City of Darkness (City of Mystery) (15 page)

But it was Tom Bainbridge who stepped
into the parlor, shaking raindrops from his hair like a playful puppy.

“Tom,” Leanna said, leaping up. 
“I’ve never been so happy to see anyone.  Come in, we’ll have tea, we can make
up your room. How long will you be here?”

“Slow down,” Tom laughed, as he
reached out to hug his sister.  “Good heavens, is this what you customarily
wear for a family evening of cards?”

Leanna’s hands flew to the strands of
amber which encircled her throat.  “I was supposed to go to the theatre, but my
escort…he’s a doctor, Tom, I’ve met the most wonderful doctor.”

“Let me guess,” Tom said.  “He was
called away by a patient, thus disappointing you and undoubtedly breaking his
own heart in the process.”

“I certainly hope so,” Leanna said
dryly.

“Oh, but I’m sure he is beyond
consolation,” Tom laughed.  “You look wonderful and it’s clear the city agrees
with you.  Hello, Emma.”

“Hello,” Emma said.  

“Tom, Leanna is right, we must make
up a room for you and not let you escape for weeks,” Geraldine said.

“Thank you, Aunt Gerry, but this is a
two-night visit.  I’ll be back in class on Monday and I just wanted to come by
and see how Leanna is doing.”

“So the business at home is
completed?” Leanna asked.

Tom nodded.

“Oh please tell me what has
happened,” Leanna said nervously.  “We have no secrets from Aunt Gerry or Emma
or Gage.”

“Nonsense, you need your privacy,”
Geraldine said.  “Tom, help yourself to the sherry and we’ll see about getting
you some dinner.”  Geraldine paraded out with Emma and Gage in tow, leaving Tom
and Leanna to sit a moment in silence.

“Well, I bring good news,” Tom
finally said, rising and heading toward the liquor table.  “Galloway was a
rock, an absolute rock, and the will wasn’t broken.”

“But they tried, didn’t they?” Leanna
said.  “Your letters were so maddeningly incomplete.”

“Not on purpose, Leanna, we just
couldn’t say from day to day how things were developing.  Cecil got an attorney
recommended by Edmund Solmes…”

“Who? Oh yes….”

“One of Cecil’s friends, or more
accurately, one of his debtors,” Tom said, ruefully thinking of how close
Leanna had come to being made all-too-aware of Edmund Solmes.  “Either way,
they imported a solicitor from London who made quite a squawk, but Galloway
held firm.  Turns out the problem wasn’t William, not really.  The problem was
Cecil, and the amount of control he had over William.  At least that’s what
Galloway claims, that Grandfather knew Cecil would manage to gamble away
everything and William wouldn’t have lifted a finger to stop him.”

“Grandfather had watched Papa almost
drag us all down and he wasn’t going to let that happen again,” Leanna said. 
“He said as much to me a dozen times although I never really grasped the
implications.”

Tom nodded.  “We’re younger, but he
evidently saw us as stronger. With you as heir and me as executor, Rosemoral
has a prayer of going forward.”

“Natural selection,” Leanna said
thoughtfully.  “Remember all those times he lectured us about Darwin? Remember
that beagle that he called The Beagle even though hardly anyone understood his
joke, or that box of finch bills he kept on his desk?  I loved to play with
them.  Grandfather would line them up, smallest to largest, so that he and I
could discuss which sort of bill would be most effective at cracking open seeds
and getting to the meat inside.   ‘It’s not the strongest or the swiftest who
survive, Leanna,’ he used to say. ‘But the most adaptable. What do you think
happens to those baby birds whose mothers have the wrong sort of bills?’ 
Looking back, it seems a rather gruesome lesson for a child.”

“I don’t remember the box of bills,”
Tom said, “but I remember his moth wings under the microscope.  He’d explain
how the black-winged moths could hide better on a smoky wall so you saw more of
them in the city, but the brown-winged ones blended in better on a tree trunk
so they could thrive in the country.  And we’d talk about how often survival
came down to a simple ability to blend in with one’s background.”  The memory
of his grandfather’s patient, gentle voice pained Tom, but he didn’t want to
indulge the melancholy, so instead he picked at the cloth of his sister’s
dress.  “By the looks of it, I’d say you found your black city wings soon
enough.”

 “Tom, you know I love Rosemoral and
I would never turn my back on Grandfather’s wishes…”

“Uh oh.  What’s coming?”

“But what if I decide to live in
London?”

Tom swirled his sherry and laughed. 
“So the city agrees with you, does it?  I’m not surprised.  If you stay in
London, you stay in London, and that’s just grand.  It’s an inheritance,
Leanna, not a prison sentence.  We’ll find an estate manager for Rosemoral. 
Many families maintain both a country and city home.”

“But Mother and Cecil and William…”
Leanna said.

“Have a perfectly adequate roof over
their heads and a comfortable allowance.  I’m sure right this moment Mother is
gossiping and William is babbling about the soil quality in some garden, and 
Cecil is continuing his improbable pursuit of poor Hannah Wentworth, all as if
nothing has changed.   Don’t let them make you believe they are destitute,
Leanna, for that isn’t the case.  Granted they don’t wear heirloom jewelry
while lounging about the house…”

“Oh, you’re ridiculous,” Leanna
giggled, letting one of the settee cushions fly at his head.  “And I owe you
everything.”

“Remember that,” he said, rising and
calling toward the open door.  “Aunt Gerry, you can stop eavesdropping in the
hall and come back in now.  See, I brought some iodine pills for Gage.  I
really think we can eradicate that goiter…” Leanna sat back in the chair,
reflecting on how nice it was to have him there.  Tom would know if John were
really devastated about the cancelled evening.  Tom would know if she had
misread the situation.

Emma called from the hall.  “The
green room is ready, Mr. Bainbridge.”

“Ye gods, ‘Mr. Bainbridge’ is so
stuffy.”

Emma entered, smiling slightly. 
“Should I have said ‘Dr. Bainbridge’?”

Tom laughed and raised his glass to
her.  “You never let up on me, do you, Emma?  How many times have I asked you
to call me by my given name?”

“Quite a few,” Emma admitted. 
“Perhaps on your birthday I shall do it.”

“But today is my birthday,” Tom said
cheerfully.

“Isn’t that what you said the last
time you were here?  And the time before that?”

Leanna was surprised at this easy
banter.  Neither Tom nor Emma had ever mentioned each other to her, yet they
obviously were on a friendly basis.  But why shouldn’t they be?  They were both
young and single and things were done so differently here in London.  Back in
Leeds she would never had been allowed to go unchaperoned for a carriage ride
with a gentleman caller but his morning Aunt Gerry had packed her off with
scarcely a backward glance.  Leanna hadn’t seen enough of London to know if such
casual conversation between the two sexes was allowed everywhere.  Most likely
this informality only existed in Geraldine’s household.

But still…this new view of her younger
brother was a revelation.  The Tom of Winter Garden was dwarfed by Cecil and
William, cursed by his birth order, alternately stammering and defiant.  But
the Tom of London appeared to be a different type of creature altogether – relaxed,
laughing, confident.  Leanna sat back in her chair, and watched her brother
continue to spar with Emma.   Freed from the burden of constantly trying to prove
he was a man, it appeared Tom might actually become one. 

Their conversation might have seemed
casual to an observer like Leanna, but Emma was shaken by the exchange, just as
she always was whenever Tom appeared.   And he appeared so regularly - could it
just be filial devotion to Geraldine, or was it something else which drew him
to Mayfair on his free afternoons?  Her hands were unsteady as she went about
laying out the tea and cakes, and as she sloshed a bit over the lip of one of
the cups Tom glanced up and winked at her, which promptly caused her to slosh
even more over the lip of the next.

He was certainly different from the
other men she knew, Emma thought, watching him from the corner of her eye as he
leaned over in a near-prone position and resumed his conversation with his
sister.  Not that she had known so many men, but those dull ones who’d blush
and nod at the grocer’s or on the afternoon drives with Geraldine – they all  lacked
Tom’s easy manner and quick laugh.  They’re like me, she thought.  Grim and
determined and always thinking of what’s to be done next.  It’s the working
class expression and I’m a fine one to say it isn’t good enough.  Nonetheless,
an evening spent strolling with a young man who felt constantly weary and whose
time was never his own would be quite different from an afternoon with Tom, who
could take her to the theatre, for a ride, to the cafes.

“What am I thinking of?” Emma scolded
herself, pulling her thoughts back to the reality of the present situation. 
She was no more likely to be invited out by Tom than she was to receive a
summons to the palace.  Flirting with the help in the confines of his aunt’s
home was one thing; taking a serving girl out on the town was something else
again, and Emma knew that deep down Tom was far too prudent a man to risk
censure by doing so.  “I won’t think of him,” she said to herself.  “It isn’t
going to be, so I won’t think of him.”  Then she pulled off her apron and
slipped up the back stairs to the privacy of her room where - just a few steps
above the door of Tom’s bedroom - she could have the uninterrupted luxury of
plenty of time to think of him.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

October 2

3:15 PM

Cecil lit his pipe and a wave of good
feeling, as unaccustomed as the autumn sunshine, washed over him.  Ever since
the ball, he and Hannah were practically engaged, as evidenced by the note
which had come three days ago asking Cecil, William, and their mother to attend
the annual Wentworth grouse hunt.  Such invitations were scarce and much to be
valued, for the hunt was very nearly a private family affair.  His plan of
pretending that William was the heir had succeeded brilliantly.  Edmund Solmes
had danced an arthritic little jig when Cecil had ridden over specifically to
wave the invitation in his face and had barked, “You’re as good as in her
bedchamber, my boy!” 

Yes, well every silver lining did
have its cloud, Cecil reflected, eyeing Hannah as she dismounted from her horse
and began the long walk across the shimmering jade lawn toward the portico. 
She didn’t look so bad from a distance, but he would never be able to claim
he’d married a beauty.  The long features and bushy brows which sat dashingly
upon the father did not look so charming on the daughter.  But the man had
sired no sons, bless him, and Hannah would someday have this all.

Hannah and her husband, Cecil
thought, leaping to his feet as the girl neared.  Winter Garden and even
Rosemoral were mere hovels in contrast with the Wentworth estate, which boasted
twenty bedchambers and a stable the size of most universities.  It would take
some flowers, some candy, perhaps the promise of a honeymoon in France…

“Cecil,” Hannah greeted him calmly,
her face flushed and small beads of perspiration dotting her lip.  “The ride
was so invigorating.  I’m so sorry your back pain prevented you from coming
with us.”

“Ah, yes, polo injury,” Cecil lied
smoothly, for no force on earth would persuade him to mount one of the
Wentworth Arabs.  Mounting their daughter would prove challenge enough.  Beyond
Hannah’s shoulder he could see William shakily lowering his huge frame from a
gloriously white stallion and even his mother, who rode sidesaddle with a
surprisingly sure hand, looked a bit off-balance as she was helped from a dark
mare.  “But the hunt was a success, I take it?”

“Very much so, although none of us
eat grouse, of course.  But the servants shall be happy tonight,” answered
Hannah, flopping down gracelessly in the chair beside him and indicating with
one gloved hand that he was also free to sit. “It’s a strange world we live in,
is it not?  We ride far out in the field and dismount, trekking through the
muddy woods in search of grouse for the servants to eat. And all the while they
remain here at the estate butchering lamb for our dinner.”

“It’s sport, darling.  ‘Tisn’t meant
to make sense.”

“Daddy took in seven fowl himself.”

“Daddy must have quite the steady
aim. I shall remember that,” Cecil said, smiling.

“You should,” she answered, with no
smile at all.

A young maid was circulating with
refreshment for the riders and Cecil did not let his sedentary morning prevent
him from trying a bit of trifle.  The girl gave him a saucy smirk as she
passed, not the first of the day, and Cecil returned the favor.  It truly
wouldn’t be so bad, he thought.  Once he managed to get Hannah with child a
great deal of pressure should fall from his shoulders and he would be free to
do as he pleased, either with this bold little wench or another.  Hannah was of
a social class to understand and perhaps even appreciate a man’s need to sow
freely, just so long as he was discreet and squired his wedded wife about the
county with proper respect.  Cecil fully intended to play by the rules.