The Pleasure Trap (14 page)

This stilted conversation was beginning to fray her nerves, and she was quite happy when a silence fell between them.

“What did you think of her?” he suddenly asked.

Since this seemed like a safe topic, she expressed an opinion. “Liza? She is a curious mixture of innocence and worldliness. I took to her at once.”

He nodded. “I think she’s charming.”

“But a bit startling for a debutante. I’m sure Eve and Lady Sayers between them will keep her right.”

“Oh, I hope not. I like her just the way she is.” He gave her a fleeting glance. “She reminds me of you at that age.”

Her control wasn’t nearly as good as she thought it was. She fought back the rush of temper, but some of it spilled out. “And look where it got me! People laughing at me behind my back or pitying me! I don’t know which is worse.”

His face had gone white. “Amanda—”

“No. You listen to me, Philip Henderson. I don’t want you in my life at any price. You deliberately lured me away from Mark, then you challenged him to a duel. You might have killed him!”

“I did what I thought was best for all of us. No, don’t interrupt. I have something I want to say to you. Oh, not about the past. That is ancient history and best forgotten. It’s the present that concerns me. It’s quite likely that we shall meet at various functions now that you’re to take in the Season.”

“And?” she prompted when he paused.

His fierce look cooled. “I’m going to be married, Amanda. The engagement hasn’t been announced yet. I thought you should be the first to know.”

Something inside her seemed to shrivel. When she could find her voice, she said faintly, “Who is the lucky girl?”

“Ardith Rose. I met her last year when I was prosecuting a case in Bristol.”

The silence that fell between them was arctic cold and stayed with Amanda until she arrived home. She mounted the stairs to her chamber, unaware that Miss Penny, her nurse, had called out a greeting.

As in a dream, she removed her outer things and sat down at her escritoire. Miss Claverley had told her that her heart’s desire was within reach. It was only a parlor game. All the same, Miss Claverley’s words had touched a chord deep inside her, only she wasn’t sure what she wanted.

She missed her husband. He was a good man and had always been kind to her. But no amount of wishing would bring Mark back.

Heaving a sigh, she opened the top drawer of her escritoire and extracted a sheaf of closely written pages, the first chapter of her novel. She’d rewritten it several times. If Miss Claverley’s oracle was to come true, she’d better get started on the next chapter.

After finding a fresh page, she dipped her pen in the inkpot. That was as far as she got. Not a single word came to her.

Miss Claverley greeted Eve warmly when she opened her chamber door to Eve’s knock. “Come in, Eve. I’ve been expecting you. Why don’t you sit down and get everything off your chest.”

Eve ignored the allusion to her aunt’s uncanny sixth sense and came straight to the point. “Do you think it wise to play with other people’s lives by advising them on what they should do?”

“You mean by reading tea leaves?”

“Of course I mean by reading tea leaves. It could do so much damage.”

Miss Claverley’s brow wrinkled, but her expression remained friendly, almost maternal. “What kind of damage, Eve?”

“What if they believe you and act on what you’ve told them?”

“Then they’d be a lot happier. No. Listen to me, Eve. I know that you’re trying to protect me from ridicule, and I appreciate your concern, but it won’t do. I don’t push myself forward. I don’t misuse my powers, but when I see someone struggling and I have it in me to help them, I feel I must.”

Eve’s eyes narrowed as her aunt’s words turned in her mind. At length, she said, “Lady Amanda is struggling? And Liza, too?”

“They’re at a turning point in their lives and looking for direction. I can’t be more specific because I don’t always understand the messages that come to me. The message is for them. If they have eyes to see it, well and good. If not, no harm done. I don’t prophesy doom and gloom.”

After a long silence, Miss Claverley said, “But this conversation isn’t really about me, Eve, is it? It’s about you. You’re thinking about your mother and father, aren’t you?”

Eve would have argued the point, but her aunt was, after all, a Claverley, so there could be no room to wriggle here. Her answer was a shrug.

Miss Claverley’s voice gentled. “Your father was—is—a good man. He loved your mother. I never doubted that, and neither did Antonia. Don’t judge him too harshly.”

“I don’t,” said Eve sadly. “He thought that love would carry the day and discovered that he was wrong.” She rallied with a smile. “What normal man wants to wake up one morning and find that he has shackled himself to a witch?”

She was trying to make light of it, but she was remembering the quarrels, the heartache, and, most of all, the regret. Her parents never should have married, and they’d both come to see it when it was too late.

Miss Claverley looked troubled and took Eve’s hands into her own. “Don’t confuse Lord Denison with your father. The viscount is not narrow-minded. The scope of his—”

“Ash Denison!” Eve pulled her hands from Miss Claverley’s clasp. “How did he come into the conversation?” Now she was wriggling for all she was worth, trying to get free of her aunt’s hook. “I was talking about Papa and Mama. Lord Denison is a viscount, for heaven’s sake. I’m a gardener’s daughter. There can never be anything between us.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Miss Claverley touched a finger to her lips to quell an incipient smile. “He’s unconventional. I don’t think he’d let a little thing like that stand in his way.”

Eve got up with as much dignity as she could summon. “That’s not the point. I don’t think I shall ever marry. I won’t be locked into the kind of marriage my parents had.”

Miss Claverley’s brows snapped together as she studied Eve. “If you don’t possess the charisma,” she said slowly, “and you’ve always denied that you have it, how could your marriage possibly turn out to be like your mother’s?”

Eve hesitated too long.

Her aunt rose and gave her a searching look. “Your powers are coming back to you,” she said. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

Eve’s laugh was short and mirthless. “Yes and no. In fits and starts. I feel like an infant learning to read. Every letter, every symbol is a puzzle I have to laboriously decipher.”

“Give it time. You’ll improve with practice.”

Eve nodded, but she was thinking that time was something that was fast running out.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Eve’s eyes jerked up to meet her aunt’s anxious gaze. For a moment she hesitated, then checked the impulse. Her gift was leading her into danger, and she did not want her aunt to worry. And if her aunt started worrying about her, Eve would start worrying about her aunt, then they’d both be miserable.

She smiled into her aunt’s anxious eyes. “Don’t worry, Aunt Millicent. Antonia is guiding me.”

It was said unthinkingly, but as soon as the words were out, Eve realized that she truly believed it.
Antonia is guiding me.

Eve wakened with a start. Someone was knocking softly on her door, repeating her name over and over in a pleading undertone. Dexter was on the other side of the door, too, whining as though he were hurt. It took her only a moment to shrug into her dressing robe and open the door.

Andy, the bootboy, a tall, dark-haired lad of about twelve or thirteen summers, was shifting uneasily from foot to foot. He was devoted to Dexter, and that was enough to make Eve like and trust him.

Andy often took Dexter out for a late-night walk, but not this late. “What happened, Andy? Did Dexter wander off on his own? You should have left him to it. One of the porters would have let him in when he decided to come home.”

“It’s a tinker girl, miss,” he croaked out. “Dexter found her in the boiler room and, well, she needs help. She asked for you. I think she has broken her ankle.”

Tinker girl.
Eve knew at once that he must mean Nell. Only something like a broken ankle would induce her to seek help. And who else would she come to?

“Lead the way.”

Nell’s fear-bright eyes fixed on Eve when she entered the boiler room, then the fear faded and she gave Eve a shy smile. “Eve,” she said.

As Eve knelt beside her, she said to Andy, “Does Cook keep a stockpot on the boil?”

“Always.”

“Then fetch me a cup—a big cup, mind you.” In a gentler voice, she said to Nell, “What happened?”

“Fell.”

And that, thought Eve, was all she was going to get out of her. “Show me your ankle.”

Nell’s shoes, the shoes that Eve had given her, were warming beside the boiler, but the clothes she was wearing were nothing but rags, fit only for burning.

Shaking her head, Eve examined the painfully thin leg Nell stretched out and gently probed the ankle. It was swollen, but not broken.

Andy arrived with the cup of stock, and after testing how hot it was, Eve gave the cup to Nell. As Nell sipped slowly and carefully, Eve said, “I’ll need something to bind Nell’s ankle, Andy. A tea towel would do. And wring it out in hot water.”

When Andy came back with the tea towel, Eve set to work. Dexter whined, but not a whimper passed Nell’s lips. Though she knew that she was wasting her breath, Eve told Nell she would have to rest her foot and bind it every few hours as she was doing. Finally, losing patience, she said, “If only you would let me send you to my home in Henley—”

She didn’t complete the sentence before Nell shook her head violently.

“It won’t do, miss,” said Andy. “Tinkers and gypsies is wild. You can’t tame them to live in houses like ordinary folk. They’re like deer or foxes. They have to be free.”

“And what would you know about tinkers and gypsies?” Eve demanded. Her voice was rough, not because she was angry but because she knew Andy was right.

“My pa was a gypsy. He stayed with my mam for a little while, but when I was three or four, he went off wandering and we never saw him again.”

Eve wanted to kick herself. She shouldn’t be taking her frustration out on Andy. “I’m sorry, Andy. That was mean-spirited. You’ve been so helpful. Do you think you can do one more thing for me? See if you can find something in the laundry room for Nell to wear. Oh, and get her something to eat, as well.”

When she was alone with Nell, she said, “You were under my window when Mrs. Rivers was attacked, weren’t you?”

Nell’s only response was in her eyes. They returned Eve’s steady stare.

“You screamed when you saw the man attack Mrs. Rivers—I mean, the lady in the white dress?”

Nell answered with the faintest motion of her head.

“Did you see his face?”

“Too…dark.”

Eve let out a long breath. “He doesn’t know that, though. I don’t think it’s safe for you here anymore. Is there someone I can take you to? Somewhere else you’d like to go? Someone in town, perhaps?”

Nell’s dark eyes flared with fear. “Stay here! Safe here!”

Eve spread her hands. “It’s all right. I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

Andy returned with a bundle of clothes. “This was all I could find.” After handing them over, he fished a hunk of bread and a bigger hunk of cheese from his pockets.

Eve took the clothes. Nell took the bread and cheese and had a healthy bite of each.

“Boy’s clothes,” said Eve. She slowly shook them out. “You’ve done well, Andy. Now leave us alone for a minute.”

Eve thought she might have a tussle on her hands, but Nell reached for the clothes and stroked them reverently. “For me?”

“For you.”

Nell buried her nose in the bundle of clothes. Her eyes were sparkling when she looked at Eve. “Smell nice.”

“That’s because they’re newly laundered.”

Nell smiled at Eve, and Eve’s heart turned over. She looked so young, so pretty, and so innocent. How could anyone have had this child committed to Bedlam?

Eve blinked to rid herself of the hateful burning in her eyes. That burning itch only got worse when she helped Nell disrobe and get dressed—the thin shoulders, the flat chest, the protruding ribs. “We need to put some flesh on your bones.” She gave a little cough to clear the gruffness from her throat. “I’ll think of something, but just remember, if you’re ever in trouble, you can come to me.”