The Sleeping Partner (36 page)

“Very well. If you expect a caller, don’t keep him waiting. I’ll speak to you later if I have need.” Mrs. Brereton spoke to her fiancé. “Gerard? What have you to say of all this?”

Tickenor smiled and raised an eyebrow. “Say? What is there to say? Are you going to take the word of a whore—and a molly-whore—over mine?”

“My dear, I deal with whores all day long. I find my people are generally truthful. If I call Anna and Emma to ask them about this, what will they tell me?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Tickenor rose and stalked to the curtained window. “If you mean to be jealous—I was merely—”

“Merely sampling the wares to test for quality?” Miss Tolerance murmured.

“Oh, well,
you,
you quean,” Tickenor was venomous. “Your auntie knows better than to believe a word comes out of your mouth.”

“Does she, sir? That would make me sad.”

“Be quiet, Sarah. You will muddy waters that are suddenly becoming quite clear.” But Mrs. Brereton did not sound angry, merely impatient with distraction. “Gerard, as you have acknowledged sampling the wares—”

“They came to me, all of them, offering it—”

“And you slapped Harry and wrung Lisette’s wrist for their presumption?” Miss Tolerance could not restrain herself.

“Sarah, I asked you to be quiet. I am able to draw my own conclusions. Gerard, why would any of my people impose upon you in such a fashion?”

He shrugged. “To get upon my good side, I suppose. What is the to-do? They’re there for the taking. Perhaps they fancied me.”

Harry, still at Miss Tolerance’s side, shook his head. “Not ever, ma’am. We know better.”

Mrs. Brereton nodded her head. She had not turned to look at Tickenor; perhaps that bothered him as much as the accusations being leveled. “It’s not like you to be jealous, Thea. None of it meant—”

“Jealousy? Is that what you think? ‘Tis business, Gerard. You should recognize it as a businessman. It is…pilferage, as much as a milliner’s clerk who takes home a packet of pins.”

“I am no clerk, madam.” Tickenor seemed more incensed at this than at the accusations that had come before.

“You are right. You are no clerk, who might have been underfed or underpaid and thus convinced himself that it was only right to take a little of what his employer has so much of. You stole from my house, and it appears that you have bullied my staff into breaking my rule.”

“Rule?”

Mrs. Brereton turned to the boy, Harry, who was white-faced and fidgeting, his gaze going back and forth between his employer and Mr. Tickenor. She said encouragingly, “You can tell me what rule Mr. Tickenor asked you to thwart, cannot you?”

The boy swallowed and looked sideways at the other man.

Mrs. Brereton smiled. “You may tell us, Harry. No harm will come to you.”

“We’re not to give away what people will pay for, ma’am.” Harry was still young enough that his voice cracked at the end of the sentence.

“Thank you, my dear. You have been very brave. Go on, now. I believe Lord Holyfield has promised to call tonight? And Lisette, you have a caller as well. Go along, both of you.” Mrs. Brereton watched them leave the room before she turned back to Tickenor. “You not only sought to steal from me, but you attacked the discipline of my house. And for what, Gerard? To claim your power like a hound pissing on the doorstep?”

Mr. Tickenor returned to her side, his face an unconvincing mask of conciliation. “For the love of God, Dorothea, in another week we’re to be wed. How am I to maintain discipline if you permit—”

“I have no problem maintaining discipline, Gerard, in part because of the very rules you broke. I may have told you I hoped for your help; I never said you were to have the whip hand here.”

Miss Tolerance had a fleeting sense of pity for Mr. Tickenor, for it seemed to her that her aunt had said almost exactly that, and now he found his license revoked.

Tickenor came back from the window to Mrs. Brereton’s side. “Is it the sex that troubles you? I did not mean to wound your pride, and I did not perfectly understand the rules of the house. I may think you are over nice—”

Mrs. Brereton’s expression was so cold that Miss Tolerance was unnerved. She wondered that Tickenor, his arm around the madam’s waist, did not seem at all troubled.

“This is not jealousy, Gerard. It is commonsense. Once the staff start in to playing among themselves they develop little loyalties and factions, and the house is divided against itself, and there is trouble. But you have done more than that. Even the scullery boy knows better than to steal from my table or
put his fingers in my pies.
”

Tickenor stiffened at her tone, but made one more attempt to make amends. He offered his hand to Mrs. Brereton, palm up as if to emphasize his vulnerability. “If we have mistaken each other, Dorothea, I am heartily sorry for it. If you like it better, when we are wed I will take no part in the business at all. I have business of my own to attend to, after all, and –”

Mrs. Brereton pushed the hand aside. “Gerard, you do not think that, after you have fucked half my staff including a green boy, I still plan to marry you?” A pitying smile played on her lips.

Tickenor withdrew his hand and looked at Mrs. Brereton as if the sheer force of his gaze would win her capitulation. It did not. After a long and plangent silence Tickenor threw his shoulders back, a man affronted. Red as a grape, he pushed between Marianne and Miss Tolerance without a word and left the room.

Mrs. Brereton spoke into the silence. “It seems I had misjudged Mr. Tickenor and caused some anxiety among the staff. Marianne, will you tell them all I am sorry for it? Sarah, my dear, will you take some tea? And tell me what on earth happened to your arm?”

As easily as that Mrs. Brereton dismissed the matter of her engagement. Marianne and Miss Tolerance exchanged a glance of mutual perplexion, as much disconcerted by this
volte face
as they had been by Mrs. Brereton’s engagement. The madam herself appeared untroubled by the dismissal of her former betrothed. She sat again at the table, rang for another cup, and looked at her niece with the expectation that she would join her.

Which, after a moment, she did.

Chapter Nineteen

Miss Tolerance slept deeply. The combined effect within a se’ennight of a blow to the head and a shot to the arm had worn upon her. The considerable emotion of the day did no less so, and it was a relief to wake in the morning knowing that Evadne Thorpe was safe, reunited with her sister, and that her own task was completed. She rose, called for hot water from Mrs. Brereton’s, and bathed and dressed leisurely. The swelling of her arm had subsided enough that she was able to attend to the repair of her Gunnard coat; the coat had required several repairs of a like nature over the years, although this was the first time that shot had been the culprit.

She was writing letters, her little desk on her lap and her left arm secured in the sling, when Keefe knocked.

“Miss Sarah, a message for you, urgent.”

She bade the porter enter. Instead he opened her door to admit a liveried servant—Wheeler, the man from Lord Lyne’s house whom she had interviewed. Unease stung her.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, miss,” he began. “Miss Clarissa—Lady Brereton—she sent me to beg you come to the house. Lord Lyne’s house. Miss Evie’s come home and Lady Brereton fears there’ll be a ruckus.”

Miss Tolerance’s first thought was to refuse the summons.
What more do they expect of me
? She was hurt, she was tired, she had completed the assignment for which she had been hired. Further, she barely knew Miss Thorpe. What influence could she be presumed to have with her? What reason to guard the peace of Lord Lyne’s household?

Except that Lady Brereton was her brother’s wife and Evadne Thorpe was therefore, in some wise, her sister. Though the connection was unknown to the other women, Miss Tolerance knew it. They were family, and of all Evadne Thorpe’s family, Miss Tolerance was the only one who had experience that approached in any way Evadne’s own.
Not raped, but ruined. I have gone before her to that brutal country; must I not assist her to find her way?

Perhaps that was sentimental twaddle. Still, a confrontation between Evadne Thorpe and her father was likely to be explosive and unlikely to benefit anyone. Miss Tolerance put aside her writing desk and took up her bonnet.

In the carriage returning to Duke of York Street she learned a little more from Wheeler. Lord Lyne had gone out that morning and Miss Thorpe arrived only a little time after. Her return had caused an immediate sensation in the servants’ hall, with much joy by which Miss Evie had seemed curiously unmoved. The two Mr. Thorpes and Lady Brereton (whose husband had removed them to Claridge’s Hotel only the night before, a fact which clearly troubled Wheeler) had been summoned with great excitement, and an emotional scene of reunion confidently predicted.

“Only it’s all wrong, miss. I cannot tell you how or why, but—when Lady Brereton arrived she didn’t seem happy but worried-like, and Sir Adam behind her had the same face on. They went flying up to Miss Evie’s sitting room and never come down, and then Mr. John arrived and went up, but come back long enough to send me to fetch you.”

Wheeler looked at Miss Tolerance as if she might explain all even if she could not mend it.

“When do you expect that Lord Lyne will return?”

“He told his valet before he left that he would take dinner at home. Said he didn’t want to see mutton on his table.”

Already it was after noon. The baron might return in an hour or at sunset. It was to be hoped that Miss Thorpe could be removed from the house and returned to the Godwins or to Claridge’s or somewhere before that happened. What did the girl think to do? Upbraid her father? Make a public accusation of his crimes? Miss Tolerance had seen Evadne’s vengeful wish to see her father reduced; she understood it. But she did not believe that seeing her father exposed as a speculator and traitor in time of war, as complicit in her own rape and imprisonment, would be as satisfying as the girl believed.

When the door was opened in Duke of York Street the footman wore the same expression of bewildered concern as Wheeler did. In a moment of inspiration, Miss Tolerance turned to Wheeler, behind her on the step.

“You see the boy on the corner there? The crossing-sweep? Will you give him a message, please?”

Wheeler looked at her blankly. “Give a message to a crossing-boy?”

“Tell him Miss T asks him to give a sign if he sees Lord Lyne approaching the house. What sign? If he can whistle loudly, tell him to whistle for all he’s worth. I’ll make certain to listen for it.”

Satisfied that she had done what little she could to provide warning against Lyne’s early return, Miss Tolerance allowed herself to be escorted upstairs.

She found a curious tableau. The room in which the Thorpe children had gathered was a girl’s sitting room with cheery yellow paper, books, lacy pillows on the two flowered sofas, an embroidery frame. Evadne Thorpe sat on one sofa, a crow in a spring garden. She was flanked by Lady Brereton on her right and her brother John on her left, each watching the girl with a mix of solicitousness and anxiety, as if she were a petard which might explode.

Henry Thorpe stood by the fireplace with one arm draped along the mantel, which casual pose was at odds with his glowering countenance. Behind the sofa at Lady Brereton’s shoulder Sir Adam stood, red-faced, ill at ease, but clearly prepared to support his wife. He was the first to notice Miss Tolerance’s arrival.

“What the Devil are you doing here?” His tone was fraternal in the extreme. It seemed Sir Adam realized it; he looked anxiously to see if anyone had noticed.

Lady Brereton raised her head. “I asked Miss Tolerance to come, Adam. I thought she might be helpful—might help persuade Evie—”

“Persuade her to what?” Mr. Thorpe asked in the manner of a much-tried man.

“That Evie should permit me to take her back to the place where she has been staying,” John Thorpe said.

“Or to the hotel, with me,” Lady Brereton added. Sir Adam’s eyes widened. Was he dismayed at the thought of escorting his Fallen sister-at-law through the foyer of London’s most fashionable hotel? Wisely, he made no protest.

“You’d best persuade me first, then.” Henry Thorpe drew his hand over his face. “I don’t know why you’re in such a damned hurry to remove her from the house. There’s little love lost between me and the old man, but you can’t tell me he won’t want to see Evie.”

John Thorpe glared at his brother. “Such a meeting would be ill-advised, Henry. Please take my word for it.”

“Ill-advised? You’re talking as if Evie’d broken a teacup and wanted to escape a scolding. Good Christ, the girl’s been missing for weeks, it ain’t like Father don’t know it.”

His words brought a small, bitter smile to Miss Thorpe’s face.

Miss Tolerance spoke from the doorway. “Mr. Thorpe, perhaps you do not remember your father’s very firm statement that he did not wish your sister returned to him. Have you any reason to think his feeling is different now?”

“He never changed his tune, if that’s what you mean. But with Evie standing before him?” Henry Thorpe abandoned his pose against the mantel and seated himself on the sofa opposite his sister. He leaned forward. “Evie, you know well that Father and I have had our quarrels. To be honest,” he smiled a rueful, winning smile that gave Miss Tolerance her first glimpse of his charm,“I’ve given the old man cause to toss me out on my ear. I’ve drunk and gamed and piled up debt. In the end the old man has always forgiven me. At least give him the chance.”

A flush rose in Evadne Thorpe’s pale cheeks. She pressed her lips together, damming words that made her tremble. “To forgive me?” Her voice was flat.

“In the end he will, you know.” Mr. Thorpe was earnest. “It won’t do for you to stay here, but you know the old man will want to assist you. He’s bound to cut up stiff at first, but he’ll come round in the end.”

Miss Thorpe raised her chin. “Then by all means, I must stay.”

Lady Brereton shook her head. “
No, Evie.
” She looked to her younger brother, then to her husband, and at last to Miss Tolerance.