Letters to a Lady (19 page)

“We follow her and try to get them back, of course. Actually I begin to think it was all a hum. She cannot think I’m still following her. I’m sure she hasn’t seen me for an age. She doesn’t have the letters in a safe-deposit box at all.”

Ronald looked down and smiled. “I think she does, Di. She just turned in at the New England Bank.”

Chapter Ten

Diana passed for a notable whip in the sparsely populated county where she lived. She hopped onto the perch with no qualms on that score. She managed to walk Harrup’s grays half a block with no difficulty, though she was somewhat nervous at the quantity and proximity of other carriages and their drivers’ way of assuming she would make room for them all. Even the gentlemen drivers didn’t move over an inch but seemed to take some perverse pleasure in squeaking past a female whipster and frightening her.

She had to whip the team to a trot when Mrs. Whitby’s carriage drove past the busy area and stepped up its pace. A pair of prime bloods that hadn’t been exercised much that day were soon jolting along at a breakneck pace that no amount of jobbing on the reins could decrease. Yet despite Diana’s dangerous speed, Mrs. Whitby’s carriage was pulling away from her. Carriages and pedestrians and shops whizzed past at a dizzying speed that set Diana’s head whirling.

“Ronald,” she said faintly, “I think you should take the reins. My arms are becoming tired.”

Ronald looked fearfully at the galloping nags, their manes and tales blowing in the wind. He looked at the carriages flying past at what looked like a hundred miles an hour and said diffidently, “I’ll take one. Between us, we’ll manage.”

She was too distraught to find any humor in this ludicrous suggestion. “They’re a team, sapskull!” She scowled, knowing there was to be no help from that source.

Mrs. Whitby’s carriage turned sharp left onto Glasshouse Street. “She’s nearly home,” Diana fretted. “Once she gets those letters into her house, we’re lost. There would be hundreds of places to hide them. We’ve got to stop her.”

“What you’ve got to stop is these wild prads,” Ronald squealed as she executed a wobbly turn that required the strenuous use of both hands to allow him to remain seated.

Mrs. Whitby’s carriage had begun to slow down as she approached home. Diana didn’t realize it till she was around the corner and found herself only a few yards behind the black carriage. Her fingers ached from the effort of making the horses turn the corner. She eased them off the reins for a moment, and Harrup’s team took the notion they were free to bolt. Before she could blink, they charged to the side of Mrs. Whitby’s carriage, obviously intending to pass it. For a moment, the two rigs ran side by side.

Diana glanced down and saw Mrs. Whitby’s angry, frightened face glaring up at her from the window. Her jaw was clenched in determination, and she looked ugly. In that fleeting second she noticed the rosy cheeks had blanched to white, with a circle of pink rouge riding unnaturally in the center. The next things she noticed were the whinnying of frightened horses, the earsplitting oaths of Mrs. Whitby’s groom, and the sickening sound of breaking wood. Mrs. Whitby’s horses had reared in fright, sending Harrup’s grays into pandemonium. Their instinct was to bolt faster, but with the curricle wheels enmeshed in those of the carriage, not even that pair of bloods could proceed.

The curricle, being the lighter vehicle, tipped over, its fall to the ground impeded by the black carriage. Diana wrenched her shoulder and lost her bonnet in the fall, but remained conscious throughout. When she determined that she could move and that Ronald was only wounded, she looked at Mrs. Whitby. Through the shattered glass she saw the woman sprawled against the squabs of her elegant chaise, her lovely bonnet knocked askew as she slowly sank to the floor with her eyes closed.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Diana flew around and clambered in at the other door. She found Mrs. Whitby’s reticule on the seat beside her, but the letters were not in it. She carefully unbuttoned the woman’s jacket and felt in her bodice—again nothing. Where were the letters? She tried the pockets of the chaise and found only a small flask of brandy. Then her eyes alighted on the mink muff on the floor—a fairly large muff. She thrust her fingers inside and felt the satisfying outline of two envelopes. She tried to extract them, but they were wedged in tightly. Without a moment’s hesitation she took the muff and began to climb out of the carriage.

Mrs. Whitby regained consciousness in time to yell “Stop! Thief!”

The footman grabbed Diana’s arm and whirled her around. Diana tossed the muff to Ronald, who was just climbing up from the rubble.

During the ensuing brouhaha, the groom ran off for a Bow Street Runner, the footman held Diana tightly by the arm, Mrs. Whitby had recourse to the brandy and began to raise a mighty racket, Ronald discovered the letters in the muff and secreted them in his own pocket and came to his sister’s aid.

“Where are they?” Diana whispered. He patted his pocket. “We’re going to be arrested. You’d better hide them.”

“Where?” he asked.

“Put them under the seat of Harrup’s curricle. Pretend you’re seeing to the horses. In fact, Ronald, do see to the horses. If they’re harmed, Harrup will kill us.”

As the footman couldn’t hold two lively youngsters prisoner at one time, Ronald did as he was told. He also brought the red bonnet and put it on Diana’s head. “You don’t want to go to Bow Street without a bonnet. You’d look like a hoyden,” he said.

Mrs. Whitby had searched the carriage and discovered her missing muff. She began railing at Diana, accusing her of stealing it.

“Why, there it is on the road,” Diana pointed out. “It must have gotten thrown from the carriage during the accident.”

Mrs. Whitby ran to retrieve it. She put her hands inside and leveled an accusing stare at Miss Beecham. “You’ll go to Bridewell for this, my girl. Give me those letters, or I swear I’ll turn you over to the authorities.”

“What letters, ma’am?” Diana asked, and refused to budge from that position.

The Bow Street Runner soon arrived, eager to do his duty. He was in little doubt as to who was the guilty party. A top-of-the-trees lady like Mrs. Whitby, reeking of respectability, was obviously the victim of this garish hussy who looked like a character in a Christmas masque.

Harrup’s prime bits of blood and Ronald’s simple elegance pegged him as the lightskirt’s gent. “Is this your lady, sir?” the runner asked Ronald, with a jab of his finger toward Diana.

“Certainly not! She’s my sister,” Ronald answered.

“Oh, lawks, that is sweet of you, lad.” Diana smirked and set her red bonnet at a saucy angle. “I wouldn’t want to get a nice boy like yourself into no trouble. You just run along and tend to your nags—and the carriage,” she added, fixing him with a commanding stare. “I’m sure you have some business to attend to. No need to sully your character by appearing in court. I can take care of myself. And thanks for the ride, mister.”

“Run along, lad, and let it be a lesson to you,” the Runner said kindly. “You don’t want to associate with such saucy articles as this female. You’ll only end up in the suds. But you’d best leave your name and address.”

Diana nodded vigorously, and Ronald, though loath to abandon her, figured his first duty was to save his patron’s reputation and did as the Runner suggested. George Cuthbert’s name was taken in vain again.

“I want this woman stripped and searched,” Mrs. Whitby decreed. “She has stolen something that belongs to me.”

“What would that be, miss?” Diana asked boldly.

“We both know what I am talking about.”

The Runner hauled Diana down to Bow Street, with Mrs. Whitby bringing up the rear. Diana gabbled all the way, using such stable expressions as had come her way. “I swear the gentry mort’s talking through her hat,” she said. “I didn’t steal nothing.” Lord Harrup occurred to her as a possible character reference, only to be dismissed. She had plenty of his money with her, and when Ronald returned, he must attend to the technicalities. Her only fear was that Ronald would not return.

The search was every bit as demeaning as she feared it would be, but at least a woman was given the chore of overseeing it. Diana stripped down to her petticoat and allowed the female to examine her.

“Clean as a whistle,” the searcher proclaimed. “But you still have to account for that wad of blunt in your reticule, Miss Peabody.”

Diana winced to remember what name had popped into her head when a name was asked for. She had to forgive Ronald for using his friend’s name as an alias. “I earned it by the sweat of my brow,” Diana said nonchalantly. “A fine gent give it to me last night. All I had to do was—”

The woman stared at her. “And he bought me this dandy bonnet and cape this morning, too,” she added.

“Very elegant, I’m sure,” the searcher said.

Mrs. Whitby had not accused the female of stealing money. “Some papers,” she had said, and there were no valuable papers in the young female’s reticule other than the cash.

“So what happens to me now?” Diana inquired.

“That depends on what charges Mrs. Whitby decides to lay. It will be for your young gentleman to settle up for her smashed carriage. I don’t fancy he let you take the ribbons,” she added.

“Oh, lud, is that what all the commotion is about? I’ll pay for her carriage.”

“You can wait in the room with the other women,” the searcher said, and led Diana to a small, dirty, windowless room inhabited by a few female cutpurses and prostitutes and two drunken old hags whose sins remained a mystery, for they were sound asleep. Diana went and sat on a chair in the corner to isolate herself from the human misery around her. She felt compassion for the unfortunate women, but no desire to associate with them. Their talk was loud and lewd, punctuated by much laughter, but she sensed the desperation beneath their carefree facades.

While Diana was being put through her paces, Ronald went to examine Harrup’s team and carriage. He saw at a glance that the only possible salvage from the curricle was one wheel, which hardly seemed worth the bother. The nags pawed the ground restively. A close examination of their legs showed they had escaped damage. It was only their mouths that were a trifle the worse for wear. He retrieved the important letters from beneath the seat. His eye fell on Diana’s navy bonnet, and he thought he ought to take it along for safekeeping. He picked it up and led the team to the closest livery stable.

“There’s a dandy curricle all smashed to bits on Glasshouse Street, just off Bond. You can have what’s left if you’ll haul it away,” he explained.

This was acceptable to the owner, who agreed to handle it and stable Harrup’s bloods till they were called for.

Ronald deemed rescuing Diana more important than getting the letters to Harrup. His patron was at a meeting that would continue past noon in any case, and he disliked to interrupt him there. With a host of doubts that he was doing the tight thing, he turned his steps to Bow Street and did battle with the authorities.

It was two hours before a carriage maker came up with an estimate of damage to the Whitby carriage. Two hundred pounds seemed inordinately high, but as Diana had the money, they paid it. Ronald got off with a warning, and as no stolen property was discovered on Diana, she was allowed to go free, too. Mrs. Whitby was in high dudgeon at the inefficacy of the law, but she knew she had been bested, and left without further trouble. With a sorry look at her sister inhabitants of the small back room, Diana handed the red bonnet and green cape to the shabbiest of them and put on her own clothes.

“Where are the letters?” were her first words when she and Ronald breathed free air outside the detention house.

Ronald handed them to her. Diana gazed at them, two little pieces of paper appearing totally innocent, but they had nearly cost her her reputation and Harrup ten thousand pounds. She felt an overpowering urge to open them and see what words could be so dangerous and had to take a firm hold on her morals to put them in her reticule unread.

“I’ll take you home,” Ronald said. “And for God’s sake, Di, stay there. I have an ocean of work I should be doing at the office. Harrup has entrusted some very weighty matters to me. He says that if I can handle the responsibility and prove valuable to him, he’ll see I get some sinecures that will more than double my salary. In case I want to get married in the future, you know.” His disillusioned eye spoke loud of the unlikelihood of such a circumstance.

“That is kind of him,” Diana said. “I hope you have some money, Ronald. I’ve used up all Harrup gave me. It seemed such a lot, too.”

“I can afford to hire a cab, at least.”

They soon hailed a passing cab, and Diana suggested that Ronald’s time was more valuable than hers, so she would go home last. In fact, she wasn’t eager to go home at all. It was fine she had recovered the letters, but as she surveyed the morning, she saw some unpleasantness in telling Harrup the details. Over two hundred pounds spent, to say nothing of the wrecked curricle. Worst of all was the damage done to his grays’ mouths. She doubted that would please him.

Her own shoulder ached quite badly, but all these details couldn’t explain her gloomy mood. She had a fine rout to look forward to that evening—that should cheer her. Any thought of that do only cast her into deeper misery. It would be Harrup’s first formal appearance as Selena’s fiancée. That set the seal on their approaching marriage, somehow. Why should that bother her? Hadn’t she done everything in her power to make the marriage possible? Of course she had, and she shouldn’t have done it.

They were wretchedly mismatched. With the best of intentions, Harrup would not long be satisfied with that simpering miss for a wife. He’d be back to his women, falling into more scrapes, and she wouldn’t be there to participate. She’d be back at the dull Willows, hearing from Peabody what new activities Harrup was engaged in. Lady Selena would be unhappy; Ronald would be heart-broken.

It was kind of Harrup to have given Ronald such an important job—and the hope of some sinecures to increase his salary, too. Before too long, Ronald might be able to set up a small house, which would require a hostess. ... She would be seeing Harrup more frequently than in the past if that happened.