Virginia Henley (33 page)

As they walked toward the squalid streets, Sara warned, “Better hide these things or they’ll be snatched from our hands by the first raggedy little bugger who runs past us.” She slipped the tea into her pocket, and Alex followed suit. The houses in the slum seemed more dilapidated than Alex remembered, and the warm day brought an unbelievable stench to the entire area.

Inside, Alex explained to Sara’s mother that when she had visited last time, she had been dressed in her brother’s clothes. They all enjoyed a good laugh, and when the older woman saw the tea and honey they had brought her, she was overwhelmed. Alex moved apart to give them some privacy and pretended not to notice when Sara slipped some shillings into her mother’s hand. They stayed for half an hour, then said their good-byes and knocked on the door across the hall.

“I heard her say come in,” Sara said. She lifted the latch, and the two young women stepped across the threshold. “It’s Sara. Are you feeling any better?”

Maggie was reclining on a narrow horsehair sofa, and she struggled to sit up. When she saw that Sara had someone with her, the smile of welcome faded, and her sunken eyes went wide with horror. “No . . . no . . . get her away,” she gasped.

“It’s all right, Mrs. Field. I came before with Sara. I was dressed in my brother’s clothes.” Alex touched her hair self-consciously as Maggie stared at its color as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. “I brought you some honey.”

“Alexandra . . . get away from me,” she gasped.

“She’s afraid you’ll catch her consumption,” Sara explained.

“She knows my name!” Alex was surprised. “Maggie, do you know me, or perhaps my grandmother?”

“No!” The denial was too swift. Too painful.

Maggie Field, you do know me. Margaret Field . . . Margaret . . .
Alex’s hand covered her mouth, then it slipped down over her heart.

“Your name is Sheffield . . . Margaret Sheffield, isn’t it?”

The woman fell back on the couch. “Go away . . . don’t look at me!”

Alex stepped back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“We’d better go,” Sara said.

Alex nodded and followed her outside.

“Your face is as white as a sheet. Do you know Maggie?”

“I knew her once.” Alex pressed her lips together. As her feet moved swiftly, carrying her away from the decaying streets, she could not bring herself to discuss the matter with Sara. She needed to sort out her tangled emotions. Her thoughts were in disarray, her feelings were in chaos, and her tranquility was completely shattered.

As Alex distanced herself from the slums and walked through Soho toward Mayfair, her thoughts became clearer. When they got to Berkeley Square, she turned to Sara. “I’m not coming in; I have somewhere I must go.”
^»

Sara hesitated. “Would you like me to come with you?”

“No”—Alex shook her head—“but thank you.” She carried on walking to Curzon Street, then turned the corner into Clarges. She was admitted into the town house by the usual servant. “Is my brother at home?”

“I am, Alex, but not for long.” Rupert, dressed in his driving coat, came down the stairs into the entrance hall.

“You are going driving; that fits into my plans perfectly.”

“Unfortunately, you don’t fit into my plans. I’m off to the spring meet of the Four-In-Hand Club.”

“They’ll have to manage without you,” Alex said decisively. “I need you to drive me somewhere, Rupert.”

“Do you indeed, Miss Bossy-boots? Would you mind telling me what’s going on?”

“I can’t tell you . . . it’s something I have to show you.”

Olivia emerged from the drawing room. “Hello, Alexandra.” She looked from one to the other. “If you’re taking your sister driving, Rupert, I shall come too. A carriage ride is the very thing to start the baby coming.”

Alex looked aghast at Olivia’s expanded belly. “No, you cannot possibly go racketing about town in an open carriage in your condition. Come, Rupert!”

As he followed his sister through the front door, he said through his teeth, “You’re getting more like Dottie every day.”

“I shall take that as a compliment.”

A groom, standing with the carriage and matched pair, handed the leader’s reins to Rupert, and Alex climbed up without assistance.

As her brother released the brake, she directed, “St. Giles.”

“St. Giles?” Rupert shouted with disbelief. “I’m not driving my cattle into St. Giles! Have you taken leave of your senses?”

“Then get out and I shall drive them myself.”

Rupert stared at her, and she gave him a level look back. “I wouldn’t ask you, Rupert, unless it were absolutely imperative.”

He saw the look in her eyes that told him he had no choice. “I can see that you are serious.”

“Never more so in my life.”

He took a corner carefully, and looked over at his sister. “I read your article in the
Political Register
about climbing boys.” He glanced at the road, then back to her. “It’s most admirable to champion a worthy cause, Alex, so long as you don’t fall into the habit of doing it on a regular basis.”

Alex held her tongue, not without difficulty.

Rupert turned the horses onto Oxford Street. “Look here, if this is one of your misguided missions to save some downtrodden wretch, I think you should know that charity begins at home.”

“Meaning?”

“I think it’s time you knew that Dottie is not the wealthy dowager you think her. You can’t go wasting her money on charity cases; she doesn’t have any.”

“I am well aware of our financial difficulties. Each of us must deal with it as we think best.”

“Are you condemning me because I married for money?”

“Oh, God, Rupert, of course not!” She reached over and touched his hand. “Before the year is out, I’ll be doing the same thing.”

“Damn it, Alex! Marrying Kit Hatton is not the same thing. You’ve known each other since you were children. It has always been understood that you would marry.”

“Turn down this street.”

“It’s too narrow. . . . Good God, no wonder it stinks—this is the Rookery! Alex, it absolutely wasn’t necessary to show me; you could have simply told me.”

“Stop just along here.”

Rupert was driving slowly, and the horses stopped when he pulled back on the reins. He set the brake on the phaeton, then threw up his hands in resignation when Alex got down and expected him to follow her.

Alex went into the building and, without knocking on Maggie’s door, lifted the latch and walked in with no hesitation. She hurried over to the sofa and knelt before the coughing woman.

Her brother was right behind her. He looked down at the woman and tried to hide his distaste. “Who is this person?”

“She’s our mother, Rupert.”

Shocked silence filled the air for a full minute. Then he stepped back and murmured, “You are mistaken, Alex. Mother is in her forties; this woman must be in her sixties.”

“There is no mistake, Rupert. I shall get a blanket, then I want you to carry her out to the carriage. I’m taking her home.”

On the drive home, Alex sat in the back with her mother so she could not answer the questions that she knew Rupert must have. Maggie, or Margaret as Alex thought of her, didn’t seem to have the strength to protest being taken from where she lived, though between coughing bouts her face looked racked with worry. “Please don’t be distressed. I want you to get well. You can’t be alone anymore; you need someone to take care of you.”

When the carriage stopped in Berkeley Square, Alex alighted and spoke with Rupert. “I think you should carry her.”

“Alex!” Both his face and his voice were filled with alarm. “Does Dottie know about all this?”

“Not yet,” Alex temporized, refusing to let doubt sink its teeth into her.

“I’m not going in there! She’ll put the entire blame for this on me . . . she’ll savage me!”

“Dottie isn’t home; she’s away in the country.”

The relief on Rupert’s face would have been laughable if Alex had not shared her brother’s fear of their grandmother’s wrath.

Then another worry raised its ugly head. “Whatever will I do when the Hardings find out about this?” he muttered.

“You need not even discuss it with them. It is our business, and our business alone, Rupert.”

He carried the frail invalid upstairs and, as Alex directed, put her in the handsome bedchamber he had vacated when he married Olivia. He tried to ignore the gaping servants, but Hopkins followed him upstairs and handed him a note.

“A footman delivered this, my lord; you are needed at home.”

When Rupert read the note, a look of panic came into his face. “It’s Olivia . . . the baby . . . I must get back. You’ll have to excuse me, Alex.”

After Rupert left, Alex took Sara aside and explained that Maggie Field was her mother. The maid was astounded at such a revelation, but she was thankful that the woman who had made it possible for her to leave the Rookery had been rescued by her daughter. “What can I do to help? Perhaps I should bathe her?”

“The bath can wait, Sara. I think she needs something nourishing inside her. Would you go down and ask the cook to warm some broth and perhaps ready some bread and cheese? I’ll make up Rupert’s bed with some fresh linen. Later, I am going to find her a doctor.”

They heard a door slam downstairs and a raised voice. Dottie was home, and by the sound of it, she was in a temper. Alex went down to greet her with her heart in her mouth.

“Thank God I’m back to a sane environment! Lord Staines’s niece descended, and until I packed her off with a flea in her ear, it was barely controlled chaos!”

Hopkins took Dottie’s traveling bag and threw Alex an accusing look that clearly said,
You are about to give your grandmother apoplexy!

“If there is one species I cannot abide, it is ingrates; parasites disguised as female relatives who descend like vultures at the rumor of a fatal illness. Makes one want to seek out their nest and crush their eggs!” Dottie started up the stairs.

Alex followed her. “How is Lord Staines?” she asked with genuine concern.

Dottie pierced her with a fierce glance. “He may have gone from rampant to stagnant in one fell swoop, but I assure you he is not ready to stick his spoon in the wall.” She spotted Sara, who had a guilty look on her face. “Why is everyone hovering about?” She lifted her head as she heard a wracking cough coming from Rupert’s bedroom. Dottie stalked into the chamber and stood stock-still, staring.

Alex wrung her hands. Her grandmother’s face looked as if it were carved from stone. Alex licked dry lips and opened her mouth.

“Leave us,” Dottie ordered; her tone brooked no disobedience.

Alone, the silence stretched between the two women for long, drawn-out minutes, then Margaret whispered, “Forgive me, Mother?”

A heartbeat later, Dottie, fighting back tears, gathered her daughter in her arms. “There is nothing to forgive, my dearest, other than the fact that you didn’t come to me sooner.”

As the white cliffs of Dover came into view, Nicholas Hatton rejoiced. He stood at the ship’s rail, reflecting on the events of the past month. After the victory at Toulouse, that city, as well as Bordeaux, had welcomed the occupying army with open arms. Then they received the welcome news that Napoleon had abdicated at Fontaine-bleau, and he was quickly packed off to the Island of Elba under armed guard. Wellington was declared a conquering hero.

Though Nick had been offered his choice of policing duty in France or a transfer to the war in America, he chose neither. He’d had a bellyful of war, so he cashed out his captaincy. Nick was very certain of what he wanted to do. He would offer his twin the pay he had earned as an officer as a down payment on Hatton Grange. He would live at the Grange and breed horses. Nick gazed at the white cliffs.
All I want is peace . . . a peaceful life . . . a life filled with peace.

 

Alexandra’s heart overflowed with joy when she learned that the war was over.
Nick will be coming home!
was her very first thought. Then another intruded, and cast a cloud over her joy. Olivia had been delivered of a baby girl. Everyone agreed that the baby had her mother’s lovely dark coloring, and Rupert seemed filled with fatherly pride when he announced that they were naming their daughter Amanda. But Alex could not forget the icy tone of her brother’s voice when he had accused Nick of being a coward and bolting with his tail between his legs.
I hate you, Nick Hatton!

 

London went wild with the news of the British victory, and the defeat of the madman Napoleon. Celebration parties were planned by every hostess, and London’s pleasure gardens announced festive entertainments to commemorate England’s glory. The Prince of Wales would preside over the most fashionable celebration at Vauxhall. It would last for three nights in succession with victory parades around the Rotunda, culminating in a magnificent fireworks display, the likes of which had never before been seen.

Alexandra accepted invitations from both Hart Cavendish and Christopher Hatton, persuading each to take her on subsequent nights. Both men were disappointed that she refused to go on the final evening, which would of course be the most spectacular. Alex knew she must perform at Champagne Charlie’s on Saturday because the money was needed more than ever now that her mother had been found. She shared the nursing duties with Dottie and Sara but could not avoid the expense of a doctor. Alex was determined to pay off an entire year’s interest on the Coutts Bank loan before they returned to Longford Manor.

“I have it all worked out, darling.” Dottie told her granddaughter. “I shall strip the two wings of the manor of every piece of furnishing that is left and close them up tightly. We shall have one luxuriously appointed reception room where we can receive guests, and none will be the wiser. Not Annabelle and Olivia, the twin spirits of mirth and harmony, and most assuredly not Christopher Hatton when he pays court to you. If I’m not mistaken, and I never am, Lord Hatton seems rather keen these days.”