Vanity (48 page)

She glanced back at Rupert, his broad back bent over the mirror. Lord Nick would be hard to disguise, but there had to be a way.

Looking back again, she saw Ben shouldering his way through the throng. He carried two panniers slung over his shoulders.

“Here’s Ben.”

“Ah, good.” Rupert wiped the lather from his face with a towel and examined himself in the cracked glass. “I feel a new man. You’re a miracle worker, sweeting.” He turned and opened his arms to her.

“Just a minor miracle,” she said, coming into his arms, resting her head against his breast. “I’m sure I can work a bigger one.”

He stroked her hair, ran a tracing finger over the line of her jaw, but said nothing.

“Ah, there y’are, Nick. I see miss ’as brought ye some fresh raiment.” Breathing heavily from the steep climb with his burdens, Ben came into the room. His voice was cheerful, but it was belied by his haunted eyes and drawn countenance.

“Bessie’s sent me with enough victuals to feed an army.” He dumped the panniers onto the table.

“Young Amy’s nose really will be out of joint,” Octavia said, jumping off the sill. “She’s Nick’s laundress, Ben, and most possessive. Practically tried to throw me out.”

Ben regarded her in some astonishment. “Beggin’ yer pardon, miss, but I’m not surprised. Right little trollop ye looks.”

Octavia offered him a merry twirl. “I doubt my identity will be compromised in this guise.”

“No, reckon not,” Ben said.

“Well, I’ll leave you two together,” Octavia said. “I have some errands to run.”

“Not dressed like that, I trust.” Rupert raised his eyebrows.

“No, dressed as Lady Warwick,” she said. “It wouldn’t do for both of us to disappear from society at this point. People believe you’re out of town for a few days, and they must continue to believe that. When you reappear, we don’t wish for any awkward questions.”

The two men exchanged a look; then Rupert said, “No sign of Frank, I suppose.”

“Not so far.” She came over to kiss him. “I’ll come back this afternoon … as the veiled lady. Is there anything you want me to bring?”

“A chess set and books. Ask your father’s advice. Something that will occupy my mind … some Roman history, perhaps.”

Octavia nibbled her bottom hp. “He thinks you’re away on business. How can I explain such a request?”

“You’ll think of something,” he said, kissing her brow. “You’ll find money in the strong box in my book room, if you need it. The key is in the top drawer of the desk. You’ll also find the deeds to Hartridge Folly in the box.”

“Already? You have the house from those swine?”

“Almost. There are a couple of formalities to go through first. But Ben knows what to do.”

“Aye, that I do,” Ben said, nodding. “Don’t fret yerself on that score, missie.”

“I wasn’t,” she said truthfully. How to explain now what a hollow triumph it seemed?

“Until later, then?” She managed a smile and left them.

Rupert went to the window, watching as she reappeared beneath. She looked up and waved. He waved back and stood looking as she threaded her way through the crowd to the dark, narrow passage leading to the great gate. He watched her say something to the gate keeper at the entrance to the passage, her head in its bright kerchief nodding briskly; then she passed on and disappeared onto Holborn, into the freedom of the outside world.

He turned back to Ben. “Well, old friend. Let’s not be melancholy. I’ve some instructions for you.”

“Aye.” Ben sat down at the table and pulled one of the panniers to him. “Let’s take a glass of port while we’re about it.”

O
ctavia hurried along Holborn. Rupert had given up. He’d given up before they’d even begun. How could he do such a thing? Maybe no one
had
ever escaped from Newgate, although she found that hard to believe; but even so, there had to be a first time. She would not give up. And she would not give up her part in their joint venture, either. Maybe if she got the ring back, Rupert would see that there was still a future, if he’d fight for it.

And even if he couldn’t see that—even if he continued to believe there was no future—at least he’d have the satisfaction of knowing that he had redressed whatever dread injury Philip Wyndham had done him. He might say that there was no longer anything to be gained by it. He might say that he would carry the secret to his grave. But she would prove him wrong.

How to do it, though?

She ducked into an alley as a crowd of chanting, banner-waving apprentices surged up the street toward her.

“No popery … no popery.” The familiar chant filled the sultry air. Their faces glistened with sweat and enthusiasm as they passed. One of them bent and picked up a stone. It crashed into a pastry cook’s stall.

“Eh, you!” The pastry cook bobbed up from behind the stall, red-faced with outrage. “You there! What d’ye think you’re doin’?”

“No popery!” the lad jeered. “You write that on yer stall, mate, and you won’t get no more stones.” Someone laughed, and a chorus of agreement swelled in the ranks of the group. Another stone flew to crash harmlessly against a door post across the street.

Octavia drew back into the shadows. Something ugly was in the air.

She waited until they had passed and then went on her way, reflecting how strange it was that a few short hours ago
Rupert’s deceit and trickery had assumed such ghastly proportions in her mind—so ghastly that she couldn’t imagine ever being able to forgive, and certainly never to forget. And now it seemed the merest nothing. A misunderstanding that had happened between two people before they had known each other. Rupert had had a desperate plan that had required desperate measures, and he had simply used what measures were at his disposal.

At his disposal.
She stopped abruptly in the middle of the road. Bessie had presumably supplied the drug. If there were drugs that could release such responses, surely there could be drugs that would do the opposite.

She stood still as the idea blossomed. It was perfect. All she needed was Bessie’s cooperation. And for Nick, Bessie would do anything.

L
etitia stood in the empty nursery, her arms crossed over her breast. She felt as if she’d lost a limb, or as if the blood had ceased to flow to a part of herself, deep inside. Susannah’s crib, hung with filmy pink gauze, still stood beside the window, but the delicate baby smell, that enticing mélange of new-drawn milk and vanilla, no longer invested the air.

Letitia moved around the room, her fingers trailing over the chest, the low armless chair where she’d rocked her child. She picked up a knitted lamb with a pink ribbon around its neck. Susannah had loved it and somehow it had been forgotten in the flurry of departure. Was she crying for it?

The nursery at Wyndham Manor was a low-ceilinged room high under the eaves. The furniture was heavy and old-fashioned, the walls crossed with oak beams, the floor sloping and creaky. Unlike this bright, airy room overlooking the London square. A room where Susannah’s cooing still echoed in the corners and Letitia could still see her toothless smile from the crib.

She replaced the knitted lamb on the mantelpiece and went to the door, her step slow and reluctant. It was already
the beginning of June. It wouldn’t be long now before society made its exodus from town and dispersed to the country or to the fashionable spas like Bath.

Philip had not yet told her what his plans would be for the summer, but she couldn’t believe they wouldn’t include some time at Wyndham Manor. However, she didn’t want to ask him in case her anxiety was too apparent. If he sensed it, he would exploit it, and maybe deprive her of a visit to Sussex altogether.

As she descended the staircase, she heard the butler greeting a visitor in the hall below. Letitia turned to go back upstairs. She was expecting no visitors of her own and had no wish to meet any of Philip’s.

Then she paused, listening, as a woman’s voice said, “If you’d be so good as to ask Lord Wyndham if I could have a word with him on urgent business.”

“I’ll tell his lordship that you’re here, ma’am,” the butler replied. “If you’d like to wait in the salon.”

Letitia nibbled a fingernail. The voice was Lady Warwick’s. Did she have another assignation with Philip? Somehow Letitia had gleaned the impression that all was not smooth sailing in that ocean, but whether that was because the lady was playing hard to get, or Philip was losing interest, she couldn’t guess.

She remained where she was as her husband crossed the hall, his booted feet clicking on the marble tiles. He opened the door to the salon, and his voice, cool and ironic, rose upward.

“Lady Warwick. This is an unexpected pleasure. To what do I—” The door closed on the rest of his sentence.

Letitia thoughtfully made her way to her own apartments. If matters were awry between her husband and his mistress, she devoutly hoped that they were about to be put right. Philip’s mood was even more vicious and volatile these days, and he was paying his wife far more attention than she could stoically endure.

In the salon Octavia smiled warmly at the earl, drawing off her gloves as she stepped toward him.

“Philip, my dear, I had to come and apologize for that
stupid business the other day. I am so embarrassed and discomfited.” She clapped her palms to her cheeks as if to cool their heated flush, and her eyes fixed him with a pleading, self-deprecating gaze.

“I’m to assume you’re no longer indisposed,” he remarked, unsmiling. He turned to the decanter on the table and poured two glasses of wine, taking a sip of his own before carrying the second glass to her.

“Thank you,” she said almost timidly. “I know you have every right to be put-out, Philip. It was a damnably inconvenient thing to happen. But so was being held up by that dreadful man.”

She shuddered and took a large sip. “Thank heavens they have him fast in Newgate. Shall you go to see him hanged?”

Philip laughed. “How bloodthirsty you sound, my dear. But yes, most certainly I shall.”

He regarded her over the Hp of his glass, thinking how desirable she was with those enormous liquescent eyes and the pink flush on her cheekbones against the ivory tints of her complexion. His eye drifted to her bosom, swelling gently above the lace edging to her gown of pale-green cambric over a white muslin petticoat. A sash of dark-green velvet accentuated her waist and the curve of her hips.

He licked his lips unconsciously as a greedy rush of desire filled his loins, brought a mist of perspiration to his brow. She was there because she wanted him, too. No other reason would have brought her, after that humiliation, to issue such a mortifying apology.

He placed his glass on the table. “Come here.”

She came to him with gratifying obedience, her step quick, her smile tentative yet eager. He pulled her against him, catching her face between his hands, bending her head back on her neck with the pressure of his mouth as he assaulted her lips and the delicate softness of her mouth.

She moaned and moved sinuously against him, pressing her loins to the fullness of his, her hands sliding over his body, under his coat, around to his buttocks to grip and knead with busy fingers.

“Goddammit, Octavia,” he said savagely, as he raised his head just as she was afraid her neck would snap. “Goddammit, but you drive me to madness, woman! I
will
have you!”

“Yes … yes,” she whispered. “Soon … when … it must be soon.”

She looked up into his intent face, his eyes slate-gray slits. Such a beautiful face, Octavia thought. But something was wrong with it. Again she was haunted by that strange, disorienting sense of something familiar gone awry.

She closed her eyes on a sigh of immoderate passion, concealing whatever expression he might otherwise have read in her gaze, and moved against him with a little moan of need.

“Where’s your husband?”

The rasping question shocked her, although she’d been prepared for it. A little quiver ran through her as she said, “He had to go to the country, to see to estate business. He won’t be back for a se’ennight.”