Once Again a Bride (7 page)

“Alec is really angry,” Lizzy said. “I’ve never seen him so angry.” It had the sound of a much-repeated litany.

“He’ll get over it,” Anne replied, as if she had said this quite often as well.

“He’s going to put Callie back out in the street,” the younger girl said.

“I don’t think he will, Lizzy.” Anne looked at Charlotte, shook her head very slightly.

“He hates her!”

“He doesn’t. He just… You know you should not have put her in the drawing room. You promised…”

“It was only to chase off Aunt Bella! I thought Alec would be glad. He doesn’t like her.”

“That is not precisely true, Lizzy.” Anne glanced at Charlotte again. “They have had some disagreements, but that does not mean that he…”

“And she is always trying to get me sent away,” Lizzy muttered. “I won’t go. No one can make me.”

The girl looked so anxious that Charlotte decided just to plunge in. “I was thinking, Lizzy, my… a friend of mine used to tell me wonderful stories about all the countries on the globe. My father did, too. I thought you might like to hear some of them.”

Her attempt at subtlety failed. “Lessons?” Lizzy made the word sound dire.

“How interesting,” said Anne. “May I come and hear, when I am better?”

Lizzy sat up straighter, surprised. “You don’t have to do lessons anymore.” She turned to Charlotte. “Anne is almost seventeen. Our aunt is to bring her out next year.”

“Lady Isabella?”

“Oh no,” said Lizzy. “Aunt Amelia, our mama’s sister. She is married to an earl!” She waited for Charlotte to be impressed, and Charlotte tried to look duly awed. “Mama named us for queens, you know. She was descended from… some Tudor or other. Not the one with all the wives!”

“Lizzy demonstrates her deep knowledge of history,” teased Anne.

“Oh, bother history. It’s deadly dull.” Lizzy pretended to yawn.

“Even with all the wives?” Charlotte wondered, and got a small smile. “So Lady Isabella is your father’s sister?” She remembered this but couldn’t quite contain her curiosity about the tension in the drawing room.

Lizzy nodded. “Alec
doesn’t
like her. She did something bad about my grandfather’s will.”

“Lizzy,” said Anne.

“Well, she did. Though I don’t know precisely what.” Clearly, the girl would have liked to know. “There’s no reason not to tell Charlotte. She’s our aunt, too.” Her mood seemed to be recovering rapidly.

“Shall we go and look at the globe in the schoolroom?” Charlotte suggested. “It seemed a very fine one.”

Briefly, Lizzy pouted. “Oh, all right. But I’m bringing Callie!”

“I’m sure she is fascinated by geography. Cats are extremely territorial.”

Lizzy giggled.

***

Walking into the kitchen with some things for the laundress, Lucy Bowman was transfixed by the sight of Ethan applying a cloth to his bare ankle. His white stocking lay crumpled on the floor beside his chair, exposing his leg to the knee.

He grinned when he saw her. “Cat bite turned a bit nasty,” he said. “Cook made me a poultice.”

Lucy removed her gaze from his leg. Of course he could have applied the remedy in his own room, as was proper, but he had to draw attention to himself and show his fine limb to all the world. What sort of man got bitten by a cat anyhow? The sort who kicked cats. Lucy ignored him, left the laundry in its basket, and went over to the worktable by the hearth. Cook and Agnes were deep in luncheon preparations. “Is there an apothecary shop nearby?” she asked. “Miss Charlotte was wanting some rosewater.”

“You should ask Jennings,” said the cook. “She knows where to get the best of that sort of thing.”

Lucy had been introduced to Miss Cole’s very superior dresser at the servant’s dinner table, and was deeply in awe of her. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to bother her.”

“There’s one two streets over,” said Ethan. “I’ve fetched plenty of things from there for the family.”

Lucy didn’t look at him. “Thank you.”

Cook scooped up a dollop of icing and began to frost the cake before her. Lucy’s mouth watered at the look of it. “So she went right up the curtain?” It sounded like a question the cook had asked before, and enjoyed hearing the answer.

“Dangling there like a Christmas ornament,” Ethan replied. “Hissing and spitting over everyone’s head.”

“The cat?” Lucy couldn’t help asking. Tales of Callie’s adventures had become a staple of the servants’ hall. “Was that the shouting earlier?”

“Sir Alexander was that angry,” Agnes answered. She seemed to relish the thought. “Now Susan says Miss Lizzy’s afraid he’ll throw the cat out of the house. And so he should. She’s like a wild beast, she is.”

“Ah, now, she’s mostly afraid, I expect,” said Ethan. “Likely people haven’t given her much reason to trust them, out there in the street.”

Surprised at this level of understanding, Lucy turned to him. He was putting his stocking back on. She blushed and turned away again. “I’ll just run over to the apothecary then. Won’t be a minute, if anybody’s looking for me.”

“I’ll go with you.” Ethan stood. He was so tall.

“There’s no need for you to…”

“You shouldn’t be out all alone in a strange part of town,” the cook declared. And that was that.

Once they’d fetched coats and hats and set off, Lucy had to admit it was nice to have an escort. On previous errands in the city, she had sometimes attracted unwanted attention; once, she’d been quite frightened. And no one to tell about it, of course; only Miss Charlotte, who had far too many worries already. Now she could observe the bustle of the street with interest instead of wariness.

“From the country, are you?” asked Ethan.

Lucy’s gaze fell to her feet. He might as well just say that she was gaping like a hayseed. “What if I am?”

“Ah, good for you. I’m country bred myself.”

“You are?” He looked so at home, walking along the city street, fine in his rich livery. But his nod seemed heartfelt. “I grew up in Hampshire. We lived there until last year when Miss Charlotte got married.”

“To Mr. Henry Wylde. Seems that was a bit odd, eh?”

Lucy put up her chin. She wouldn’t be gossiping about Miss Charlotte to anybody.

“I’m a Derbyshire man, myself. It’s my first time in London, as well. ’Course I’d heard a good deal about it from my family.”

“They’d been before?”

“Aye, with the old master as died a few years back. My dad’s head of the stables up at the estate. Ma was a nursery maid there before they married. Granddad used to be head gardener, before his joints got so bad.”

Lucy had heard of these families with generations of service. They were a kind of gentry below stairs. She was just a farm laborer’s daughter. The contrast kept her silent until they reached the shop.

Her business was quickly managed. Ethan joked with the apothecary’s assistant like an old friend, somehow bringing her into it until she felt like she knew him, too. When the parcel was made up, Ethan took it; then he opened the door for her. Lucy reminded herself to think nothing of it. She had no doubt he treated every female to his easy charm.

As they left the shop a heavy cart trundled by, barely missing their toes, the driver cursing at the top of his lungs. Ethan pulled her back into the doorway, holding on just a bit longer than strictly necessary. Before Lucy could object, a loud thump suggested the reason for the driver’s rage, and when they edged around the cart, they saw that it had collided with a sweeper’s barrow. Manure lay scattered over the cobblestones and the pavement opposite like a smelly carpet. The boy clutched his broom and cowered under the driver’s tongue-lashing. “Give over,” shouted Ethan in a voice that easily carried over the din.

The burly driver turned to glare at him. Standing in the cart, he towered over them.

“You hit
him
,” Ethan said.

“He was right in the bleedin’ way, warn’t he? Halfwit!”

The sweeper sniveled and wiped his nose with a dirty sleeve.

“And now he has all his work to do over again. Let him be.” Ethan showed no sign of fear under the driver’s scowl. He met it steadily, and after a moment the man growled another curse and slapped the reins of his huge team. The horses leaned in, and the cart slowly moved off. Ethan stepped over to the sweeper, nimbly avoiding the clumps of manure.

The boy ducked his head as if he expected a blow. Ethan pulled a small coin from his pocket and held it out. Wide-eyed, hardly daring to believe, the young sweeper took it and made it disappear into his ragged coat. “The big wagons can’t turn easily, you know,” Ethan told him. “You should take care when you see one of them coming.” Mouth hanging open, the boy nodded.

Ethan picked his way back to Lucy and led her around the mess as they headed toward the house. “I hate this great dirty place!” he exclaimed.

Lucy had a lump in her throat, moved by what he’d done. Nobody paid any attention to the boys who swept the streets. “All the noise and shoving,” she agreed.

“What sort of job is that for a lad?” he continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “Mucking out a stable is one thing. Doesn’t take you all day. And afterward, you can go out into the air. Maybe exercise the horses.” He was moving so fast that Lucy had to trot to keep up. “I can’t wait to be home again,” Ethan declared fiercely.

Lucy would have agreed with this, too, and just as fervently, if she’d had a country home to return to. Reminded that London was likely her fate, she said only, “Slow down, can’t you?”

Three days later Alec knocked at Anne’s bedchamber door just before noon. Invited in, he was startled to find her dressed and sitting in the armchair by the fire with a book. “What are you doing out of bed?”

“I’m feeling so much better the doctor said I could sit up today.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?”

“Well, I am not to run up and down the stairs. But I’ve been sleeping wonderfully. No coughing. And I feel stronger. He said Charlotte’s potion is a wonder, and he intends to recommend it to his other patients.”

Alec hardly dared believe it, but Anne did look better. Some color had returned to her cheeks. She no longer had that frightening languid air, as if the least effort was beyond her.

“I like her.”

“Who?”

“Charlotte, silly!”

“Oh, yes.” He took the chair on the other side of the hearth and continued his scrutiny of his sister. He’d been worried about her for so many weeks; it was difficult to trust the improvement.

“She has actually gotten Lizzy interested in maps and exotic places on the globe. Lizzy has decided to become an intrepid explorer. I warn you, she wishes to purchase a sword stick.”

“What?”

Anne gave him a look. “You are not listening to me.”

“Yes, I am. Lizzy…
Lizzy
is learning geography?”

“Charlotte has been teaching her.”

“She needn’t do that. She is a guest here.”

“They both seem to be enjoying it.”

“Really?” He couldn’t picture his boisterous sister enjoying any type of study. “I’m still in Lizzy’s bad books, I suppose?”

Anne shrugged. “Until you release the cat from ‘prison.’”

“The storeroom is not…”

“I was teasing, Alec. You’re not really going to get rid of Callie, are you?”

He grimaced. “Anyone would think I’d threatened to drown the animal. I wager it would actually be happier if I sent it down to the country. If you could see the reproachful looks I get if I happen to pass the kitchen.”

“I heard that Callie managed to ingratiate herself with Cook. I can’t imagine how.”

“She caught a mouse in the scullery. And presented it to Mrs. Dunne with due ceremony. Devious creature. She has the instincts of a Russian diplomat. She’s turning the whole household against me.”

Anne laughed. “But Alec, you’ll let her out eventually?”

“If Lizzy promises… Oh, what am I saying? Lizzy will promise, and then she will ‘forget’ or imagine that some situation
requires
that she break her word.” Frances had been right about that much. Alec felt a rising sense of unease. He had never had to oversee his willful little sister here in town, where she was surrounded by strangers and pitfalls she knew nothing about. And Anne, whom he’d always trusted to prevent Lizzy’s most distempered freaks, was in no condition to do so.

“She doesn’t mean…” Anne began.

He had to move; he really could not sit still any longer. “Do
not
overdo and exhaust yourself,” he said over his shoulder. He shut the door upon the concern in her face, and tried to do the same with his own. In fact, he knew just how to divert his mind from his own problems. He went to his study and immersed himself in correspondence.

By luncheon, the mood had passed, and when Charlotte answered his summons at three o’clock, Alec had recovered his equanimity. “The Bow Street Runner is due, and he has asked that you be present,” he told her as she entered the study. For some reason, she frowned. “If you do not wish to speak to him…”

“Of course I wish to speak to him,” she answered snappishly.

Alec wondered if trying to teach Lizzy was irritating her nerves. A knock on the study door put the thought from his mind, however. Ethan opened it and said, “Your caller, sir.” He ushered the fellow in and closed the door behind him.

Alec faced an odd little man, unremarkable in every way. Mid-sized, with mouse brown hair, gray-blue eyes, and forgettable features, he wore a long gray coat that would pass unnoticed in most parts of London. Not outside this house, perhaps, but in a wide variety of other neighborhoods. “Good afternoon, Mr…?” Why hadn’t Ethan announced the fellow’s name? Or taken his coat, for that matter?

“Jem Hanks, sir, lady.” As if in answer to Alec’s thought, he added. “I don’t tell me name to just anyone, ye ken.”

The words came with a darting observant glance—sharp, evaluative, some might have said impudent. It was strange. The Runner came from the servant class, but he was nothing like a servant. He was, in fact, unique in Alec’s experience.

He pulled a notepad and stubby pencil from his coat pocket. “I talked to Mr. Wycliffe a time or two already. And looked about a bit. I had a few questions for the lady.”

“Of course,” said Charlotte. She sat on the small sofa under the window. Alec returned to his desk chair. “Do sit down, Mr…”

“I prefer to stand, thankee, sir. Now this gent as called on you, Ronald Herriton, what can you tell me about him, ma’am?”

Charlotte sat straighter, hands folded before her. “Well, he said he was an antiquities dealer, and he wished to purchase my husband’s entire collection. On the spot. For what he called a very good price. He evidently expected me to take his word for the value. As if I wouldn’t have the sense to consult several experts about such a sale. He also claimed that Henry had promised him the opportunity to buy after his death. Clearly a lie, considering Henry’s will. He was loud and unpleasant. My maid and I had a good deal of trouble getting rid of him.” She paused, thinking. “He is very fat.”

A corner of Jem Hanks’ lips twitched. “That he is. Did you tell him that you en’t allowed to sell, ’cause of the will?”

“No, I didn’t wish to reveal anything to him, or talk to him any longer than I had to. He…” Her shoulders shifted. “There was something… unsettling about him.”

“Was there now?” The Runner’s sharp gaze flicked up from his notebook and down again. He wrote something on the page. “I looked through your husband’s papers at Mr. Wycliffe’s office. There’s a pile of letters about this or that pot or coin or statue. Were you acquainted with any of the writers?”

“No. Well, except…” She stopped.

“Yes, ma’am?” The Runner’s pencil was poised.

“My father,” Charlotte continued in a low voice. “They corresponded for several years about ancient Rome. But my father died six months ago.”

“Very sorry to hear that, ma’am.” Jem Hanks waited a moment, then said, “So the others…?”

She shook her head. “On the very rare occasions when my husband had visitors—always to look at his collection—I was not… invited.”

Alec wondered if his uncle had actually been off his head. The more he learned about his life, the less he thought of his reclusive relative.

“Too bad. I would like to find those gen’lmen.”

“Have you talked to Holcombe? I would say, of the household, he knew Henry best. I don’t imagine that my husband… confided in him.” The idea was unimaginable. “But Holcombe liked to poke his nose into everything.”

“Who’s this Holcombe?” Hanks leaned forward like a hound on the scent.

“My uncle’s former valet,” Alec replied. He was feeling rather left out of the conversation. “He was dismissed right after my uncle’s death.”

“And no one told me?”

“I thought you had received a list of the servants from Wycliffe.”

“He missed one, seemingly. First name?” The Runner’s pencil hovered over the page.

“Uh…” Charlotte looked blank, then chagrined. “I have no idea.”

The pencil drooped. “No matter. I’ll find ’im.”

“So what have you discovered so far?” Alec asked. “Have you anything to report?”

“It’s early days yet, sir. But one thing I know. Twarn’t your common garden-variety criminal as broke into the house. How would they know about this ‘collection,’ fer one thing? And it en’t the type of stuff they can sell easy, is it? Old coins and papers and the like. Second thing I know—there’s no word on the street about the job.”

“That’s why you’re wondering about Henry’s fellow collectors?” said Charlotte. Most astutely, Alec thought. “But surely none of them would…”

Jem Hanks shrugged. “By what I’m hearin’ some folk are close to daft about this old jun… these ‘antiquities.’ Go to just about any length to get their hands on ’em.”

“It’s true there is a great rivalry amongst collectors,” Charlotte said thoughtfully. “Henry used to positively gloat when he beat someone out on a purchase.”

“Yes, ma’am. And if they’ve heard they can’t be buyin’ these perticular ones…”

“They might try to steal them?”

“Send someone to do it, more like.” Hanks nodded to himself. “There’s just the one thing…”

“What?” said Charlotte and Alec at the same moment.

“Well, some as I’ve talked to say this Henry Wylde was fooled and cheated a good deal. Paid too much for poor stuff or fakes. So…”

“It needed only that!” Charlotte exclaimed. “He didn’t just spend my money, he wasted it.” She pounded the arm of the sofa with a closed fist. Jem Hanks watched her with an interest that Alec found unsettling.

“Have you any other questions?” Alec said.

“Only one, sir.” He turned to Charlotte. “Is there anyone your husband mentioned in perticular? Friend, enemy, person he envied? Anybody at all that I should concentrate on, like?”

Charlotte frowned, took her time. But in the end, she shook her head. “Not that I remember. Henry talked mostly about
things
, you know—things and their history—not people. He didn’t much like people.”

“Ha.” Jem Hanks closed his small notebook. “Well, I’d best get back to it. More than likely I’ll have other questions as matters develop. You let me know if anything comes to mind. Anything at all. Don’t matter if it’s small. Thankee, ma’am, sir.” He nodded, turned, and slipped out of the room without waiting for a response.

Silence descended. Charlotte frowned at the carpet. No doubt she was unsettled by the encounter.

“An odd sort of man, Mr. Hanks. But he seemed to know his business,” she said.

“He came highly recommended,” replied Alec. She rose, took a step toward the door, stopped. What was this awkwardness that rose between them, Alec wondered? First the breakfast table, and now here. He generally found conversation untaxing; he was known among his friends for smoothing over sticky encounters. But something about this young woman paralyzed his skills. And yet he didn’t want her to go.

“You have a great many letters,” Charlotte observed.

“Estate business.”

“Do you have many estates? My father never received so much correspondence.”

“It’s the times.”

“The…?”

“The current state of the country.”

“What do you mean?” She grimaced. “I’m horribly ignorant. Henry didn’t take any newspapers, as my father used to do, and he refused to let me subscribe to the circulating library.”

“What the deuce was wrong with the man?” burst from Alec.

“Just selfishness, I think.” Her expression was sad now rather than outraged. “Complete and utter selfishness. Tell me about things in the country.”

Unlike his sisters and brother—or Frances, who actually seemed to blame their tenants for his father’s death—she seemed sincerely interested. “You’ve heard of the new textile machinery?”

“Some. Where I grew up it was all agricultural.”

“Well, machinery is changing the world, and for the worse, right now, for many families. People on my land, or in nearby villages, who used to sell what they wove on their home looms have been put out of business by cheaper goods from the factories.”

Charlotte nodded. She didn’t appear bored.

“Some leave their homes to work in the mills, but those jobs are backbreaking, and still don’t pay a living wage. So either way, they starve.”

“Couldn’t they just… do other things?”

“Such as?”

“I… I don’t know. Grow more food?”

Alec sighed. He was all too familiar with the futility of explaining this problem to members of his own class. “Most of them were already growing all they could. A few go into service or join the army. But this is a massive change. And by and large, there are no other things for them to do.”

“Can’t they be offered assistance, to find new…?”

Alec’s bitterness overcame him. “Our government feels that protest equals treason, and we should hang those who object to these conditions.”

“Surely not!”

It was always the same, Alec thought. Now she would recall that she had urgent business elsewhere. A cup of tea, perhaps, or a thrilling novel. He waited, but Charlotte merely gazed at him as if waiting for a solution to the intractable. “You like to read?”

She looked startled. “Yes.”

“You’re fond of Lord Byron, perhaps?”

“I have read some of his…”

“But not, I imagine, his work about the plight of the weavers, and the fact that the government is, yes, hanging young Englishmen for attacking the new machinery. Frame breakers they call them.” Alec shuffled through the papers on his desk. “Here.”

Charlotte came to join him. She leaned over the page and read aloud:

Some folks for certain have thought it was shocking,

When Famine appeals and when Poverty groans,

That Life should be valued at less than a stocking,

And breaking of frames lead to breaking of bones.

If it should prove so, I trust, by this token,

(And who will refuse to partake in the hope?)

That the frames of the fools may be first to be
broken
,

Who, when asked for a
remedy
, send down a
rope
.

She turned to look at him, her coppery eyes intense with feeling. “But what can be done to help them?”

Those eyes were very close, and the anxious sympathy he saw in her face was such a relief and a revelation. No one close to him had been moved by the emergency he felt rising around him every day. No one seemed to want to hear or understand, while Alec felt the world was teetering on the brink with so few—so very few—people straining to save it.