliked Nick. It must have something to do with Norman.

Luten, running a practiced eye over the girl, was relieved to learn she wasn’t the infamous Mrs. Harrington. It would be enough to kill a man’s faith in humanity if this bright-eyed young chit should be a member of the muslin company. Her general appearance was of a young girl fresh off the farm. Her gown was modest but fashionable; her coiffure pretty but not at all in the current mode. Her clear complexion, her full cheeks—everything about her was healthy and honest-appearing, and it was a pity she must reside with the aunt, he thought.

Trudie led him to the parlor, where Mrs. Harrington had resumed her seat upon hearing a guest being shown in. “This is Mr. Mandeville, a friend of Sir Charles, Auntie,” she said, and behind Luten’s back she lifted her brows in confusion.

Long practice allowed Luten to perform a creditable bow while his mind scurried to figure out that the aging dame scowling at him beneath her gray brows was obviously not the one who had trapped his nephew. The niece was the vixen, then, despite her innocent trappings. All her country charm was interpreted differently, seen as a cunning disguise.

He turned a questioning gaze back to the younger female. “I am Miss Barten,” she told him. “Pray have a seat, Mr. Mandeville. We are curious to hear Sir Charles’s message.”

He listened closely and could hear the breath of the country in her accent, but it was genteel country. “Message?” he asked. “I didn’t bring a message.”

“Why did you come, then?” she asked with appalling frankness, while her large bright eyes returned to his diamond stud, then flittered to his emerald ring, which was being employed to attract her attention and test her interest.

He slipped one quick glance to the aunt, then said to Trudie, “Sir Charles recommended you as an excellent teacher of Latin, ma’am. I have come to see whether you will be agreeable to take me on as a student.”

“A student! But you’re so old!” she exclaimed, her frankness descending to outright insult. It was clear she preferred young birds for plucking. “And you asked for Mrs. Harrington. Nick knows very well Auntie doesn’t know any Latin,” she pointed out. Her eyes were bright with suspicion, but despite the oddity of the call, she wasn’t eager to shoo Mr. Mandeville to the door and resume the tedium of watching Auntie write her letters.

“I misunderstood him. I thought your aunt’s name was Barten,” he explained, and of course said not a word about Nettie Rolfe’s part in the misunderstanding.

Mrs. Harrington had taken the dandy’s measure and decided she didn’t care for him. “Miss Barten does not give lessons,” she said firmly. “She has tutored a few close friends, but she does not advertise and does not take strangers.”

“Nicolson will be happy to give me a character, if that is the impediment,” he said warily, but he was surprised that the diamond hadn’t been character enough for them.

“No, the impediment is that she does not give lessons,” the lady insisted, bestowing her haughtiest contempt on the caller.

While the elder spoke, the younger continued to examine Luten from the side of her eye. He was extremely handsome, well outfitted, and well-spoken. He was also a friend of Sir Charles, which made him not
quite
a stranger. Eligible gentlemen were rare enough that she felt some desire to know him better, especially now that the other gentlemen had left town.

“I am tutoring a few friends, but really I have no notion of setting out a shingle,” she explained, using a kinder tone than her aunt. “Why have you decided to study Latin at such a late date in your life, Mr. Mandeville?” She sat down as she spoke and nodded her permission for him to do likewise.