Bath Belles (13 page)

“That’s wise of you.”

“I found out, however, that Billie the Slash
did
nick her necklace, so I no longer suspect her—not in the necklace affair, though Morrison still feels she might have stolen her own ring the year before. It never turned up at Stop Hole Abbey. But the fact is that Bow Street claims the thieves followed Graham and retrieved the loot. They didn’t, so where is it? That’s what intrigues me. If there’s a new racket being used, it’s crucial that I find out about it.”

“Do so by all means, but it has nothing to do with me. I would still like to go home.”

“Where else can I turn but to you? There has to be some clue, something we’re overlooking. You have his house, his private papers and effects.”

“You’ve been through them all. I can’t help you. I wasn’t here at the time. I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time and your talents, Mr. Maitland, to say nothing of your flowers and treats.”

A slow, disparaging smile crept across his handsome face, and he shook his head at my temper. “I wouldn’t say the flowers and bonbons were wasted. The nuts, I see, failed to charm. And speaking of nuts, Lady Gray will be waiting for us.”

“I would really like to go home now, please.”

“I shall make your apologies to Lady Gray. May I tell her you’ll be back tomorrow?”

“You’ve gotten what you wanted from me. If anyone delivers a bag of old banknotes to my door, you may be sure I’ll send them on to you, Mr. Maitland.”

“I would appreciate that, Miss Haley. And incidentally, they weren’t old banknotes; they were crisp, brand-new ones. Unmarked, too, as the locks don’t care to have their fees fiddled with. But it isn’t just information I want from you.”

“What else, then?”

He reached across the ledgers and took my hand. The old laughing mischief was gone from his eyes. He looked serious, even grave. “I want to be Desmond again. I want you to be Belle. Unlike some people, I have nothing against mixing business and pleasure. It has been a great pleasure doing business with you. You know how ill the business end of our relationship has fared. The pleasure wasn’t in that. I wish we had met in some other way, but I would rather have met you like this than not have met you at all. It’s hard for an old sinner like me to have the memory of a saint for competition, Belle. Give me a little time to grapple with it.”

The breath caught in my throat, and I felt a warmth around my collar. I looked down at my lap and saw his long fingers clasping mine. His fingers moved, and one hand rose to tilt my chin up till we were gazing at each other. I knew by the soft, lambent glow in his eyes he was going to kiss me, right there in broad daylight in the middle of a busy street. Graham would have been scandalized.

“Desmond, I ...”

“Hush!”

His lips brushed mine, lightly as a breeze. I heard a faint gasp, knew it was mine, then forgot it as his lips firmed and his arms went around me in a crushing embrace. I heard the ledgers hit the floor—I think he pushed them off the seat on purpose to be closer to me. It was unthinkable that I, the tyrant of Bath, was allowing this to happen. I made an ineffectual effort to push him away but found my fingers weakening to water, then moving around his neck. I felt the exciting bristle of rough hair under my fingers, felt his lips bruising mine, and became aware that my body was turning to a quivering blancmange in his arms. Kissing Graham had never been like this. This violent chemistry was something else entirely. His lips were a spark to the dry tinder of my being, and the flame showed some sign of burning out of control.

For all my preaching propriety, it was Desmond who brought it to a halt. He pulled away and looked wild-eyed at what had happened between us. “Belle, forgive me. I shouldn’t have—”
He sounded aghast.

I may be a Bath Miss, but at least I am not a hypocrite, and I had no intention of laying the whole blame in his dish. “It’s no matter. It won’t happen again.”
My brave words were rendered quite ludicrous by the breathless voice in which they were uttered. I had never felt such a fool in my life, but I had been struck nearly dumb by that ruthless embrace.

He just went on looking in a strange, incredulous way. I busied myself picking up the ledgers, and he felt obliged to help, as he had knocked them off on purpose. When the battered books had been replaced in the carton with as much care as though they were a stack of priceless Gutenberg Bibles, we sat back and tried to think of something to say to break the tension. I looked down at my shoes, out the window, and finally up at the clouds, but from the corner of my eye I saw Desmond staring at me.

At last I could take it no more and glared at him. “That’s better,”
he said, and smiled nervously. “I’ve had the cut infernal, the cut indirect, and even the cut sublime. That baleful glare is a relief, I can tell you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“More cant, but this one is less reprehensible. At Cambridge, where I studied, there is a system of renouncing acquaintances by staring at other things while meeting them. Each has varying degrees of opprobrium. You spared me the cut direct, for which I thank you. No doubt that will come the first time we meet on the street.”

“You are making much to-do about nothing. I’m not angry at all.”

“Then why are you refusing to visit Lady Gray? Come on, Belle, think of the poor thing, shivering in the cold, starving, waiting for her nuts. She probably has a litter to feed.”
As he wheedled he pulled a bag of nuts from the side pocket of the carriage.

“You’re the most unconscionable rogue in London, Desmond Maitland. You’d sink to any depths, even using an innocent animal to get your own way. Let us go, then, before the brood dies of malnutrition. I expect you’ve completely spoiled her for foraging. She’ll be sitting on her fat haunches, waiting for you to serve her. How does it come you don’t bring a silver platter?”

He relaxed into a normal smile. “I tried it. She prefers my fingers.”
He pulled the check string again, and at the first corner the carriage turned toward Hyde Park.

The remainder of the afternoon passed pleasantly, with no further mention of K. Norman, Graham, the infamous kiss, or the missing money. Desmond told me about himself, his being only a younger son, but one who was fortunate enough to have a wealthy uncle who left him an unspecified sum of money, which he used to establish himself as an underwriting merchant at Lloyd’s. I regaled him with the tedium of my days at Bath but didn’t mention how Graham had changed all that.

“Less and less can I understand your eagerness to sell the house and return to Bath,”
he said, shaking out the last of the nuts onto the grass.

“Bath may be dull, but at least it’s a known evil. It takes courage to change for the unknown. Besides, it’s not only myself. There’s Mama and Esther to consider as well.”

“You don’t strike me as a lady lacking in courage. What the three of you need is a husband—each, I mean.”

“I didn’t think you meant we should share one. I doubt very much that our tastes would be similar enough for one to please us all.”

“What sort of gentleman would please
you,
Belle?”
He realized as soon as he had said it that my choice had already been established with Graham. I could tell by the quick frown that he regretted the question, and I decided to put him out of his discomfort.

“When you reach my advanced state of decrepitude, you cannot be particular. I mean to give Mama a run for Mr. Stone’s affections. That’s why she rouged her cheeks! Desmond, I bet he’s calling this afternoon. She was as nervous as a kitten. I know she didn’t put on her best lace collar only to impress the modiste. And Esther was very skittish, too. That wretched Duke will be there as well. I must get home!”

He was amused at my concern, but he called the carriage. “I can’t be sponsor for Mr. Stone’s intentions, but I assure you Duke is a decent fellow. He’s already wondering whether Miss Esther would prefer a diamond engagement ring or sapphires to match her eyes.”

“She’s only seventeen years old!”

“He’s only twenty-four.”

“Yes, but he’s—oh, you knew,”
I worried. “Can’t these nags go any faster?”

He gave the groom some signal by jiggling the check string, and before long we were rattling through the streets at a breakneck pace. I was right to have been worried, too. Both Mr. Stone and Duke were in the saloon, drinking Graham’s wine—one empty bottle sat on its side on the table with a small puddle of wine dripping from its mouth, and another was nearly empty, giving the scene a disreputable air.

They were eating Desmond’s bonbons and nuts, laughing and talking most foolishly while a table of cards sat abandoned. Plans were afoot for all manner of outings—-a play, a drive in the country, and, to assuage Mama’s conscience, a return to St. Paul’s. Really it was the nature of the conversation that displeased me most. Mr. Stone spoke quite openly of mistresses and lightskirts and something called the Green Room at the theater, which sounded a very den of iniquity. Mama looked quite shocked, but she didn’t do a thing to stop him. She wouldn’t know how, the innocent soul. I think even Desmond, who was hardly a stern moralist, was surprised to see such familiar carrying on.

In a voice that would freeze an Eskimo, I pointed out the hour, and the fact that we had to clear away the mess and prepare our own dinner. It was actually not late at all, but no one had the courage to tell me so. Finally Mr. Stone got to his feet. “I’ll call on you tomorrow, then, Bridget,”
he said on his way out the door. He had battered down Mama's defenses. Reverend Strong had been hinting for six months to call her Bridget and had always met with a simpering put-off.

Once Stone was gone, I didn’t mind calling her to
order in front of Duke and Desmond. “Mama, I’m surprised at you! You hardly know that old man, and to let him talk so broad in front of Esther! Look at this mess—sluicing wine and gossiping. Don’t pretend there was any serious discussion going on here.”

She looked properly chastened and tried to appease me by saying our gowns would be ready in a few days. “I don’t care about the gowns. I have a good mind to take the pair of you home to Bath at the crack of dawn tomorrow.”

“But Hotchkiss and Ettie arrive tomorrow, Belle,”
she pointed out. “You cannot load them back on the coach the very day they arrive. You know how tired and shaken we were when we reached London.”

Duke cast a look of terror at me but firmed himself up to do battle. “Just telling your mother, Miss Haley—ought to wait till spring. Deuced hard traveling in winter. Snowbanks, roads a regular hasty pudding.”

“I prefer snowbanks and bad roads to Mr. Stone.”

“Mr. Stone is Duke’s uncle, dear,”
Mama warned me, with an apologetic smile at Duke.

I gave Duke a withering stare and said, “I am quite aware of that fact.”

“Only on my mama’s side,”
Duke offered in atonement. “I ain’t a Stone myself.”

I said not a word about blocks or blockheads.

Desmond got a hand on his friend’s elbow and began leading him toward the front door. Duke’s protestations were quite audible. “Woman’s a dashed shrew.”
Desmond pulled him along faster. “Don’t know how you can call her an Incomparable. Regular Tartar.”

Desmond pushed Duke into the hall and turned to make his adieux. “Good afternoon, ladies. Thank you for your help, Belle. I’ll drop around—er—before you leave?”
There was more laughter than fear or chagrin in his flashing black orbs.

“Then you had better make it very soon. Good day.”

They left, but within ten seconds the knocker sounded, and Des was back with the carton of ledgers. “You
did
say to come back soon,”
he pointed out. “Don’t bite my nose off. Duke has just been prophesying you’ll break my spine in three places and snap off my nose. He thinks me a very brave soul to have entered a carriage alone with you. When can we do it again? You aren’t
really
leaving very soon, are you?”

“I’m much too upset to decide anything. Just put those on the table, please. I don’t know what you must think of us after coming into such a scene of debauchery.”

“I come to think your Mama and Esther and I would deal famously. You’re the last holdout, Belle.”

“You’ll have to be satisfied with bigamy.”

“I’d settle for monogamy, if it were the right mono. I don’t mean mono-tony.”
I clenched my lips to restrain a smile, but he misunderstood it. “I’ll let you back to your duties. Give ‘em hell.”
He smiled and whisked out the door, laughing.

I stayed alone in the hall a minute to compose myself. I had overreacted to Mama’s little dissipation. It was as much the shock as anything else that accounted for it. To see your own mother flirting with an old roué, and in front of her young and impressionable daughter, was most annoying. To be perfectly truthful, I would have been less angry had Desmond not been witness to the scene, after my having given him a good Bear Garden jaw for his lax morals.

Actually, I had done worse than either Mama or Esther. I had allowed that scamp to kiss me in broad daylight. The whole Haley family was on the road to disrepute, and to judge by the snickering giggles from the saloon, they were enjoying it thoroughly. The glowing image reflected in the mirror told me my own aversion to vice was not so strong as it should be, either. I was thinking of Duke’s protest. “Don’t know how you can call her an Incomparable.”

I schooled my features to anger and returned to the saloon.

That evening, Eliot dropped in around nine to report that he had delivered the parcel to the home for retired clerics, where it had been very welcome. He didn’t stay long—it was a courtesy call only. I wanted a little private conversation with him, and when he pulled out his watch—Graham’s watch that I had given to him—I rose to accompany him to the door.

“You don’t know how I treasure this timepiece,”
he said, gazing at it and rubbing his finger over the glass. “It was thoughtful of you to give it to me.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“It is not a question of liking; it is the original owner, and more particularly the donor, that makes me cherish it.”