Letters to a Lady (8 page)

“I found them!” she exclaimed triumphantly, and stuffed them into her reticule. “Let’s go before someone comes.”

“Listen to this, Di,” Ronald said, smiling. “‘A sneaking piece of imbecility’ Scott calls Edward Waverley. This does sound good.”

“Put the book back and let us go,” she said.

“I only meant to borrow it.”

A sound of movement behind the closed door was heard at the same instant by them both. They exchanged frightened, wide-eyed stares and looked to the door. The handle turned slowly. Diana had awful visions of Lord Markwell, pistol in hand. Her mind went perfectly blank, but just before the door opened, she recovered sufficiently at least to blow out the lamp and plunge them into darkness. Instinct led her to crouch behind the desk for concealment.

When the door opened silently, the first thing she saw around the desk’s corner was another lit lamp. Hovering above it was a man’s ugly, common face. Only a servant, she thought with some relief. The man spotted Ronald near the door in an instant. He raised his lamp and gave a gloating smile.

“Caught you snaffling the goods, eh, mate? A rum gent like you, all done up in style. What would you be doing a thing like that for?”

“I was only borrowing it!” Ronald said, offense in every line of his slender body.

“Sure you was, and didn’t plan to help yourself to his lordship’s jewels and silver, either. Oh, no, not a fine dandy like you. You can tell it to the watch house preacher, lad.”

Realizing that the servant thought Ronald was alone, Diana held her breath and prayed her brother wouldn’t tell the man she was there. Though he wouldn’t purposely hurt a fly, it would be just like him to blurt it out. She began looking around for a weapon to knock the servant out and free Ronald. At least the man didn’t carry a gun.

Before she could find anything, the man took Ronald by the arm and hauled him from the study, thinking he’d caught an ordinary criminal, come to loot the flat. She listened, heart pounding, as Ronald protested his innocence. “An outrage! I just came to borrow a book.”

“And decided to let yourself in by smashing the glass. Lucky chance for me I was only next door having a heavy wet with a buddy and heard you. Come along easy, lad. It’d be a shame to have to darken your pretty daylights and draw your cork.”

These menacing words turned Ronald completely docile. He allowed himself to be taken away, and Diana found herself alone and shaking like a leaf in Lord Markwell’s study. As the flat was now empty, she left by the front door and ran around the corner to Harrup’s carriage, to follow Ronald to whatever watch house he was taken to. When she saw him being led in, she pulled the check string and spoke to Harrup’s groom.

“Would it be proper for a young lady to go in and bail him out?” she asked calmly.

“No, miss. It wouldn’t. What you’d best do is tell his lordship what happened.”

“Oh, I don’t think it’s a very good idea to bother his lordship,” she said, biting her underlip. “Perhaps you would be kind enough?” she suggested, glancing to the watch house.

“You need bail money, you see, miss, which I don’t have. ‘Sides beyond, they’d not put him under the protection of such a one as myself. It’s his lordship you must tell.’’

“Very well,” she agreed, and settled back against the squabs, clutching the precious letters. Harrup couldn’t cut up very stiff when she had recovered his letters. She ardently hoped the Grodens were not making a night of it at the house.

John Groom apparently deemed the errand urgent, for he bolted the carriage in great haste to Belgrave Square, while Diana was jostled around inside. She went around to the kitchen door to discover who was in the house.

“Good Lord above us,” Miss Peabody shrieked when she saw her bedraggled charge, her hair tumbling about her ears; her gown was soiled and ripped at the waist from squirming in the window, and the hem of her dress covered in mud. “What happened to you?”

“We had an accident,” Diana said briefly. “Ronald is—is just fine. I left him off at his rooms. Is Harrup here, and have the Grodens left?”

“They just went out the door a minute ago. Diana, you must not let Harrup see you like that. Where is your cape? Was it stolen?”

“My cape!” she exclaimed. “Oh, dear!” It was not fear of being identified by the garment that bothered her, but its loss. It was her very best, especially beloved for its sable collar. “I’ll have to go back for it.”

“Back where? Where did it happen?”

“It’s rather urgent, Peabody. I’ll see Harrup first, then tell you.”

“He’s in his study,” Mrs. Dunaway told her.

“Thank you, Mrs. Dunaway,” Diana said very formally, and scampered upstairs, her muddied hem dragging behind her.

Harrup had just sat at his desk and poured himself a glass of wine. He was weary from an evening with his in-laws-to-be. Groden was a dead bore, his lady a mute, and with the parents along, there had been no privacy with Selena. In fact, the girl hardly glanced at him. A shy little thing, but beautiful. His eyes glazed over as he remembered her raven curls and ivory skin, her pellucid blue eyes and those cherry lips. She was very well built for a young girl, too. He looked up impatiently when the tap came at the door.

“Come in.”

The door opened slowly, and a bedraggled person he hardly recognized smiled at him. He soon recognized that bold pixie smile and the slanting eyes full of mischief. “Missie! What the devil—”

“I got them, Harrup! I got your letters.” She beamed and hopped forward to lay them on his desk.

“You got the letters? How?” He stared from woman to letters in bewilderment.

“I’ll tell you all about it on the way to the watch house,” she said, shooting a nervous glance at him.

Harrup’s eyes widened in dismay. “The—what?”

“Unfortunately Ronald got caught, but they think he was only stealing Walter Scott.”

A great feeling of foreboding came over Harrup. He glared and pointed with one finger at a chair by his desk.

“Sit!” he commanded.

Diana sank gratefully onto the chair. “I am rather tired,” she admitted. “It was quite fatiguing moving the barrel and getting in the window. It was a tight fit, but I could not let Ronald smash the front window, because of the people on the street.” She spotted the wine and poured herself a glass, which she gulped, then sighed wearily.

“Am I to understand you and that cawker of a brother broke into Lord Markwell’s flat and stole the letters?” he asked. His voice sounded hollow, as though he were shouting down a long corridor. “And got caught?” he added.

“Only Ronald. I got away with the letters.” She pointed to the stack on his desk. “It wasn’t Markwell himself who caught us. It was only a servant. Oh, I do hope Ronald has the wits to give a false name at the watch house. Do you think he will, Harrup?”

“No. A boy who doesn’t know enough to wipe behind the ears will hardly be on to it. Where is he?”

“I’ll have to show you. I followed him in your carriage, but I couldn’t tell you the address. I was discreet! We stayed well behind them. No one will suspect you are involved.”

“My going to bail Ronald out will slip them the clue. The fact that you’re staying at my house is confirmation, not that it’s needed.”

Diana pondered this a moment. “That’s true. You’ll have to give a false name, too—or you could have someone else do it for you.”

“Lord Eldon, perhaps?” he suggested satirically. “The lord chancellor should have no difficulty gaining Ronald’s freedom. Or would you prefer I ask my future father-in-law, Lord Groden, the stiffest rump in England, to do it?”

Diana looked at the letters, carelessly tossed on his desk, and felt she was being treated shabbily. “It’s the least you could do! We did it all for you, and it was neither easy nor pleasant, I assure you. Look at my dress—ruined. My best slippers have turned to mush,” she added, lifting a foot to show him. “To say nothing of my sable-trimmed cape,” she added, for this was considered the greatest loss.

Harrup cast a sympathetic eye at the well-turned ankle and sighed wearily. “Thank you, Diana. I am happy to have the letters back. You’ve done more than enough tonight. Go upstairs and have a bath, and I’ll bail Ronald out.”

“I have to go with you,” she said simply.

“Housebreaking and stealing weren’t sufficient amusement for one night? You want to top it off with a visit to a watch house?”

“Yes, I do,” she agreed. “I’ve never seen one before. But I expect I’ll have to wait in the carriage. I want to talk to Ronald and make sure he’s all right. He got wounded in the—”

Harrup jerked to attention. “Not shot!”

“Oh, no. Just cut a little when he smashed the window. The idiot took off his gloves. I told him not to hit it so hard. At least Markwell’s servant was not at all violent.”

A trip to the watch house seemed tame after Diana’s other activities, and as Harrup was eager both to free Ronald and hear the story, he agreed to let her come along.

“You’d best lock those letters up before we go,” she suggested.

“We know how efficacious a lock is,” he answered, and tucked them in his inside pocket. He placed his own evening cape over Diana’s shoulders and called his carriage. While they rattled along to free Ronald, she gave him a lively account of their evening activities.

“I found myself wishing you were there, Harrup,” she admitted.

“Thank you. So did not I!”

“You would have scolded like a fishwife, but you would have known how to handle the servant. Ronald is a very indifferent accomplice. If he hadn’t started reading Walter Scott and fallen into a passion, we would have been home free. Which is not to say that he’s incompetent in other areas,” she added hastily when she recalled her ultimate aim. “He is very bookish and intelligent. He was shocked at the gaps in Markwell’s library. Ronald will make someone an excellent secretary.”

With an ironic lift of his brow, Harrup said, “Perhaps Mr. Scott could use him.”

This was obviously not the most auspicious moment to dun Harrup for a position. Diana decided that must wait till he had enjoyed a good night’s sleep, easy that his letters were safe and, she hoped, forgetful of having had to rescue the rescuer. She remained in the carriage till Harrup had bailed Ronald out.

“Where do you live?” he asked Ronald when the dejected young gentleman was safe in the carriage.

Ronald gave him the address, and with very little conversation, for the Beechams could see that Harrup was in the boughs, the carriage took Mr. Beecham home.

“Naturally, I shall reimburse you tomorrow,” Ronald said stiffly when he alighted from the rig.

“Just be sure you present yourself at Bow Street at ten tomorrow morning. I hope Markwell sends his servant, and doesn’t take into his head to go himself,” Harrup growled.

Diana cleared her throat and said softly, “It would be a good idea if you declare a meeting for nine-thirty tomorrow morning, Harrup, to ensure that Markwell is at Westminster at ten.”

He glowered and said, “You’ve taken over my private life. Pray restrain yourself from entering politics.”

Diana cleared her throat again nervously and said, “Yes, indeed, but before we go home, would you mind taking us back to Lord Markwell’s house? I must pick up my cape,” she explained to her companion.

“You left your cape there?” Harrup asked, staring. “No doubt your reticule was left behind as well, with your calling cards in it.”

“Certainly not! I held on to it very carefully as it contained your love notes to Mrs. Whitby. And my cape is not in Markwell’s flat. It is in his backyard, if someone hasn’t stolen it.”

“Where is Markwell’s place?”

She directed him to Glasshouse Street.

“This is why you were pestering me for Markwell’s address,” he accused.

“I told you what I meant to do.”

“And I told you not to do it!”

“But I got your billets-doux back,” she pointed out. There was no arguing with that, and Harrup was so relieved that he directed the carriage to Glasshouse Street with no further ado.

Chapter Five

“There, that’s the place,” Diana said as Harrup’s carriage approached Markwell’s house. “If you’ll have the groom stop, I’ll just pop out and pick up my cape. I know exactly where I left it.”

Harrup gave a grudging smile. “This evening goes from melodrama to farce. No, Diana, you will not just pop out and fall into some other scrape. Tell me where you mislaid the cursed cape and I’ll get it.”

“It is not mislaid. I placed it very carefully aside to keep it from getting wet—wetter. It’s somewhere behind the barrel, which is at the window. And Harrup, do be careful. The servant might just possibly be peeking out the window. I wouldn’t want to involve you in anything unsavory,” she said.

He mistrusted the pixie tilt of her eyes and some quality in her voice that was just short of a gurgle. “You enjoy putting me through my paces,” he accused.

“It will do you no harm to be knocked off your high horse from time to time. A man must expect to pay for his sins.”

Harrup tried to go on acting angry, but his innate sense of the ridiculous took over when he found the sodden cape on the ground and imagined the sequence of events that had led to it. He rather wished he had been there.

“Open the windows,” he ordered as he got in. “This thing smells like a wet rat.”

“Oh, my poor sable!” Diana said, stroking it. “I shan’t be able to lord it over the other ladies at the local assemblies without my sable-collared cape. I hope Peabody will be able to resuscitate it.”

“Peabody could resuscitate a mummy. May we go home now? It’s only eleven. We have time to rob a bank or beat up the watch.”

“Not this evening, thank you. Home will be fine.”

“I take it you didn’t get around to seeing the play at Drury Lane?” he asked.

“No, but Ronald can take me tomorrow evening.”

“Tell him not to purchase tickets. I have a box. I’m taking Selena—we’ll all go together.”

“It is not at all necessary to feel you have to reward us. We were very happy to give a helping hand. What are friends for?”

“No further propaganda will be necessary before you dun me for your favor, Diana. I wish you would tell me what it is you’re going to make me do. I’m becoming nervous at the delay.”