Moon Love (16 page)

Amy was aware of a surge of anger. “With the Spencers, I expect?” He was as bad as Felix, thinking of his pleasure when there was a job of vital importance to be done.

“No, not with Miss Spencer.” After a moment he added, “Are
you not curious to hear whom?”

“I had best not press you on this delicate subject,” she said haughtily, but there was a question in the bright green eyes that studied him.

“Shame on you, Miss Bratty. I am taking dinner with the Misses Harper.”

She blinked in astonishment. “Good lord.”

He raked her with a saturnine smile. “Come now, confess. You thought I had succumbed to the charms of Blanche and company. I am more discerning, I promise you. As the Harpers were so curious about me, a stranger in town, I felt they would be a good source of information about the local doings.”

“How did you strike up this friendship with them?”

“I followed them into Miss Talbot’s tea shop this morning, looked lonesome, smiled at them. They were not at all difficult to bring ‘round my finger,” he boasted. “A little sympathy with the hardship of having one’s house painted, a vast interest in whether the shade chosen is jonquil or cream.”

“You actually went to their house to see?”

“No, we went for a decent cup of tea. We agreed that while poor Miss Talbot tries, she does not quite succeed in brewing a really first rate cup of tea. While we were there, I was shown the paint job.”

“You are unconscionable.”

“I did not lead the ladies on to expect an offer of marriage,” he said with a lowering brow. “I shall quiz them about Ford’s servants and guests this evening. Are the servants a part of Kirby’s smuggling ring? If not, then the smugglers must wonder at leaving the wagon at Everton’s place.”

“They won’t know any more about the guests and servants than Mrs. Ladd. The house had been standing empty for months before Ford hired it. The barn out back is exactly the sort of place the Gentlemen would use for storage of silk. They couldn’t leave it in a wet ditch, as they do a brandy barrel.”

“Yes, but the house is occupied now,” he pointed out.

“That only means Ford is given a little money for turning a blind eye to the silk cases hidden under the hay. Folks hereabouts don’t consider smuggling a crime. Papa gets his brandy free for letting the Gentlemen use his bay.” She stopped a moment, thinking of her father, no longer able to enjoy his brandy. That was one perquisite Felix was enjoying already. “No, just finding the silk in the barn would mean nothing. If we don’t find the forged money there, we are no farther ahead. It is Ford’s being on close terms with Fairmont that is more meaningful.”

Upon hearing all this, Ravencroft was sorry he had consigned himself to dinner with the Harpers. “Perhaps I could cancel that dinner.”

“Certainly not! Miss Harper will have had her servants running their feet off preparing something special for you. You will be served her homemade blackberry cordial and dine on her famous ragout, which she destroys by using turnips instead of potatoes and carrots. The sauce will be saturated with the horrid, bitter taste of turnip.” Ravencroft’s face pinched in disdain. “And you will eat it and like it!”

“Yes, Nanny.”

His speech called up a fleeting memory of her father, drooling and dying abovestairs. Caught off guard, she was momentarily overcome. She seized her lower lip between her teeth to stop its trembling.

“Miss Bratty – Amy! What is the matter?” he asked in alarm. “I was only joking.” Seeing her sorrow, he rose and took her hands, wondering how he had offended her. Surely she didn’t imagine he was casting slurs on her age, or some demmed thing? He was just making a joke at her missish speech.

She rose without realizing she was doing it, perhaps because the only reason a gentleman ever offered her his hand was to help her rise. But when she was standing, he gripped her fingers more tightly and gazed at her pinched face in consternation. “What have I said to distress you? I meant no harm.”

His sympathy had the effect of heightening her mood. She turned her head away to hide the tears that scalded her eyes. She blinked them away and said, “It’s nothing. Really.”

“When a gentleman makes a lady cry, it has to be something,” he insisted.

She shook her head. “It’s not you
.
It has nothing to do with you.”

“Is it Felix? Is he behaving objectionably?”

“Felix is a fool.”

“Yes, but is he pestering you with unwanted advances?”

“Constantly.”

Ravencroft’s jaw tightened. “I’ll – have a word with him.”

“Don’t be foolish. He is not a rake. He only assumes I care for him. He is a nuisance, not a menace to my virtue, if that is the notion you have taken.”

“Then what – “

She knew some explanation was necessary and told the simple truth. “Papa is dying, Ravencroft. That is why I was – why I was sad just now. He calls me Nanny when I visit him.” A sniffle escaped, a tear oozed over her eyelid and trembled down her cheek. When Amy lifted her hand to wipe it away, Ravencroft took out his handkerchief and blotted at it gently.

“He is an old man, Amy. He has had a long and good life,” Ravencroft said, trying to soothe her, and knowing the words were useless. He put an arm around her shoulder, but she didn’t respond. She felt stiff
as a limb. He patted her shoulder and removed his arm.

“I know that,” she said in a husky voice. “It’s not just his dying. When he goes, I shall have to either marry Felix or leave the Hall, where I have lived for most of my life. I don’t know whether I’m crying for Papa or myself.” She straightened her shoulders and steadied her lips. “In any case it is not your problem, and I am sorry I inflicted it on you. That was unmannerly of me. So, you will be dining with the Harpers.”

Ravencroft could see she was embarrassed by her one lapse into tears. It must be an unusual thing for her to let herself go. And difficult for her, having no family in the house she could share her troubles with. He was peculiarly flattered that she had done it when she was with him. Surely that indicated she felt easy with him? He wanted to sympathize, but knew her pride wanted only to be done with her little lapse.

“Yes, but I shall see you at the assembly later. I look forward to it, Amy.” She looked displeased with his usurping her Christian name. “Are you not going to wrap my knuckles for calling you Amy?” he asked, trying to goad her into a smile.

“I am hardly in a position to criticize you. I must go now. Papa took a bad turn this morning. “

“I am sorry to hear it. Is there anything I can do?”

“No, thank you. The doctor is doing what can be done. I may not be able to attend the assembly this evening. You will let me know about the horse race? The sooner you can arrange it, the better. You can leave a message at the abandoned house.”

“If I don’t see you this evening, I shall call on you tomorrow morning.”

She looked at him, surprised and pleased. “Might it not be inconvenient for you, when you are busy arranging the race?”

“I’ll call. I’m sorry about your papa, Amy – Miss Bratty.”

“You can call me Amy,” she said, but in a dull voice, as if it were a matter of indifference.

He gazed at her a long moment. Her eyes shone from her tears, and her lower lip was still unsteady. He felt an urge to steady it with his own. How had he thought this courageous, put-upon lady was a prim little prude?

“Amy,” he said, and left.

Chapter Seventeen

When Doctor Croft came down from Lord Ashworth’s room after his second visit, he proclaimed his patient in satisfactory condition. “He’ll last awhile yet,” he said.

Only then did Amy realize how worried she had been. She could feel the tension ease out of her muscles, leaving her weak. “Thank God. No danger of another spell in the night?” she asked.

“I’ve given him a sleeping draft. He won’t stir until morning. I’ll come back then. You just calm your fears, Miss Bratty. There’s a party at the Greenman tonight. I suggest you have Mr. Bratty take you. You need an outing. You are losing the bloom from your cheeks.”

Amy felt she should stay at home, but now that the crisis was over, she wanted to attend the assembly. She rationalized that it was her father’s business she was eager to get on with. She might spot Bransom’s watch, for instance. But at the bottom of her heart she knew Ravencroft was half the reason for her eagerness to attend.

She felt a fool for breaking down in front of him that afternoon. Yet he had not pokered up or mocked her in his usual odious way. He had been gentle, understanding. She had never seen that tender side of him before. That the Wolf was capable of sympathy had come as a complete surprise. That he had not used her emotional breakdown as a pretext for refusing her help in the case was almost unbelievable.

When Ashworth was still sleeping soundly after her dinner, she decided she would attend the assembly. It had never so much as occurred to Felix that he should stay home. He feigned satisfaction at Lord Ashworth’s condition, but beneath the facade she could discern his impatience to have his title.

In a softer, gentler mood, she could understand it. Ashworth did not mean to Felix what he meant to her. Felix had only become close to the family after his own father died five years before. To him, Ashworth was just an impediment to his inheritance. The real pity was that Ashworth had no sons of his own.

She wore her best evening gown of bronze taffeta with a chiffon overskirt and dressed her hair en corbeille, drawn back from her forehead with a tumble of curls behind. The skirt rustled daintily when she walked.

“By Jove, I am a lucky fellow,” Felix said when he saw her. “You will be the belle of the ball. The prettiest lady there. I wonder what Miss Kell will wear. Blue, I daresay, to match her lovely eyes.”

“Pity she has no dowry,” Amy said, undeceived at his flattery.

“It is always the way. The ladies have looks or money, never both,” he said with a tsk. He had no notion of offending the well-dowered Amy, but only blurted out what was in his simple mind.

“One can’t have everything, Felix.”

He took her arm and led her out to the carriage. Felix no more wanted to marry her than she wanted to marry him. Perhaps he saw in her a suitable wife who would be content to stay home and run Bratty Hall while he enjoyed his new opulence in London. And of course he wanted her dowry, but if he could find one of equal size in a lady he liked better, he would not feel a single qualm in forgetting he had been begging her to marry him for years.

The Misses Harper had given up attending the assemblies a decade before. Having no daughters or nieces to chaperone, they always stayed home, content to watch the carriages arrive at the Greenman from the comfort of their drawing room. Amy was surprised to see them at the assembly, looking like a pair of crows in their black gowns and caps. She was amazed to see that suave London buck, Lord Ravencroft, sitting with the provincial spinsters, presenting such an odd contrast. Yet the three gave every appearance of enjoying themselves.

Felix was surprised, too. “Egad, what is Ravencroft doing with that pair of ancients?” he asked. “They must be related.”

“Stanford, Felix! You mustn’t call him Ravencroft. You recall he is here on secret business.”

Felix brushed this aside with a wave of his hand. “I solved that business long ago. I don’t know why he hangs about.”

Amy had the first set with Felix. At its end, she drew him over to say good evening to the Harpers and Ravencroft. Ravencroft requested her company for the second set, as she hoped he would. They went to the floor before the music began.

Ravencroft said, “You are looking very stylish this evening, Amy. I am happy you could come.” The first impression was of elegance, but as his dark gaze studied her face, he saw she was pale from worry. “I take your presence to mean your papa is improving?”

“Yes, the doctor has visited him again and says he will pull through this time. I should be home with him, but I felt I ought to come to see if there is anything to be learned. How on earth did you get the Harpers to come?” she asked, “And why? Surely they are cramping your style?”

“They wanted to attend, they only needed a little coaxing. I invited them because if there is anything to be learned about Ford’s and his cohorts’ doings, those ladies will hear it. Ford is not here, but his guests are. The pair of dandies in the Stutz jackets,” he said, nodding to a line that was forming for a country dance.

One of the men had long blond hair with a curl tumbling over his forehead. The other wore his dark hair cut close to his head. Both were in their thirties, which made them a couple of decades younger than Ford. They wore high cravats and pinched waist jackets thrown open to reveal garish waistcoats and behaved in the foppish manner of London dandies, perhaps to impress the local women. Amy doubted they had ever been in a schoolroom, much less taught in one.

“I have seen the blond one on the strut,” she said.

“Let us join them and
see what we can learn”
.

“You realize it is to be a country dance?” she said, peering to see if he objected to this rollicking entertainment.

“I have endured worse – for king and country. Let us go.” Then he stopped. “Unless you object?”

“We are here, let us get on with it,” she said, careful not to suggest she was gaining any pleasure from their dance.

Amy knew Miss Emry, the lady with the blond man. She presented “Mr. Stanford” to the group. The other lady finished the introductions, presenting Mr. Jermyn, the blond, and Mr. Saxton, the brunette. It was the blond who was soon rolling his eyes at Amy. She batted her lashes back at him and simpered shyly to encourage him. When Ravencroft glowered at her, she assumed he was acting the role of jealous lover.

To her astonishment, when the dance was over he took a firm grip on her elbow and said, “Let us go to the refreshment parlor, Miss Bratty.”

“No!
I believe Mr. Jermyn is going to ask me to stand up with him for the next set.”

“That is exactly what I’m afraid of.”

“That is why we’re here, to see what we can learn.”