Beyond Innocence
BEYOND INNOCENCE
Emma Holly
Jove edition / July 2001
All
rights reserved.
Copyright © 2001 by Emma Holly.
To Laurie, who taught me a
thing or two about older
siblings.
You're the best, Sis!
PROLOGUE
London
, 1873
"A footman!"
Edward
raged. "You were caught in your bedroom with
a footman?'
Anger had pulled him to his feet behind the study desk. Now he gripped the edge of the carved bog oak
as if pressure alone could will his brother's confession away.
Freddie was slumped in the red morocco chair, one foot propped on his knee while he examined his well-buffed nails. The nonchalant pose suited his lanky frame. In blazing white shirt and tastefully embroidered waistcoat, he was the golden boy at rest: his graceful limbs asprawl,
bis
beauty a stylish disarray.
His face, however, was patently miserable.
"It's the calves," he said in a weak attempt at humor. "Never could resist a man with a good pair of legs."
Something strained in Edward's chest. He sat, abruptly weak in the knees. "Freddie, if I believed for an instant you meant that, I'd slit my bloody wrists."
Freddie's head came up, clearly startled by his brother's tone. He opened his mouth,
then
shut it. Alert now, he dropped his boot to the floor and dried his palms on the front of his trousers.
"'Course I don't mean it," he said. "You know me.
Can't pass up a quip.
We'll call it temporary insanity.
Trying to recapture my schooldays or some such tripe."
Edward covered his face. Freddie's light response could not disguise his inner turmoil. Edward never should have sent him to
Eton
. Never mind the generations of Burbrooke males who had gone before them. He should have known a sensitive boy like Freddie wouldn't survive that pit of adolescent anarchy. Edward had been seventeen when he made the decision, his parents newly dead, his twelve-year-old brother left solely in his care. He'd thought Freddie needed
Eton
. He'd thought he couldn't take his
rightful place in society without it.
A warm hand settled on the back of his neck. Freddie had perched on the corner of his desk.
"Here now," he said, gently squeezing Edward's nape. "It isn't your fault. You weren't even there."
Edward let out his breath and looked up. His face hardened. "Who found you?"
Freddie winced. His finger drew a circle on the shiny black desk. "There's the rub, I'm afraid. It was
the local squire, invited to the house party because Farringdon's in debt to him up to his eyeballs."
"What's his name?" Edward persisted, determined to turn to the business of cleaning this up.
"Samuel Stokes."
"The brewing magnate?"
Freddie pulled a face.
"The very same.
Bought his way into the neighborhood after he got knighted.
Bit of a mushroom, according to Farringdon."
"But that just makes it worse! If one of our own set had found you, they might make you the latest
on-dit,
but they wouldn't threaten to inform on you. Do you have any idea what would happen if this went to court? You'd be ruined!"
"Actually"—Freddie cleared his throat—"Stokes did threaten to take me before the magistrate.
Said
I was setting a bad example for the lower orders."
"Oh, Lord."
"But he backed off when he found out whose brother I was." Freddie wagged his brows.
"Seems
you're well respected among the manufacturing set, despite being a useless toff."
"Wonderful," Edward groaned. He pushed out of his chair and closed his eyes. His temples throbbed under the weight of Freddie's hopes.
"Maybe you could throw him a sop," Freddie suggested. "Sponsor him to join your club."
"I'll meet him," Edward said, pinning Freddie with his sternest gaze, "and if he's suitable, I'll
consider
putting his name forward at White's."
"But Edward—"
Edward silenced him by laying a hand on his broad young shoulder. Freddie had been a champion rower at school, captain of the team, admired by everyone who met him. He still was admired. Edward knew he'd give his right arm to keep that from changing. His little brother would never be society's laughingstock.
"Freddie," he said, "I'm going to give Stokes my word this won't happen again, and I'm going to rely
on you to make it true."
Freddie didn't drop his gaze, didn't in fact say a word. But his lips were pressed so tightly together
they'd gone white.
"You can do this," Edward said, letting the love he felt for his
brother soften
his voice. "You've only
to set your mind to it. Remember when you took that first in Maths? Remember when you learned
to swim?"
Freddie choked out a laugh. "I learned to swim out of terror."
"Then be afraid," Edward said, softer yet. "People won't overlook this sort of lark, not if you rub their noses in it."
Freddie's sunny blue eyes welled with unshed tears. He bowed his head. "I didn't mean to rub anyone's nose in it, least of all yours."
Edward pulled him into a hug. "I know you didn't. But it's time to put these games behind you." He pushed back and braced Freddie's shoulder. "Why not settle on one of those debutantes
who's
always mooning in your wake?"
"Don't know who'll have me once this gets around."
Freddie ventured a crooked grin. "The husband-hunting mamas steer clear of me already, me being a younger son and all."
"Idiots," Edward said, echoing Freddie's smile. "They ought to know I'd never see you short of blunt."
Freddie sighed, his expression wistful. Edward had tried to prevent his brother's financial dependence from chafing. Other than a small property their mother had set aside for her younger son, control of the Burbrooke estate was entirely in Edward's hands. He made sure Freddie never had to beg for money and Freddie, while not a pinchpenny, was careful to live within his allowance. That very care told Edward his pride must occasionally sting. But the restrictions of primogeniture were not, apparently, the cause of Freddie's sigh.
"Choosing a wife who's good enough to be your sister-in-law won't be easy," he said.
Edward laughed and slapped his back, but inside, where his love for Freddie lived, he knew the danger had not passed.
CHAPTER 1
With stern face
and trembling hands, Miss Florence Fairleigh stepped from the stuffy railway carriage
and into a scene from Bedlam. A dizzying population of males— workmen, clerks, and here and there
a gentleman in top hat—jostled each other in haste to reach the train she had lately vacated. Above her the roof of Euston Station yawned in two baralike peaks, its smutted glass filtering a watery species of sunshine more appropriate to dusk than
. Beneath her... well, beneath her the ground did not yet seem quite solid.
Frowning, she smoothed her crumpled black bombazine skirts. None of these observations were to the purpose. Her purpose was her future and her future would not wait on missish fears. She turned to her companion. Lizzie, the Fairleighs' maid-of-all-work, still clung to the carriage door, its grime putting her mistress's best white gloves at risk.
Florence
's old pink day dress, another loan, hung on Lizzie's slender frame. Though sixteen, and nearly grown, the maid looked all of twelve.
Truly,
Florence
thought, the only advantage to traveling with a person more timid than oneself was that
it served to stiffen up one's spine. She stiffened it now and gestured for Lizzie to come down.
"It is safe," she said with all the firmness she could muster.
Face filled with trepidation, Lizzie tottered down the steps as if the train were a dragon that had momentarily, and perhaps not reliably, agreed to cough her out.
"Oh, miss," she breathed in awestruck tones, "isn't
London
grand?"
"You must call me Miss Fairleigh,"
Florence
corrected, taking Lizzie's arm to guide her through the crowded train shed.
"As is proper for a young lady towards her governess."
This was the fiction they had agreed upon, since
Florence
could not travel without a chaperone, and a
less imposing chaperone than Lizzie Thomas could hardly be imagined. In her
dull black gown,
Florence
thought she looked very much a governess, though not—due to the width of her sleeves and the lumpishness of her bustle—a particularly fashionable one. The ruse had worked well in the dimness of
the carriage. When they disembarked at the various watering stations between
Lancashire
and
London
, however,
Florence
had been the subject of interested stares.
Even a governess, it seemed, was not immune to male attention.
"Oh, miss," said Lizzie, calling
Florence
to the present, "I mean, Miss Fairleigh. However shall we find our way?"
"We shall follow these others," said
Florence
. "They must be heading towards the street."
A brief argument was required to convince Lizzie she was not to carry
Florence
's portmanteau. That settled
,
they soon found themselves under the station's monumental Doric entry arch. To
Florence
's dismay, the bedlam inside the station merely increased in the out-of-doors. Here the confusion was multiplied by carriages and drays, by coster-mongers shouting their wares, and by a pungent smell which was half stableyard, half day-old fire.
Florence
did not have the least idea how to fight through the snarl.
She was swallowing back tears by the time a ragged urchin tugged on the hem of her mantelet. His eyes were huge in his dirty face, but so canny
Florence
felt a moment's fear. She put her hand on her reticule.
"Need a cab?" he offered. "I'll call one for a penny."
"A penny!"
Lizzie exclaimed, her temper restored by this proposed raid on their resources. "You'll do
it for a farthing, you scamp."
Florence
smiled at her outrage. "A penny is fine," she said, "but we'll pay you after we get in."
This was agreeable to the young man, who proved capable at his task. Within minutes she and Lizzie were climbing into a smart black hansom cab.
Florence
gave their direction to the driver, which fortunately he knew. After another delay to ease into traffic, they joined the stream of broughams and carts and rumbling double-decked omnibuses. Since the cabbie sat on a high seat at the back of the two-wheeled carriage, his passengers had a clear view of all they passed.
Florence
tried to maintain her dignity, but Lizzie was openly agog.
"Look, miss!" she exclaimed, pointing at the distinguished terraces of
seen!
"