Suzanne Robinson (26 page)

Toby burst into the room, startling her. “Gor! What did he want?”

“He—he still wants to marry me. Papa must have done something horrible to him.” Liza stared at a wall without seeing it. “He found out about Gamp, and now he hates me.”

“Gor,” Toby said. “See here, miss. It’s time to scarper. That one’s not a gent you can come up against and not get hurt. You get yourself out of London.”

Liza rubbed her cold hands together and fidgeted in her chair. “I can’t. I’ve got to see what I can find out about Winthrop and Fox and Coombes. And then there’s that Mr. Ross. I nearly forgot about him. He’s always with the viscount, and I don’t trust him.”

“You don’t fool me, miss. You’re so scared, you’re hopping like a sparrow.”

“I’ll recover. What can he do?”

“I don’t even want to think about that,” Toby said.

He left, grumbling, and Liza tried to return to her perusal of her files. Her attempts proved useless, for much as she would have liked to pretend otherwise, Jocelin had frightened her. That night she went to bed, but didn’t sleep.

At first she thought the trouble just part of the ordinary inconveniences of a domestic agency. Patrons canceled plans at the last minute without thinking about the consequences to Pennant’s, any more than they would think about inconveniencing their shoes. Lord and Lady Quince rescinded their order for seven additional parlor maids and footmen for their daughter’s engagement ball. The ambassador of France no longer required three new scullery maids, while Amberton’s Gentlemen’s Club requested the return of their deposit on Monsieur Jacques.

When the cancellations escalated the next week, Liza grew uneasy. Then one morning Toby ushered a blubbering Maisy Twoffle into her office. Maisy was one of her latest finds, a former occupant of the rookeries of St. Giles. Liza had come upon her trying to sell violets on the streets near Parliament in the middle of winter. The girl was hardly more than nineteen and desperate to put more food into the mouths of her three little girls. No husband.

“Now stop your sniffing, girl, and tell Miss what happened,” Toby said as he shoved a handkerchief at Maisy.

“Th-they turned me away at the door.” Maisy snuffled into the handkerchief. “That old fart—pardon, miss—that old man, the butler, that is, h-he shoved me out before I could get over the doorsill.” Maisy began to hiccup. “And they was all looking at me, and then, h-he called me a wh-wh-whore!”

Liza met Toby’s gaze over Maisy’s head as she patted the maid’s shoulder. She smoothed the starched ruffles of the girl’s apron.

“There’s been some mistake,” she said, drawing Maisy to her feet. “You go back to the kitchen and tell Mrs. Ripple I said to fix you a nice tea with scones. And don’t you worry.”

Maisy rubbed her nose with the handkerchief. “But, miss, yesterday Hester got turned off of a place you sent her to, and so did Mr. Humewood.”

“I’ll deal with it,” Liza said as she turned the maid around and marched her to the door.

She returned to her desk and spread out the large monthly schedule. Giant
X
marks slashed through over half the appointments for the last two weeks. She took a pen, dipped it in the inkwell, and marked through Maisy’s engagement. Tapping the pen on the calendar, she pondered for a moment, then glanced up at the waiting Toby.

“No need,” he said, holding up his hand. “I’ll find out what’s stewing. Maisy’s ass of a butler is one of them that’s only good at bullying girls and unfortunates under him.”

Toby returned several hours later with his lip cut and his collar askew. He beamed at her as she offered him a chair and poured a glass of water for him.

“Took a bit of persuading, that butler did, but I got it out of him.” He dabbed at his lip with the back of his hand. “The old bast—the old fool’s daughter is in service at Lord Quince’s, and she heard this rumor from her son’s employer’s butler.”

Liza only needed confirmation of her suspicions. “Who is?”

“Choke, of course.” Toby slapped the arm of his chair. “I knew it. His mighty lordship’s gone and tampered with Pennant’s reputation. Know what he’s spreading? Seems Pennant’s hires women of the street, so to speak, and thieves too. Monsieur Jacques
just might be a well-known pickpocket on the Continent.”

Liza sank down on the sofa. She could hear its old frame creak. He was going to ruin her. Everything she’d built would flounder under a bloated and greasy mountain of scandal. Society worshipped at the altar of superficial propriety. This propriety had to extend to servants as well as masters. Pennant’s wouldn’t survive another week.

Jocelin was proving what she’d always known. A frightening ruthlessness lay just below the cloak of civilized behavior he wore so loosely. In her calmer moments she could understand how betrayed he felt. She also knew he was being driven by some threat from Papa. That much she had thought out over the last few weeks. Papa had meddled and created a disaster, but Jocelin wasn’t the kind of man to bow under threats for long. He’d find some way to flout Papa, but meanwhile she would suffer.

She had to find a way out of this tangle. Papa never listened to her, which left Jocelin. Jocelin wouldn’t listen to her explanations. He was too hurt to listen to her defense, and she was too hurt and humiliated to risk trying to give it. Perhaps, however, she could make him understand that others shouldn’t be made to suffer.

“Toby, I want you to send for Maisy and her children. Who else is available? Get Hiram and his two little brothers, and Mrs. Peak, and Aggie and her little ones, and Dora and her mother. That’s fifteen. Have them here at one.”

She went to her desk and penned a note. Blotting it, she sealed it in an envelope and handed it to Toby. “But first deliver this.”

Toby looked at the address, then at Liza. “You’re going to him ain’t you. Take me with you.”

“You’ll only lose your temper,” Liza said. “I can’t have that. Pennant’s is at stake.”

With her arrangements in hand, Liza left Pennant’s to make a visit to her bank. She had set funds aside for an emergency, but they wouldn’t last forever, and there were over thirty people for whom she had to care. And they had to feed and clothe their families, pay rent, care for their health. She transferred funds from savings to Pennant’s account under the disapproving eye of the bank manager and returned home.

By tea time she had bundled her people into an omnibus. She stepped into a cab and led the small procession west to Grosvenor Square. Soon they drove through the gates of Viscount Radcliffe’s home and pulled up at the carriage entrance. She composed herself while the others spilled out of the omnibus, then descended.

A confrontation with the son of a duke was no time to skimp on her appearance. Having no reason to disguise herself, she had put on her best afternoon dress. Heavy, patterned silk in peacock blue and black, tailored and pulled snug at her waist with a wide black belt. She looked at the world through the fragile black veil of her bonnet, her expression as severe as the cut of her gown.

Marching up the steps, she paused to give Choke a look of distaste as he opened the doors. She sailed past him, noting that he resembled a startled turkey.

“Madam!” He clucked. “Madam, your card, if you please.”

She ignored him, calling over her shoulder, “Come along, Maisy, Aggie, all of you!”

She hesitated in the foyer long enough to snap at Choke. “Where is he?”

Choke only gaped at her, so she reached out a hand gloved in black silk and grasped his necktie.

“Where (jerk) is (jerk) he (jerk)?” she demanded, yanking on his necktie after every word.

Choke sputtered, then pulled at the necktie. She reached for it again, and he scrambled out of her way.

“Si-sitting room.”

She waved her hand at Maisy and the others. Two girls were scooting across the marble floor, while a toddler crowed at them. Other children crowded past Sledge, the footman, and made faces at him.

“Come along, everyone.”

Twirling in a half circle, her skirts billowing, she set sail again, this time mounting the stairs. She wasted no time in knocking, and threw open the door to Jocelin’s sitting room. A child skidded past her and aimed for the fragile baroque desk. Other infants spilled in waves after her as she strode over to Jocelin. He had looked up from the desk as the invasion began, only to be sidetracked by a three-year-old boy who crawled between his legs.

Liza stopped in front of him and waited while her employees crowded into the room. Jocelin yelped as Maisy’s little Peg tried to climb his leg and grabbed a vulnerable body part. He tore the child from his leg and held her at arm’s length in the air like a dirty shirt. Unfortunately for him, Peg had a round, rosy face, unending black curls and great, dark eyes of spaniel-brown. She kicked her feet in the air. He nearly dropped her and instinctively whipped her close and set her on his hip. Too late he looked around to find his sitting room filled with a seething stew of women, children, and an old man.

The quiet eye of this human hurricane, Liza watched Jocelin glare at her people and then turn on her.

“What do you think you’re about?”

“I told you I was coming.”

He glared at her over the child’s head. “You’re early.”

“Really?”

“And you said nothing about, about these persons.”

Jocelin tried to shove Peg at her, but she kept her hands clasped around her reticule. Peg had become fascinated with his hair, and when he thrust her away, she didn’t let go of it. He cried out, and Liza smirked.

“Let go, you little varmint.”

That drawl, the American wording. He was upset. Good.

Jocelin pried his charge’s fingers from his hair and set her on the floor. Maisy called her, and she toddled over to her mother. Something porcelain and no doubt valuable crashed to the floor, and a little boy screamed his frustration. Jocelin winced at the sound and pointed at the boy.

“Get that child away from there!” He glared at Liza. “What are you about, woman?”

Liza smiled at him. She turned and guided an old man with cloudy eyes and a shuffle to stand in front of Jocelin. Then she took a baby from Aggie’s arms and, before Jocelin could react, thrust the squirming bundle into his arms.

“You’re trying to ruin Pennant’s, my lord. I thought you should see who Pennant’s really is.”

Jocelin had paled and was gazing from her to the baby.

Liza folded her arms over her chest and gave him a long, pleased look. “Hold her head up, my lord. You don’t want to break her neck. But come to think of it, you might as well, since she and her mother will soon be living in doorways and alleys in Whitechapel anyway.”

J
ocelin glanced down at the baby in the crook of his arm. He could hardly feel her weight. She had a pink nose smaller than the tip of his little finger and a bright red bow of a mouth. If he moved, he might drop her, or break her. Alarm spurred him into action. He grasped the bundle firmly, charged into the crowd before him, and thrust the baby at her mother.

“Take her!”

He hadn’t meant to shout. The baby woke and began to wail. Jocelin winced. Shrinking away from the source of that painful shriek, he bumped into Liza. He scowled at her and retreated to his desk.
Pressing a button on the wall behind him, he rang for Loveday.

A girl in a frilly coat chased a little boy between the damask curtains of a window. The boy stumbled and would have fallen if the girl hadn’t caught him.

“You,” he snarled at them. “Back.”

He pointed to the milling group standing in the middle of the room. They stared at him for a moment, assessing the risk of disobeying, then returned to their mothers. Loveday entered. It was a tribute to Liza’s ingenuity that the sight of her brood evoked so blatant a display of emotion from the valet. He raised both brows.

“Shall I conduct these persons belowstairs, my lord?”

Jocelin braced his spine and his shoulders, put his fist behind his back, and directed a questioning look at Liza. “You’ve made your point.”

“Maisy, Aggie,” Liza said. “Go with Mr. Loveday.”

The churning sea wash of mamas and children receded. As he watched them go, Jocelin marshaled his composure. He’d been so intent on protecting Georgiana, so enraged at Liza, that he’d failed to consider who else might suffer. But she wasn’t going to gain the high moral ground here.