Poetic Justice (20 page)

Hamlet, I, iii

Jessica met her friends as planned at Ranelagh, but as soon as she could she pleaded a headache and called for her carriage. She could wait no longer.

When the carriage clattered to a halt in a quiet street near Manchester Square, she told the groom that she wouldn't be long. She didn't need his disapproving look to remind her that she was committing social suicide, or would be, at least, if anyone recognized her entering this residence for gentlemen. So she gathered her taffeta cloak around her, put up her hood even though the heat smothered her, and in a muffled voice asked the doorman to direct her to "
Capitaine
Dryden's rooms,
s'il vous plait.
"

John's set of rooms were on the first floor, above the monastic-like courtyard. Her knock was answered promptly by a bantam-sized man with a bandanna about his neck and a patch over one eye. A real pirate, Jessica marvelled, down to the hoop in his ear! But when she asked for Sir John, the pirate's scarred face knotted with the same disapproval her groom had shown. "Follow me, please," he said, as glacial as a prince's butler.

Jessica couldn't help glancing about her curiously as they passed through a wide corridor. The walls were covered in dark blue, the paintings illuminated by gold sconces. She thought she saw a Tintoretto landscape over the staircase, and surely that watercolor of a ship in harbor was by the young Turner. The pirate strode onward, but she hung back to peer at the brass plate under a bust of Achilles. Fifth century BC, sculptor unknown, it said, and she gave the marble nose a gentle rub before running to catch up with her guide.

He threw open the door to a library. "Miss Seton to see you," he announced, then as soon as she was in the room, he held out a hand for her cloak, and soon as he had it, withdrew, pulling the door shut firmly behind him.

The library was dimly lit, except for a pool of light over the desk. John had been frowning at some papers, but when he saw her he put down his quill and rose. He was coatless, his cuffs folded back over his forearms. He rolled down his sleeves, but not before she saw the tattoo of a trident on the inside of his wrist. It made her shiver, to glimpse that secret emblem—a free-trader's symbol no doubt—and she found herself weak with longing to study it, to touch it, to kiss it.

She battled back the impulse. Lord, wasn't his mouth enough to draw her? And she began talking before he could protest her appearance. "I couldn't wait till tomorrow to find out about the index. Tell me, do, before I expire. Did it say what we hoped it would say?"

"I don't know," he replied, shrugging his coat on and coming around the desk. He wasn't precisely welcoming, but she hadn't expected that, not after her uncle's performance. "It is from your mother and grandfather. I thought you should open it."

She was silenced by this gallantry. She knew exactly how desperately he wanted to know what was in that index, and how difficult his restraint must have been. Finally she said, "Well, I'm here now. Let's open it."

"We can't. It's not here." He added with a grin, "Do you think I could have withstood the temptation, were it here in my rooms? No. I left it at my friend's house. It is safer there anyway.

"But when will we open it?"

"When we get there. I hope you don't mind a bit of a walk."

Jessica looked down at her insubstantial sandals. "I've got my carriage."

"No. We must walk. Come see."

When she joined him at the window, he tugged the velvet drape back an inch or so. "Look down there, in the street. Do you see anyone?"

She turned her head sideways so she could apply both eyes to the task. After a moment her vision adjusted to the darkness, and she could see a dark figure on the walk opposite. "You mean that man near the lamppost?"

"There's another at the corner. They or a couple colleagues have been there for the last two days."

"Mr. Wiley hired them."

John inclined his head. "Perhaps. They perk up whenever Arnie or I appear, so I'm taking no chances."

"Do you think they saw me enter?"

"No doubt. But don't worry. Arnie is a master at diversion."

He let the drape drop back into place and crossed to the door to call his manservant. "Arnie, tell the doorman to call for Miss Seton's carriage. And bring her evening cloak with you when you return."

A diversion! Jessica could hardly catch her breath. This was nearly as exciting as breaking into the library—stealing away to a man's rooms, finding a pirate, being watched by suspicious men. "They are why you didn't come home last night, aren't they?"

"Considering what I was carrying, I thought it the sensible course. I left the index there."

"Oh." A flush crept up her face as she remembered the implication of this. "Is that where we're going your friend's house?"

"Yes. It's only a half-mile or so, in Cavendish Square."

Cavendish Square was rather an elegant area for the courtesan crowd, but, Jessica told herself, his friend could be a wealthy noblewoman. Bending her head to hide her fierce blush, she asked, "But what if it is inconvenient for your friend? I can't think she would be pleased to see me."

The startlement in his eyes relieved her, though his laughter was unexpected. "Not that friend. I am not so lost to propriety as all that! No, this is a perfectly respectable friend, who is, moreover, not in town. So you will not be exposed to the curious stares of servants. Except for Arnie, of course, and he doesn't gossip."

She felt an immeasurable but ignoble relief that his night had been passed innocently. But disquiet followed immediately.
Not that friend
meant that there was such a friend, and as she stole a glance at John's face, Jessica knew nights with that one wouldn't be so innocent.

She was on the brink of demanding some clarification when Arnie reappeared with her evening cloak. "Put it on." John told him.

Arnie started to spread it around her shoulders, but John shook his head. "No, Arnie, I mean for you to put it on. You're going to draw off our friends in the street by taking a ride in Miss Seton's carriage—as Miss Seton."

The horror on Arnie's face was almost comical, but Jessica knew better than to laugh at a pirate. "But Captain! I won't fool no one!"

"You're about the same size. Just pull up the hood and keep your head down." John took the cloak from his numbed hands and held it up. "And don't say anything."

Arnie had turned to shrug on the cloak, but he still muttered, "And what do I do when we reach her house, I ask you?"

"You'll think of something. Jessica, do you have a handkerchief?"

Fascinated by the transformation of pirate into heiress, she only nodded, and burrowed in her bag without taking her gaze off Arnie. "Here," she said, handing the scrap of lace to John.

He transferred it to Arnie. "Hold this in front of your face and sniff every now and again. The groom will think you've suffered a romantic disappointment, and leave you quite alone."

Arnie, still protesting, trudged out of the room.

Jessica waited till the door was closed to give into laughter. "You are going to disgrace me! I'll have you know, I do not dissolve into tears on such occasions, especially in front of servants."

"Well, your servants will accept your tears sooner than they will accept Arnie's eye patch. Let's watch."

This time he opened the drape at least two inches. He was a head taller, and could look out over her, long as he stayed so close behind her that she could feel the brush of his sleeve on her shoulder. Was he remembering that kiss when they were even closer than this? Now, he couldn't be, for he was laughing and pointing at Arnie, huddled in her cloak, stepping daintily up into the carriage.

"You needn't worry. He will do well enough, so long as he doesn't encounter your aunt or uncle."

"They are abed, I'm sure."

"Then he will just wait until the carriage is being taken back around to the stables to sneak out of your house. He's had a great deal of experience. He used to play all the ladies when my crew performed Shakespeare at sea."

Jessica was only slightly reassured, but firmly she pushed her worries aside. There was nothing more she could do about it, and at least she had achieved her aim. She was here with John, and they would soon be in possession of the precious index.

One of the watchers departed at a fast walk after the carriage. "We'll go out the back," John said, letting the curtain drop back into place. He looked her up and down, at her fine lilac gown, her hair up, pearls at her neck, and though she saw the gleam in her eye, she knew he was not about to compliment her beauty. "You're rather formal for this sort of outing. You would have done better to wear boots," he added, gesturing at her Grecian sandals. "But I reckon it can't be helped."

"You could send for the index, and we could open it here."

But she was relieved when he shook his head and returned to his desk to retrieve a ring of keys. "No, I don't want it in this house. It's safer where it is."

The night was cool and dry, but Jessica felt flushed as she followed John down the mews lane, hugging, as he did close to the wall. It was near midnight, and dark as pitch back here where there were no streetlamps. She kept her eyes focused on John's tan coat, trusting him to find a way through the night to their unknown destination. She wasn't experiencing fear, precisely, more that pleasurable trepidation thunderstorms sometimes brought. She knew she was safe with John, but she could imagine being in danger here without him.

Without her protective cloak, Jessica felt blessedly unencumbered. There was some kind of freedom in the whisper of the breeze against her bare arms, in the brisk slap of the cobblestones under her feet, in the man that led her through the darkness.

To keep her bearings, she trailed her hand along the brick wall lining the alley and murmured, "East, east," for that was the direction she thought they were heading. She was proved right when they came to the end of the wall and she recognized St. James Street ahead.

John stopped at the edge of the alley and held out his hand in warning. "Wait," he said softly, and she peered around his arm to see a watchman strolling past on the well-lit street. She held her breath till he turned the corner. "Now," John whispered, taking her hand.

They ran lightly across the street into the next alley. A light breeze followed them, and Jessica jumped and hardly suppressed a scream when scrap of newspaper wrapped itself around her legs. She stopped to pull it free, her grip on John's hand tightening to tell him to wait. He stopped and watched her, his eyes silver and unreadable in the darkness.

From the back garden of a house came a girlish giggle, and Jessica paused to wait for the expected masculine response. But John yanked her hand. "No time for that. This isn't a safe time to be out."

Another couple turns in these narrow backstreets and Jessica had completely lost her bearings. They were headed for Cavendish Square, she knew that, and she might have found her way in daylight, along the major streets. But the backs of houses and squares, she was learning, were not nearly so individual as their fronts. Brick wall gave way to stone, and occasionally to plank, but the little cobbled alleys varied mostly in the amount and type of rubbish heaped up along their borders. The stillness was broken sometimes by city noises: A lorry wagon clattered by, a drunken gentleman called out to a friend as he stumbled past their alley, a lonely cricket called out for a mate.

She was marvelling at the skeletal remains of a carriage when she sensed something moving behind it. As the man sprung out, John pulled her roughly against his side, his hand going to his pocket and emerging with a dagger flashing in the dimness. "Not tonight," he said, and she looked out over his arm to see a ragged man slink away down the alley.

"Was he going to rob us?" she asked when she got her breath back.

"No. He was going to try." Coolly he released her and sheathed the dagger. "Even Mayfair is dangerous after dark, you know."

"Well, I never actually been accosted this way, in or out of Mayfair. But I liked watching you turn him away. You didn't even have to hurt him." She looked back at the corner where the attacker had disappeared. "Most instructive. Perhaps you could get me a dagger like this?"

John glanced back at her, and she sensed him smiling. "You are wasted on Mayfair, do you know that?"

Warmed by this, she reflected that his compliments were as unconventional as they were sincere, and she cherished them. Oh, it might be pleasant to hear him praise her beauty and charm, but other men had done that. Not a one, she was sure, had even noticed what seemed to impress John the most—what she thought he might call her spirit and her quick mind.

And no one, she knew, would be quite as handy in guiding her through dark, dangerous corners of the world.

She slanted a look at him as they crossed another street. The streetlamp cast shadows on his intriguing face, sometimes so austere and sometimes, when he smiled, so appealing. She wished she knew more about his past, about the adventures that made him so handy with a knife, so casual under attack. She could ask him, she knew, and he might tell her a bit of the truth. But perhaps it was better to let him keep his secrets, and to just enjoy his mystery while she could. Then she could tell herself that however exciting he was, he was ultimately forbidden to her. Perhaps that was why he tantalized her so, because she knew she could never have him, and even if she had him, she could never hold him.

But that was because he was elusive, apart, alien, although not for the reasons her uncle endorsed—social class, birth. John might not understand the distinction, however, if he ever thought to consider it. "I meant to apologize for what my uncle said."

"Don't." He didn't look at her; he was staring ahead into the dark, perhaps watching for more assailants. "I have been expecting it anytime this past week. But it has given me an idea."

"What?"

"If he thinks you are in danger of running off with me, he might look with greater approval on one of your more eligible suitors."