The Ardent Lady Amelia (7 page)

Nor was she high-minded about preserving the sacrosanct precincts of the ton from encroachers and dilettantes. It was, after all, amongst the encroachers and dilettantes that she was most likely to come across information of use to Peter. Not that her archenemies were likely to be such trifling fellows, but only the trifling fellows were foolish enough to run off at the mouth! Amelia felt sure her real adversaries were a much more complicated and sophisticated lot, and at times she was relieved that she hadn’t run into any of them.

What she
was
serious and high-minded about were her projects for the worthy suffering of London. Having come of age, she had at her disposal a handsome income, the whole of which she could scarcely use on her own ornamentation and amusement. It should not be supposed that she doled out her benevolence merely for the pleasure of living up to her excessive income. No, Amelia felt the severe injustice of living in luxury while so many around her among London’s teeming poor could scarcely eke out a living.

The prescribed method for aiding these victims of want was to subscribe to various worthy causes— orphanages, schools, homes for unmarried pregnant women. And Amelia did her share of this sort of charity giving, as her mother before her had. But there was something altogether too straightforward and distant about that kind of help. One could, of course, visit an orphanage in one’s white gloves and plumed hats, and hear the children say “Thank you” in an unnerving chorus. Amelia found no gratification in that sort of contact.

She had searched her soul to find a more personal way to be of assistance. And also to make sure that it wasn’t a matter of pride which led her to want to be involved in the lives of those she helped. Perhaps, she thought, she simply wanted the satisfaction of hearing thanksgiving solely aimed at herself. This seemed quite a likely possibility, so she had made it a rule that her intercession in any given matter was handled by Robert, a strapping footman who held the terrors of London’s less-desirable areas as naught. She remained nameless to her beneficiaries, though Robert did not. There were occasions, such as now, when this proved to be a little tricky.

Bridget had adjusted the last ringlet to her satisfaction when there was a light tap at Amelia’s door. Since Trudy always entered without bothering to knock, Amelia thought it was probably Peter, trying to speed up her progress. He had kindly agreed to accompany them to the Chithursts’, though Amelia assumed he would not stay there long. He’d mentioned a “late meeting,” which invariably meant something to do with his activities for the War Department.

“Come in.”

Robert opened the door slightly and stood there looking acutely embarrassed. “I’m sorry to bother you, Lady Amelia, when you’re about to go out. It’s the boy Carson. He says his mama is horridly sick.”

“Is he here?”

“Yes, in the kitchen.”

“I’ll come to see him.”

Tommy Carson was one of her special projects. The minister of a parish church in St. Giles Rookery had brought him to her attention. His father was dead and his mother had three other, younger children to care for and feed. The Reverend Sidney Symons, whom she had met at an orphanage, had mentioned him to her one day as an example of how the youngsters in the slums started to go bad. When there was no honest money forthcoming, they took to begging or to crime to help support their families. The little money his mother could make from bringing in laundry was insufficient for her family. At eight, Tommy had taken to the tricks of the streets, pickpocketing mostly, at which he was very skilled.

“His mother’s an upright woman,” Reverend Symons had said, “and it’s nearly breaking her heart what he’s doing, but she can’t refuse the money and see her children suffer. What’s she to do? Tommy’s always been a good boy, but he sees himself as having to provide for the family now his father is gone. There’s no honest way an eight-year-old can earn enough to help out.”

Amelia had given the matter a great deal of thought. It would have been simple enough to drop a pile of money on the Carsons. The price of a silk scarf would probably feed them for a month. But it wasn’t a lasting solution, and it didn’t take into account the necessity to wean the boy from his newfound life of crime. Together with the reverend she’d come up with a plan: she would pay the boy for attending school, and his siblings as they reached school age. The hours school covered, together with the time the children needed to spend doing chores in their home, would keep Tommy off the streets and consequently honest, Amelia hoped. So far the plan had worked fairly well, with Mrs. Carson’s cooperation.

As she descended the main staircase in her dancing slippers, the doorbell sounded, but she paid no attention to it. She wasn’t expecting anyone, and if Peter or Trudy were, they hadn’t told her. There was a commotion coming from the kitchen area, an anguished wailing that reached clear through the door. She was headed in that direction when the door burst open and a small urchin came barreling through, his face stained with tears and his childish voice raised in a call for Robert, who preceded Amelia by only a few paces.

Suddenly the hall seemed to be full of people. Peter emerged from his study on one side of the hall, Trudy from the drawing room beyond. Bighton was just ushering Lord Verwood through the front door. Robert scooped the frantic boy up in his arms, saying, “It’s all right, lad. I was just coming.”

A chorus of voices asked, “What’s going on here?” Tommy noticed the crowd for the first time and shrank back against Robert, scrubbing at his eyes with small fists. Into the uncomfortable silence that followed, Amelia stepped forward and motioned Robert to set the boy down.

“There’s nothing to alarm yourselves about. This is Tommy Carson and he and I are going to go into the Blue Room to see what can be done about his problem.” She offered her hand to the child, who blinked at her uncertainly before laying his in it. “Robert, I’ll probably need you,” she remarked as she led the child toward a door across the hall from where they were all standing.

“For God’s sake, Amelia,” Peter protested.

Without replying, she drew the boy into the Blue Room, with Robert following, and nodded for him to close the door. “Now, then,” she said, “tell me exactly what’s happened with your mother, Tommy.”

“She’s so sick…” He gulped. “I think she’s dying.”

“Have you sent for a doctor?”

“We don’t know a doctor, ma’am, and there ain’t the money to pay for one.”

“Well, Reverend Symons knows a doctor. Did you send for him?”

The boy nodded vigorously. “He wasn’t at home. His housekeeper wouldn’t help me. I didn’t know where else to go.”

“I see. Tell me about your mother’s condition. What I mean is, how does she look? How is she acting?”

“She’s all white and moaning and grabbing her stomach. Twice she’s thrown up, and there was blood in it.” Tommy’s eyes were wide and he looked about to cry again.

Amelia turned to Robert. “Dr. Wells has gone into St. Giles Rookery before for me. See if you can get him. If not, try Dr. Harper. Take Tommy with you and stay with his mother until the situation is under control. I’ll be responsible for any expenses, of course, but you’d better take this.” She dug in her reticule and produced several pound notes. “Do what’s necessary to have the children taken care of temporarily... if Mrs. Carson should have to go into hospital.”

She turned her attention back to the boy. “Robert is going to take care of everything, Tommy. He’ll bring a doctor for your mother. He’ll find someone to take care of you and your brothers and sister while your mother’s ill. I want you to be a brave boy and help him all you can. Will you do that?”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.” His voice wavered slightly.

“What if... my mother…”

Amelia hugged his small frame against her. “Let’s be hopeful, Tommy. Sometimes things look worse than they are. You’ve kept up your end of the bargain about school, and we won’t let you down... or your family. Hurry along, now; your mother needs help.”

After they were gone. Amelia remained standing in the Blue Room for a few minutes, staring at the closed door. So many suffering people. How little she could do for them, how few of them she even heard about. She stiffened her slumping shoulders and fixed a smile firmly on her lips before going out into the hall. To her surprise, she found all three people waiting there, presumably expecting an explanation. She had no intention of giving one.

“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,” she said, addressing her remark somewhere between Peter and Trudy, and purposely not glancing toward Lord Verwood at all. “I’ll just get my wrap.”

“Oh, no, you don’t!” Peter exclaimed. “I’d like to know what that was all about, Amelia.”

“Why, nothing,” she said, raising innocent eyes to his. “The boy is a protégé of mine. There’s some trouble in his family and I’ve arranged for Robert to take care of it. I won’t be a moment.”

“You’ll have to change your dress,” Trudy said ominously. “There appears to be a stain on it.”

Amelia glanced down at the damp mark left by the child’s tears. “It’s nothing. By the time we get to the party it will be dry.”

Unsatisfied, but unwilling to comment further in front of their visitor, Peter and Trudy watched her hasten toward the stairs. Lord Verwood, for his part, did a rapid calculation concerning whether the urchin was young enough to be Lady Amelia’s child, and decided it was impossible. Then he contemplated the chances that the boy had something to do with Lady Amelia’s prohibited activity. This seemed much more likely and he frowned as he watched her graceful tread up the stairs. She really was an amazingly attractive woman, with the most delightful figure. From this angle her obstinate chin did not cause any doubts. Her profile was almost classic, after all, and Verwood studied it—and the rest of her—until she disappeared around the corner upstairs.

Trudy muttered something that sounded like “Troublesome chit!” and rolled back to the drawing room, leaving the men standing in the hall. Peter found himself under close scrutiny by his new friend and threw up a hand in mock despair. “Don’t ask me what it was all about. I haven’t the slightest idea. But I don’t
think it had anything to do with that other matter. One never knows what Amelia’s about, you know. She has all sorts of secret plots afoot. Nothing disreputable or dangerous, I assure you. She just seems to like to keep her own counsel; it makes her feel less... oh, smothered, I suppose.”

“She called the boy her protégé,” Verwood reminded him.

“Yes, well, I think she’s had something to do with a minister in St. Giles Rookery,” Peter confessed. “One of these fellows who runs an orphanage and points out promising boys for the support of wealthy patrons.”

“Mmm.” Verwood looked totally unconvinced, and he didn’t like the sound of Lady Amelia having “something to do” with a minister. Not all men of the cloth were above suspicion, after all. “St. Giles Rookery is not a place one would like to see one’s sister frequent.”

“Amelia never goes there unaccompanied,” Peter protested. “Robert always goes with her, and undertakes any number of commissions for her.”

Robert, so far as Lord Verwood was concerned, was less above suspicion than any minister could ever be. Why, the fellow must be as large as a prizefighter, and was, in addition, more handsome than most of the actors one saw at Drury Lane. He looked like a soldier in that elegant Welsford livery, not like a common chore-runner.

Verwood’s imagination seemed to be turning more lurid by the moment, and he brought himself back to reality with a stern effort. “She’s your sister, Peter,” he said. “I’m sure you know how to keep a rein on her.”

Not wanting to confess that he’d never had the slightest idea how to do such a thing with the ardent Amelia, Peter merely shrugged and said, “She’s a very level-headed girl, Alexander, for all her enthusiasms. Very generous, too, you know.”

Though Peter referred to her charity, Verwood had other sorts of visions of generosity and carefully repressed a shudder. A time would come, he feared, when he would have to be more blunt with Peter about Lady Amelia’s indiscretions. However, when he brought up the matter, he wanted to have a little more information, so he determined on a course of continuing to watch the young lady. Delay, he realized, might be hazardous in her case, but he was not a man given to acting on misguided impulse. He moved, when he did, with the proper grounding, and with considerable force.

The party of four drove to the Stratfords’ in thoughtful silence, broken occasionally by a civil remark from one or the other of those in the carriage. Trudy, who had not been consulted on the viscount’s accompanying them, was a little put out with her nephew, though she did her best not to show it. Amelia’s mind was wholly occupied with the emergency at the Carsons’, but she had long since trained herself to disguise this sort of concern, knowing precisely what was expected of her at an evening entertainment. One more ball would be no more difficult to manage than any other facet of her very social life.

The Stratfords lived on Portman Square in a magnificent house notable for its towerlike domed staircase and an ingeniously designed group of rooms planned
en suite
and carefully contrasted in shape, character, and proportion. The decoration of them consisted in the slimmest of pilaster orders supporting a minimal entablature and almost no cornice under the restrained riches of an Adams ceiling. Pastel colors of green, beige, and pink provided a mute background for the swirl of guests clothed in their finest gowns and magnificently cut coats. Everything was understated elegance, a refreshing change from some of the overly ornamented houses in which Amelia found herself.

The guests, too, were the cream of the ton. The Stratfords had no need to prove their social prominence by inviting everyone in London, for the inevitable “crush.” Their festivities were always well-attended but the list of guests was never so long as to make the rooms crowded or uncomfortable. Amelia had always admired this flaunting of social convention, though she supposed it might merely indicate an overweening pride on their part, an implicit declaration that they refused to associate with less than the best people.