Odette Speex: Time Traitors Book 1 (18 page)

Odette was engulfed in feminine embraces and disjointed exclamations.

“What a dreadful—”

“We would have come sooner, but the inn—”

“Johnson will be so jealous of the garden—”

“This room has lovely proportions—”

While busy settling themselves on the sofa, Odette was able to interject, “I’m so glad you could come.”

“Oh, my dear!” Josephine Wright exclaimed. “We were very distressed to hear of the attack on your coach! To think something like that happening on a busy street. Well!” she huffed, “London is getting far too big.”

“Gabe was in Yorkshire but returned earl—,” Barbara began.

“He is helping Johnson with the coach,” Josephine interrupted, shooting her daughter a warning look. This little piece of mother-daughter theater was not lost on the room’s other occupants, Cara especially gleeful at the significance of Gabriel’s early return from Yorkshire.

“The coach?” Odette asked, trying to avoid Cara’s comically significant glances.

“Oh.” Josephine waved a dismissive hand. “It’s the old inn coach Gabriel had refitted. He felt I needed a private conveyance for my errands. You know how he is about my ‘standing’ in the community and such.” She sighed, a sad yet tender look on her face. “Since Ralph died, Gabriel has become somewhat overprotective.”

Odette nodded her understanding and then looked up as the subject of their conversation walked into the room. He seemed to fill the space. In that unguarded moment, he looked at Odette and his smile was like a silent laugh, open and carefree. The warm look in his eyes left her breathless.

“Ahem.” Cara coughed delicately into her hand.

Odette broke her gaze from Gabriel’s to find that she was standing. In the small room he was only a few feet from her, and she noted he looked uncomfortably flushed. He was also carrying a large bouquet of roses.

She recollected herself. “Mister Wright, thank you so much for the flowers. They will certainly brighten up Fancy’s room.”

It was hard to believe anyone looking more discomfited, but he did. “I wish I’d thought of bringing flowers. However, these were given to me by a Mister Harris. He is kindly helping Johnson with the carriage and asked me to deliver them to you.”

Cara rose to collect the bouquet. “How kind of Ignatius.” She bustled out of the room in search of a vase leaving behind an awkward silence.

As hostess, Odette knew it was her responsibility to keep the conversation flowing. She indicated that Gabriel should be seated and she did the same.

“Mister Har—,” she began.

“Mister Har—,” he began.

They looked at each other in frustration. Finally he nodded for her to go first.

“Mister Harris has brought flowers every day since the attack,” she said a little breathlessly. “He was driving the carriage when Fancy was shot and carried her to the doctor’s surgery.”

“Impossible to believe that something like that could happen,” Josephine stated again, shaking her head in disbelief.

“Our local magistrate told us he’d never heard of such a thing,” Barbara added.

“In speaking with Mister Harris just now, he mentioned an interview with a runner from Bow Street.” Gabriel looked at Odette questioningly. “This man expressed some skepticism that thieves were responsible for the attack.”

Josephine stiffened. “You don’t believe it could be the man who has your brother?”

Odette looked down at her clasped hands silently cursing Hershel Gordon’s interference. Her efforts to keep the Wrights uninvolved in what was turning out to be a huge misadventure seemed wasted. But withholding information from them might prove dangerous, as it had for Fancy.

She compromised. “No, I don’t think it was the man who has Odell. I haven’t seen him, and I have been very visible and observant these past weeks. I am beginning to believe that whatever involves Odell is much bigger than stolen property.”

“Stolen property?” Gabriel asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “The dispute between Odell and this man arose because my brother accused him of stealing his invention.”

“Benjamin Franklin is an inventor.” Gabriel’s sharp mind grasped her meaning quickly.

“Exactly.” She nodded at him approvingly. “Perhaps Odell has some information, knows that this man wants something of Mister Franklin’s as well.” She stood up and took a turn around the room. “I’m just speculating. Odell told me so little.”

“But, Odette, this is folly—”

Cara appeared breathless at the door and hurriedly announced, “Mister Graham has also come for a visit.”

Odette cast her eyes heavenwards and sat down again. Never had she felt the lack of a servant until now when a good butler could have turned away a visitor without offense. She looked at Gabriel and saw the quickly suppressed suspicion on his face.

“Good to see you, Graham,” he said in a neutral tone as Ethan entered directly behind Cara.

“Mister Graham.” Josephine smiled. “How nice to see you again. This is my daughter Barbara.”

Ethan murmured his greetings and bowed over the ladies hands. With him present, the conversation stalled. Cara finally mentioned his part in the aftermath of the attack. This elicited cooed expressions of admiration from the Wright ladies, and a speculative look from Gabriel.

For Odette, Gabriel’s presence exacted conflicting emotions. From the beginning, she had been drawn to him. Not only by his good looks which were, she had to admit, considerable, but also his intelligence and fundamental decency. Their time alone had been sparse, but their attraction to each other was undeniable. Her feelings for him were so different than those she had for Drake. With Drake the physical overwhelmed all else. How could it not when everything he stood for was the antithesis of honor and decency? She desired Drake, but wanted more from Gabriel.

She believed his initial suspicion of her was a result of fear. A fear that his mother would once again be tarred with the whore’s brush by seeming to consort with loose women. Odette could forgive him this. But where she forgave weakness and recognized strength, she was unsure he would do the same for her. After her début it seemed he would.

She needed an ally, someone to stand up for her… no… someone to stand up
with
her. Someone who would stare down society’s stupid rules and value her for who she was. What woman didn’t want this from the man she lov—

“Odette, are you unwell?” Josephine asked solicitously.

Odette found that she was standing again. Her fists were tightly gripping her skirt. All eyes were on her, most with concern, Cara’s with puzzlement. Odette flushed and stammered, “No… I mean yes… sort of.” She cleared her throat and said more firmly, “I haven’t danced in several days and my muscles are tight. I felt a leg cramp and needed to stand. I apologize if I startled you.”

“Not at all,” Josephine replied. “We really should be going and let you rest.” She stood and nodded for Barbara and Gabriel to do the same.

“I also will take my leave,” Ethan announced. He bowed over Cara’s hand. “Until the ball.”

“Until the ball,” she agreed with her most enchanting smile. Shaken as Odette was by her own thoughts, she couldn’t help but notice Cara’s determination to prove Wu wrong and was inwardly amused.

“And you?” Gabriel squeezed in beside her as they made their way to the door.

She kept her face averted, fearing even this harmless tête-à-tête. “Me?”

“Are you going to the ball?” he clarified.

She was surprised into looking at him. “Are you?”

“Don’t look so astonished. I like to dance as well as the next man.” He smiled tenderly down at her. “Although I fear I’ll appear the oaf compared to your virtuosity.”

She felt a lovely warmth steal over her. But it was all to brief as they emerged into the garden, and his attention was required to summon Johnson and the carriage.

By the time her guests had departed, the afternoon was well advanced. Odette sat on a stone bench next to the lily pond and watched the small aquatic frogs make ripples across the water’s surface.

In love, she thought dejectedly. The last, and only, time she had been in love was a disaster.

Daniel Treygarth, nephew to one of her mother’s noble lovers. They had grown up together, she and Danny. For ten years every summer at his uncle’s country estate, they met. With Odell lost in his books and inventions, Odette and Danny explored the woods, sailed the lake, fished the river, raided the attic, and generally got up to all sorts of mischief on their own. She could hardly remember the exact moment their childhood friendship had blossomed into young love. Was she seventeen, eighteen? Danny was only a year older, but he seemed so much wiser and experienced. Soon they were exploring much more than mere woods and attics.

No one suspected what they were up to in one of the mansion’s more obscure bedrooms. She could still feel it. The sensation of his hands everywhere at once. Of his mouth on hers, on her neck, his weight on top of her, their skin and hair damp with sweat. She could close her eyes and even now feel the newness, the innocence… her innocence.

Danny knew the difference in their stations would raise eyebrows. But his family would come around. He was sure of it. She believed him. But then he was gone without a word, shipped off to England. For two years she held on to the belief that it was against his will.

This all changed one night at the ballroom of the Gramercy Park Hotel. She was new to the company and excited at the prospect of attending one of the lively after parties. She was ambitious and eager to rub elbows with the powerful patrons. It was a sentiment that did not survive the evening.

Danny was there. On his arm was a lovely brunette with glittering blue eyes and an impeccable pedigree. His gaze touched Odette briefly and then slid past her without a hint of recognition. She knew then that he had been prepared to see her. He was letting her know with barely a glance how little she meant to him.

Her heart should have broken. But it didn’t. It hardened. Not against the world in general but a group of people in particular. She could trace her small, pathetic acts of rebellion back to that night, to Danny and those like him. Men who believed liberty meant taking whatever they wanted and giving nothing in return. People who believed their rights superseded all others. That to grant even the smallest freedom would mean losing theirs. They earned nothing, yet looked down on those who did. She despised them.

Odette breathed deeply and exhaled. Now she was in love again, but this time with a very different type of man. And this time, it would be her leaving, not him.

She shook off her anger and melancholy. She stood and looked around the garden wondering where Wu had been all day. Although it was a lucky happenstance he was out. Odette wasn’t looking forward to explaining him to Gabriel.

Cara was in the dining room working on a new design. Her materials were spread out over the table and chairs. Odette thought it fortunate they ate their meals mostly in the cozy sitting room and breakfasted in their bedroom. She wandered up the stairs and thought to look in on Fancy.

She opened the bedroom door.

“Bloody hell!”

Fancy was sitting up on the bed. Her feet rested on the floor and her face was pale as the moon. But it wasn’t this that had caused Odette to gasp in disbelief. Fancy was dressed. In boy’s clothes! Her clothes!

“I found them in your dressing room,” she declared defiantly. While Odette continued to stare at her in dumbfounded silence, Fancy smiled slyly and said, “I’m a light sleeper.”

Chapter 21

Covent Garden was
more festive than usual. The piazza and market were bustling with activity. Wandering musicians and acrobats vided with sedan chairs and hackneys for space. The blue sky was host to only a few fluffy, white clouds so that she could see the spire of Saint Martin-in-the-fields in the distance.

Fancy shrugged her shoulders and felt an unpleasant tightening at the base of her collarbone. She grimaced and brought her hand up to rub it.

“Are you in pain?” Wu stood beside her in a large-brimmed hat. His face was almost completely obscured. The westering sun illuminated only the lower half leaving his eyes hidden.

She thought about lying, but Wu always saw right through her. “Aye. It hurts.”

“We should return,” he stated flatly.

Fancy knew he was under strict orders from both Odette and Cara not to tax her strength. And considering what it took to convince them she could do this, Fancy wasn’t about to push her luck either.

The scene in her room after Odette’s discovery had been difficult to say the least.

“What do you mean? You shouldn’t even be up, much less dressed in those clothes!” Odette had been furious.

“I mean I heard everything. Those weren’t thieves that attacked us. I’d almost believe you’re all crazy, ’cept I know for certain Wu isn’t.”

“Thank you.” Wu sat calmly on the windowsill having silently climbed up the ivy and entered via the balcony.

“Can’t you come in the blasted door like a normal person?” Odette practically shouted. “And where have you been all day?”

The ensuing commotion brought Cara, and yet more exclamations of disbelief and astonishment. When things had finally settled down, Fancy explained her deceptive sleeping habits and near complete understanding of events. Odette’s frustration was evident in her rigid stance and compressed lips.

“You do realize Fancy, that I lied to you and, by doing so, put you in danger. That bullet was meant for me.” She practically choked on the words, guilt closing her throat.

Fancy eyed her shrewdly. “I know. But the way I see it, you’ve treated me better than most.”

Odette sat down on the bed beside her. “Believe me when I say, I never imagined any of this. I just thought… hoped… with a network of informants… people telling me what they see and hear, I… I could… I don’t know.” She looked deflated. “I wished I’d never put you in the middle of this.”

“But I
am
in the middle of it.” Fancy’s eyes for once were naked of all artifice and bravado. “And now I want to do my bit.”

This statement brought another wave of resistance from the two women. But Fancy wouldn’t budge. Orphaned three years earlier, her mother dead before the age of thirty from gin and disease, Fancy had found whoring her only means of survival. It was almost the family business. A casual decision made with little insight or thought. So many women of her class did it, some as a full-time occupation and others to supplement the meager income of a spouse or partner. The grinding poverty that forced most women into the profession was never much talked about. They accepted their lot.

Lying in bed listening to the impossible story unfold in whispered conversation, she thought of a world where someone like her would have a fighting chance at a decent life. Fancy was neither educated nor articulate enough to express her complex feelings. All she knew is that it wasn’t fair that one’s entire life was determined by a random chance of birth.

So she set her mind on being part of the conspiracy. Finally Odette had relented but with conditions. Wu was always with her, and they must return at the first sign of pain or weakness.

Fancy wiggled her shoulders again and felt the tightness ease a bit. She, too, wore a wide-brimmed hat that sat low over her thick, close-cropped hair.

Fancy had not shed a single tear when Cara cut off her long, flowing locks. She watched as the thick strands fell to the floor, the brown curls taking the shape of chain links. Fancy looked at them and felt a symbolic sense of liberty.

That wasn’t the case when it came to binding her breasts. More full-figured than Odette, her clothes were cleverly tailored by Cara to hide her shape. Still, the breasts had to be tightly compressed and that took considerable getting used to.

From their vantage point at the eastern end of the piazza, she could easily observe the market. The public fête had attracted all types of merchants and entertainers, adding even more riotous activity to the already disreputable character of Covent Garden. Fancy and Wu stood, a quiet aside within the rowdy crowd. In short order she had learned from him the nature of observation and the quality of silence.

She followed him as they wove their way between people. They walked with purpose but without attracting attention. She saw a couple of her old mates soliciting business. Not more than a few feet away, they looked right through her. There was little point in drawing the notice of a poor working lad. Only a short while ago, she had been one of them. Now Fancy wondered how many people she had dismissed out of hand who were not what they seemed.

She stopped abruptly, catching Wu’s immediate attention.

“What is it?” he asked.

“The Marquis of Ridgeleigh,” she answered and nodded stealthily in the direction of an elaborate coach.

Wu saw a man just alighted from the carriage. He was of medium height and handsome in a soft, indulged way. Young though he was, signs of dissipation showed around his eyes and mouth. His middle was already undefined and tending to fat. “You know him?” he asked.

“I know
of
him.” She repeated the story of the Marquis’ debauchery. “Miss Odette is particularly interested in groups like his. Hellfire clubs like. We should follow him,” she said decisively.

Wu looked down at her. At this close proximity, she could see his dark eyes. They held a look she had come to know, a measuring look. “Why?”

“I have a feeling.” She knew Wu never dismissed feelings. “He’s the type. You know the kind of person who would want nothing to change. His father is rich and powerful and,” she struggled for words, “he’s bad or… ah… corrupt. Yeah, he’s corrupt. You can see it in his face.”

Wu looked over again at the man now walking leisurely in the direction of St. Paul’s. “Yes, you are right,” he agreed. “But corruption of oneself does not always mean the destruction of others.”

“Well, it’s a bloody good start,” she retorted.

*

The bedroom furniture was a hodgepodge of pieces clearly discarded from the main house. A heavy walnut baroque bed took up most of the room and was at odds with the more modern mahogany wardrobe. The delicate Queen Anne dressing table was pushed up against the only wall without a door or window. Next to it leaned a full length framed mirror. On the other side, Odette had set the rosewood-inlaid portable writing desk she had bought off an itinerant actor. Candles flickered in the wall sconces and in the branched candlestick sitting on the dressing table.

“Good God, this gown weighs a ton,” Odette muttered grumpily to herself. She turned abruptly from the mirror and knocked over a bottle of perfume with her very wide panniers. As she lunged to grab the fragile glass bottle, her elaborate hair piece slipped sideways down her head. It landed on the writing desk and overset the inkwell, staining the powdered confection black. The bottle of perfume cupped in her hands with its contents running down her dress, Odette was stunned at the ruin so few seconds had wrought on her fashionable ensemble.

“Hell and Coal Fire! Sagging Tits of a Street Tart!” she yelled and then blushed, grateful no one was around to hear her vulgarity. She sat down on the bed laughing uncontrollably. Cara was going to kill her! Preparation for the ball had taken literally hours. And now with Cara whisked away for a private dinner with Ethan Graham, there was no way to repair the damage.

Odette stood up and removed the beautifully detailed robe to reveal the equally elaborate petticoat beneath. She detached the woven linen and cane hoop from around her waist and was beginning to unlace the corset when she heard the front door open and shut. She wrapped a silk dressing gown around her and poked her head out the bedroom door to see Wu and Fancy ascending the stairs.

“It’s late for only your second day out,” Odette said as she walked, candlestick in hand, to meet them on the landing. She moved the light closer to Fancy’s face. It was pale but with a healthy rose about the cheeks. Her eyes sparkled with excitement. “You’ve discovered something.”

“Aye. Someone.”

“Drake,” Odette barely breathed the name.

“Aye,” Fancy repeated.

“Where? How?” Odette shepherded them into the bedroom, her head in a whirl. Drake was here. That meant Odell was too.

Odette and Fancy settled on the deeply recessed window seat while Wu sat cross-legged on the bed. She set the candlestick on the floor between them, their uplit faces shadowed menacingly.

“Gad! It smells like a brothel in here.” Fancy wrinkled up her nose.

Odette waved it aside. She looked at Wu and asked again, “How?”

He nodded to Fancy. “It was her intuition that led us to this man. She will tell you.”

Fancy blushed with pleasure and grinned. “It was that Marquis of Ridgeleigh, you remember him.”

Odette nodded.

“I saw him on the piazza and he looked…” She leaned in toward Odette. “Like a cat with a canary. Satisfied-like.”

Wu said proudly, “She would make an excellent precept.”

The story that unfolded left Odette breathless.

“I’d only been in St Paul’s once or twice,” Fancy began.

They had followed the Marquis at a casual distance to the massive portico of St Paul’s. Until that point, the crowd had effectively hidden their movements. But as he walked past the central columns and disappeared into the church, the protection of the multitude was no longer an option.

“We’ll be seen,” Fancy whispered. “It’s one big space in there.”

“But will we be noticed?” Wu countered as he walked under an archway and around the building.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s another entrance. If we follow him in from the piazza, he might be suspicious. But if we enter from another direction, why would he even notice two poor boys?”

She saw the logic in this but was unconvinced their disguise as humble city lads would help them blend into the church interior.

“Don’t boys go to church?” Wu stopped to ask after she voiced her concern.

“I figure,” she responded uncertainly, “but nows not the hour for services. I guess we could be coming to do a spot of work or speak with the vicar.” She shook her head and looked embarrassed. “I just don’t know enough about church-going to say whether we’d stand out like.”

Wu was silent, and Fancy knew he was weighing their options.

“Well,” he finally said, continuing toward the other end of the church. “Even if we stand out, he can’t think we were following him.”

They walked through the smaller back entrance, and Fancy was relieved to see the church fairly busy. Several elderly ladies in simple shawls and pious caps were gathered near the alter. A group of young boys, no less, appeared to be enduring a lecture from a serious young man in a black waistcoat. Fancy barely had time to register this when the Marquis hurriedly brushed past them and exited the church through the door they had just entered.

After exchanging puzzled looks, she and Wu quickly followed. They were just in time to see the Marquis glance furtively around before disappearing into a hedgerow.

“A hedgerow?” Odette interrupted.

“Aye.” Fancy nodded. “It borders both sides of the brick wall at the end of the churchyard. It’s odd-like. But you wouldn’t much notice it otherwise.”

The hedgerow was thick, but close inspection revealed a neatly, and almost imperceptibly, cut path between the prickly branches and the brick wall. It was only wide enough to pass single file.

“Good Lord! You never followed him in there!” Odette gasped, being herself particularly adverse to tight spaces with limited escape routes. “What if he had turned around and come back out?”

Fancy rolled her eyes in Wu’s direction.

“The chances of his immediate return when he was obviously on his way to an appointed meeting were infinitesimal,” he stated calmly.

Odette looked doubtful but only said, “And then…”

Wu had led the way through the hedgerow and stopped just short of the opening on the other side of the wall. Fancy could see nothing but his broad back and waited impatiently for him to make a move.

He leaned slightly backward, turned his head, and barely moving his lips whispered, “It’s a walled garden, no bigger than our sitting room. If we enter, we’ll be seen. We need to crawl under the hedgerow.”

Fancy looked down to find the bottom of the hedge only a couple of feet above the ground. “You’re having me on,” she whispered back.

“No. And we’d better do it quickly before whomever he’s meeting runs into us.”

At this point in the story, Odette looked a Wu with real perturbation. He had the good grace to blush.

“I assumed his confederate to be already there,” he explained. “A miscalculation on my part, I must admit.”

“Yes, you must,” she replied tightly. “Go on.”

Wiggling into a space that rabbits typically inhabit was not an easy task. But both of them were young and fortunately slim. Wu silently and effortlessly slithered his way to the outer edge of the hedgerow where he could see the Marquis’ elegantly shod feet not more than an arm’s length from where he lay.

For Fancy it was harder going. She had to protect her barely healed wound by bending her arms and digging her elbows into the soft dirt while pushing herself forward with her toes. Doing this without disturbing the branches seemed to take forever, and her shoulder hurt. But eventually she lay next to Wu. The scene before her was limited to grass, the pedestal of a stone bench, and stockinged calves. She carefully turned over on her back and tilted her head just enough to discern the Marquis’ face through the leaves.

All of this was accomplished in a matter of minutes and not a second too soon. Fancy heard the rustle of leaves as a man pushed his way through the hedgerow path and walked toward the bench where the Marquis stood.