Lily Lang (6 page)

Jason stood as well, inclining his head briefly. “If that is your wish, Miss Thornwood.”

“It is.”

He nodded, and she turned to leave, but the sound of Jason’s voice stopped her.

“Wait.”

She turned her head and found him regarding her from across the expanse of desk separating them.

“If you wish to leave the club today, inform Oliver,” he said. “He’ll send for the carriage and open accounts in your name at any Oxford Street shops that interest you.”

Miranda stiffened. The idea of spending Jason’s money filled her with instant distaste, though she ought to be beyond such niceties. She had, after all, already accepted the highly improper gift of new clothes earlier that morning, and moreover, she had consented to become his mistress only the night before. Though she was country-bred and not very worldly, she knew men customarily provided their paramours with all manners of gowns, jewels and other expensive gifts.

Nevertheless, the thought of everything they had once shared being reduced to a mere transaction made her sick. If she were being honest with herself, she would admit she had agreed to be his mistress because she was weak, and she had loved him more than life, and had never stopped loving him. If the only way she could have some small part of him once again was as his lover, she was willing to pay the price. But when she went to him, it would not be because of his promise to help her. She was not for sale—not for money, not for jewels, not even for her brother’s safety.

Aloud, she merely said, “That will not be necessary, thank you.”

“You would like to go riding then, perhaps?” He gestured to the green rolling parkland visible from the window behind his desk. “I can have one of my men arrange for the purchase of a mare at Tattersall’s this afternoon.”

“No, thank you,” she said. “I would prefer to remain here. At Blakewell’s.”

“You would?” He raised an eyebrow. “It’ll be exceedingly dull for you, I’m afraid. There isn’t a great deal for a lady to do at a gentleman’s club. I suppose you could read. There are the books in my suite, and if you want something from the library, have Olly or Mr. Page or one of the footmen fetch it for you.”

“Do not worry about me, sir,” said Miranda quietly. “I do not require entertaining.”

Dipping a slight curtsy, she turned on her heel and crossed the length of Jason’s office, stepped out and shut the door very gently behind her.

Not long after Miranda had returned to her room, Harriet brought up a light luncheon and laid it out on the small table.

“Thank you, Harriet,” said Miranda, though she was not particularly hungry.

The girl nodded and bobbed a quick curtsy. She turned, but for the first time that day, Miranda caught a clear glimpse of the girl’s face. Her eyes were red and swollen, and her cheeks were splotchy. She had been crying.

“Are you well, Harriet?” Miranda asked quickly.

Beneath the fringe of her massive lace cap, Harriet’s eyes grew round and she gave another reflexive curtsy.

“Yes, of course, miss,” she said, but her mouth trembled.

Miranda gazed sharply at her. Before her aunt’s arrival, Miranda had been mistress of Thornwood since she was little more than a child. Along with the housekeeper Mrs. Andrewes and the butler Hawkins, she had once ruled over an entire battalion of ladies’ maids and housemaids, sewing girls and laundry maids, kitchen maids and scullions. She was intimately acquainted with the species; she had nursed them through head colds and measles, listened to their rapturous exclamations when they fell in love, and comforted them when they were betrayed.

Miranda had only met Harriet the night before and they had exchanged very few words, but she knew with a deep and unshakable certainty the girl was not well. Perhaps, despite the blotches on her face, Harriet was not actually ill, but something troubled her. From experience, Miranda guessed the girl had either been recently disappointed in love, or something was not right at home.

A certain relief flowered through her at being able to turn her attention toward someone else’s problems and away from her own. Miranda addressed the girl as she would have done a maid in her own home.

“Tell me at once what is the matter,” she said, her voice calm and implacable.

“No, no, it’s nothing, miss!” exclaimed Harriet, shaking her head so violently the enormous lace cap fluttered like cobwebs in a breeze.

“Harriet,” said Miranda gently, and then waited.

Inevitably, Miranda’s steely will eventually overbore Harriet’s wavering protests. With a faint wail, the little maid buried her face in her hands.

“It’s me mum,” she sobbed. “She’s fell sick real sudden-like last night. Me pa sent a message this morning and said he thought it was the fever. He’s worried the little ones would get sick too, and he wants me to come home.”

“I rather thought it was something like that,” said Miranda, patting the girl sympathetically on the shoulder. “Where is your family?”

“Hampstead Heath,” said Harriet, between sniffles.

“Well, then, why don’t you take a day and go home to visit her?”

“I can’t do that,” exclaimed Harriet, her round eyes widening.

“Mr. Blakewell does not give you time off?” Miranda asked, her voice sharper than she intended.

“Mr. Blakewell?” the maid asked. She stopped sobbing, evidently out of surprise at the question. “Oh, no, miss, I am not part of the club staff. The kitchen staff is employed by Monsieur Leblanc, and
he
would never permit it!”

Miranda raised an eyebrow. “You are not permitted to have a day off now and then?” she asked.

“We ’ave a half-day every week, and a full day every month,” said Harriet. “But my next full day isn’t for another three weeks.”

“Nevertheless, your mother is ill, and you are needed at home,” said Miranda.

“But Monsieur Leblanc would be furious if I’m not around to help with the preparations for supper.”

Miranda considered for only half a moment before she made up her mind.

“I’ll deal with him,” said Miranda firmly.

Harriet looked up at her with watery eyes. “Miss?”

“I will go to the kitchens to speak with Monsieur Leblanc,” said Miranda. “You are to go pack your things.”

“But your lunch, Miss Thornwood!”

“Never mind my lunch,” said Miranda. “I’m not very hungry anyway.”

Harriet continued to protest for some time, but Miranda was firm, and eventually, looking dazed but grateful, the little maid directed Miranda to the kitchen door, though she refused to make an appearance herself.

“He won’t never let me go if he saw me,” she whispered to Miranda.

Before Miranda could respond, the door swung open and another girl burst into the hall, crying hysterically to the accompaniment of shouting from within the kitchen. Miranda waited for her to vanish down the hall before she turned back to Harriet, who looked terrified.

“Don’t worry, my dear,” said Miranda calmly. “I’ll settle everything with Monsieur Leblanc.”

The girl curtsied and hurried down the corridor to her room. Miranda pushed the door of the kitchens open and stepped inside. Monsieur Leblanc, looking no less ill-tempered and Gallic than before, stood at his stove shrieking, “The imbecile must think red mullets come out of the sea with my sauce in their pockets! I resign! I resign absolutely! I go to Crockford’s!”

When he saw Miranda, he turned on her in equal fury. “What are you doing here? Out, out!” He swept the kitchen with a malevolent gaze. “Where is Harriet? Where did that fool Polly go? How can I be expected to cook if no one is here to ’elp?”

“I don’t know where Polly’s present location is,” said Miranda, “but I believe I saw her running down the hall, looking very upset. As for Harriet, she is going home to her family. Her mother is very ill.”

She regarded the Frenchman with interest as he turned first red, and then an exceedingly unusual shade of purple beneath his drooping mustache. For a moment, he looked as though the top of his head might explode entirely.

“What do you mean, Harriet is going home to her family?” he managed to shriek at last, before letting loose a string of furious Gallic invectives. “The stupid little
blancmange
does not have my permission to leave!”

“I gave her permission to leave,” said Miranda.

Monsieur Leblanc’s eyes rolled back a little, and for the first time Miranda felt genuine alarm. If the man should go into paroxysms and disrupt the supper service, Jason would never forgive her. She had committed enough sins against him not to want to add another to the list.

“You gave her permission to leave?” repeated Monsieur Leblanc. He picked up a wooden spoon and waved it menacingly at her. “
You
gave her permission to leave? I do not believe it. This is
my
kitchen, mademoiselle, and I do not care who you are, I do not care if you are the Queen of England, you do not disrupt the workings of my kitchen!”

“Harriet is in quite a state,” said Miranda. “Even if you forced her to remain, she would be of little use to you. It would be better for you if she is not here.”

“But who will make the sauces?” shrieked Monsieur Leblanc. “Who will prepare the vegetables? Who will dress the joints and dishes?”

Miranda plucked up an apron hanging over one of the chairs at the kitchen table. Then she rolled up the sleeves of her new gown very carefully and turned back to the little Frenchman, arching a single eyebrow at him.

“I will, of course,” she said.

Jason sat at his desk at the back of his beautifully furnished and well-lighted gaming room, observing the play. Seated in a high chair across the room from him and supervising the game was George Page, who every now and again rose from his seat to make rounds and receive and pay out money according to the luck of the players.

The hazard table itself was large and oval, well-stuffed and covered with green cloth marked with yellow lines. On each side stood the croupiers, the staff members who called the main and chance, regulated the stakes, and paid and received the money from the players. Above the table hung a three-light lamp, shaded to throw its full light on the green cloth.

Jason personally supervised the play for at least part of the day, because he always wanted to know everything going on: who was winning, who was losing and how his staff administered the bank. Tonight, however, he couldn’t concentrate on the scene before him. Instead, his thoughts returned repeatedly to Miranda as she had looked that morning, sitting across from him at his office desk.

Gone was the bedraggled creature that had shown up on his doorstep like a half-drowned kitten. Gone, too, was the vulnerable, barefoot waif in the too-large dress, begging him to save her brother. Prim and proper in her new gown and pelisse, this was Miranda as she was meant to be: cool, calm, composed, every inch the noblewoman. She had looked at him and spoken to him as though he had never flung that insulting bargain into her face, forcibly reminding him once again of the vast gulf between them, which, for all the wealth and power he now commanded, he could never bridge.

At the memory, all his anger of the night before returned in a near-blinding rush. He suppressed the emotion with a formidable effort of will and returned his attention once again to the hazard table. George finished making the rounds and approached Jason’s desk.

“Stanhope is out of the ready,” he murmured to Jason. “Do you wish to lend?”

Jason considered the matter for a moment, glad to have something besides Miranda’s kiss on which to concentrate. The young Viscount Stanhope was heir to an earldom, and though the boy’s expensive tastes and appalling lack of skill at the gaming table meant he was constantly in dun territory, Jason knew the father, the Earl of Chesterfield, was not only wealthy, but could be relied upon to pay up rather than face a scandal.

“Yes,” said Jason. He made a series of swift calculations in his head, totaling the rent-rolls of Stanhope’s father and grandfather, the mortgages on their estates, the debts and financial scandals plaguing the family, the codicils added to the wills, and the contents of the will themselves.

Then he said, “You may offer him two thousand pounds.”

George nodded and made his way across the room to where the viscount sat slouched sullenly at the hazard table. The inspector bent and smiled ingratiatingly. “Excuse me, my lord, did I hear you say you had no more ready money? One or two thousand pounds from our bank is at your service, if your lordship shall wish it.”

Stanhope scowled without looking up at George. “I don’t think I shall play any more tonight,” he said. “I’ve had the devil’s own luck.”

At his side, the Earl of Kintray, fat and florid, threw back his prematurely balding head and laughed. “Really, Stanhope, do accept Mr. Page’s liberal offer. Perhaps you may win back what you have lost.”

George said smoothly, “Nothing, I assure your lordship, would give us greater pleasure than to give you the moneys.”

Stanhope sighed. “Oh, very well, let me have two thousand pounds then.”

George made his way to the bank, retrieved the notes, and handed it to Stanhope.