The Rambunctious Lady Royston (23 page)

She didn't get quite as early a start as she had hoped the next day—not because she had any difficulty getting out of the mansion, but simply because the "ancient" man she had married had reserves of stamina at which she could only marvel. He had kept her pleasantly (and almost constantly) occupied the night before until she was at last forced to plead fatigue. She had, shamefully, overslept.

Samantha thus felt more than a twinge or two of guilt as she let herself out into the mews and trotted off down the alley to hail a hackney to take her the scant mile to Conduit Street. Chary of confiding in anyone her whole life long (as most of the confidences she had to share were self- incriminating), she hesitated about telling Zachary of Isabella's dilemma and her own part in the situation, for fear he would disapprove—and for fear he would throw a rub in her way, thus letting Isabella down and depriving herself of an investigative lark that made her feel like a Bow Street runner on the trail of a case.

Soon she would get her first glimpse of the encroaching toad who dared to play fast and loose with her sister's affections.

The glove shop impressed her as soon as she saw it. A smallish establishment, tucked away as it was down one of the less favored (but still fashionable) streets near New Bond Street, it had an air of respectability about it that was echoed in its clean flagway, sparkling bow window, and tasteful display of wares.

She entered the shop and was stopped in her tracks by the sight of the young gentleman who had come to her aid at the Bartholomew Fair. He was standing now behind the counter, obviously waiting on customers.

Robert? She searched her memory. Yes, he had given his name as Robert when they exchanged introductions. Samantha had called herself Smythe-Wright on that occasion, so her scheme was still operable.

Robert saw Samantha at much the same time. He quickly smiled his recognition and waved a greeting before a rather large female and her two companions (daughters if their near-identical rotundness could be used as a guide) rudely called him back to attention.

In all it took a most tediously long and tension-filled hour before Madam's sausage-like fingers could be stuffed inside the fragile pigskin gloves she insisted were "just her size." As she waddled majestically out of the shop, with her daughters in tow, Samantha noticed that the woman's forearms were already becoming mottled as a result of her pigskin-restricted circulation.

Samantha approached Robert just as he was wiping the perspiration from his brow. He grinned and commented, "There she goes at long last: the sow and her two piglets, heading back to the trough. It's a pity, isn't it, how the need to be fashionable pushes people into wearing on their hands the hides of their own relatives. Ugh!"

What an odd fellow to be an assistant glover, Samantha thought. Not only is he too handsome by half—with that coal black hair and those magnificent, yet strangely sad, grey eyes—to be stuck away behind this counter, but he's got the arrogance of a lord, though he wisely keeps it hidden. He's too thin, and he could use a few weeks in the country to put the color back in his face, but nothing can take away from the fact that he is an extremely well-set-up young man.

"Robert," she ventured, as the young glover returned his stock to the shelf behind the counter, "I sought you out purposely to thank you again for your assistance when first we met. Now that my pockets have been, shall we say, re-lined, I would be honored if you'd be my guest at some local tavern of your choice, where we can share a bird and bottle and get to know one another better."

This improvisation on her plan—thought up, as it were, on the spot—proved believable, and when Jack Bratting came downstairs a few minutes later and heard the plan, he was quick to shoo Robert away, saying it was high time the young lad had a bit of relaxation.

Two plump birds and three bottles (largely consumed by Robert) later, Samantha had learned no more about her companion's background than she had known before. But she had, by way of observation and a quick ear, learned that Robert ate, drank, spoke, and thought like a gentleman—not a glover.

It was only when Samantha brought Isabella's name into the conversation—neatly done by saying he was staying with the Ardsleys, as they were old family friends—that Robert's composure suffered a shock.

From then on until she could shut him up over an hour later, Samantha was subjected to a nonstop recital of Isabella's saintly qualities and declarations of her unrivaled beauty. This brought on first a desire to giggle, and eventually made Samantha want to gag. Greater love hath no sister than that she be forced to listen to such a cataloguing of her sibling's virtues—while refraining from sharing a few choice reminiscences of some of that same sister's less than shining hours.

"So it sits serious with you, does it, Robert?" she broke in at last, forestalling yet another maudlin antidote highlighting Isabella's angelic character.

Robert slumped in his chair, all the stuffing having suddenly gone out of him. "Isabella is worthy of only my highest regard," he intoned heavily. "She is quite above my touch, you know, but I would not feel it hopeless if I could but believe she felt even the smallest
tendre
towards me."

Samantha was quick to pick up on Robert's casual use of French, and she was more confused than ever about this paradox of a man who was half gentleman, half clerk.

Robert had been silently inspecting the tabletop, as if for flaws, for some minutes. Samantha waited patiently for him to go on before he suddenly slammed his fist down on the wood—scattering the cutlery and rocking their half-empty bottles—and declared vehemently, "There is nothing else for it. I cannot ask her father for her hand. I shall have to give her up. There can be no future for a poor glover and a delicately-nurtured female deserving of nothing less than the best life has to offer." He hung his head and muttered dramatically, "I have said it all. I cannot trust myself to say more."

My gracious, Samantha thought—perhaps meanly— either all hot-blooded half-in-their-cups young men become perfect fools when they fall in love, or Robert's manners and airs come from a background in the theatre. Aloud she only said, "Robert, I beg you not to be such an ape. Giving Isabella up would be gallant to the point of idiocy. You'd be heartbroken and Izzy—I mean, Isabella—would probably take it into her head to go into a sad decline. No," she concluded firmly, "your answer lies elsewhere. As an opener, I suggest you be more forthcoming about your past, or the gel's father won't even give you the time of day."

"I'm nobody, from nowhere, and that's all there is to that," Robert groaned fatalistically. "It's hopeless."

Three hours and another bottle later (her companion still doing the imbibing, as Samantha had learned her lesson and was not one to make the same mistake twice), Robert had agreed to the loan of ten pounds—enough to buy himself a suit of clothes and the other necessaries he would need if he were to present himself to Sir Stephen with any hope of being heard.

Just as they were parting, Robert asked if Sam had any "special feelings" for Isabella himself, having had the privilege of knowing her almost since the cradle. "How could you know her and not love her?" he reasoned, with all the blindness of a man deep under Cupid's spell.

"Isabella and I grew up together—almost as brother and sister, you could say. I love her, of course I do, but I love her as a sister," Samantha said, tongue-in-cheek.

"Ah," smiled Robert, "like a sister. And that's why you are helping us. I understand perfectly now."

Samantha patted Robert on the shoulder, rose to leave, and—as she gave her hat a securing tap and held our her arm to him—retorted smoothly, "Robert, old sport, you don't perceive the half of it!"

The pair then stepped out into the waning sunlight so that Samantha could flag down a hackney, agreeing to meet the following week to talk again. She did not see Carstairs as he watched from the flagway in front of the chandler's shop, where he had just completed an errand for the housekeeper.

Instead, Samantha was concentrating on what she had learned that afternoon. One: Jack Bratting treated his employee like a friend. No, more than a friend: he acted as if he were slightly in awe of Robert. Two: Robert was honestly and sincerely in love with Isabella, as she was certain Isabella was in love with him. Three: much as she liked him, Samantha would feel uneasy about lending herself to their purpose unless Robert revealed more of his past. And Four: the pair had about as much chance of gaining Sir Stephen's blessing as did the hulking Prince Regent of ever again looking down to see what color stockings he had on!

She sobered then, and pondered once more the advisability of sharing her problem with Zachary. After a short tussle with her conscience, she decided to postpone her decision for a few days. Perhaps longer.

It can't be but wondered if she would have changed her mind had she seen the smirking face of Carstairs as he hurried back to Portman Square—there to seek an immediate audience with his employer.

Zachary St. John was just splashing some of the Royston cellar's best wine into a crystal-stemmed glass, in anticipation of spending a pleasant hour before his fire reflecting on his new-found domestic happiness, when the study door opened and Carstairs—hat still in hand—asked permission to enter and have a few words with his lordship "on a matter of some delicacy."

St. John nodded his head in the affirmative, without even attempting to hide his displeasure at being disturbed. Dreadful pest of a man, he thought idly: I cannot fathom why I continue to tolerate his presence in the household.

As the butler postured and cleared his throat, the Earl stared up at him impassively. When the silence became intolerable, he at last prompted, "Well, man, get on with it. You have something of great import to say to me, else why would you dare to disturb me in the privacy of my study. If you have had second thoughts, just say so, and ask my permission to retire. Shortly I must go and dress, as her ladyship will soon be returning."

Mention of the Countess seemed to bring Carstairs to life (if the slight smile and the raising of two thin eyebrows could be said to be animating) and, sneering condescension and malicious pity evident in his voice, he told his sordid little story.

"It was in Conduit Street that I observed her, my lord, your wife (he seemed to have an aversion to connecting Samantha with her new title) and the young man. I am sure it was she. Having seen her parading about in breeches before, there can be no doubt in my mind of her identity, and she and the gentleman were—I wish I could spare you this, my lord—they were coming out of a public tavern, arm in arm."

Zachary was all attention now, although he took pains to hide this from his smug servant. "Proceed," he intoned placidly, as Carstairs paused, most probably for effect.

"Yes, my lord," the butler said, slightly taken aback by St. John's seeming unconcern.

"I could not see her companion's face as they separated and the man went off in the other direction—away from where I was standing, for if you understand my position was somewhat up the block and across the street."

St. John rolled his eyes. "Yes, Carstairs, I think you can be assured that I have sufficient imagination as to picture the scene you describe. Continue."

But Carstairs was slowly coming to the realization that, instead of taking this information in the spirit in which it was offered—the disclosure of the tawdry activities of the Earl's wife as related to him by a reluctant but loyal servant, who felt it to be in his lordship's best interests to have the lady's indiscretions brought to his notice—the Earl was looking at him with more than faint distaste.

His lordship must understand that he was not tattle-telling for any hope of personal gain. Well, perhaps that was stretching the point a little. Carstairs did not, it was true, entertain any thought of personal reward—in a monetary sense, that is. However, if his lordship was moved to discipline his outlandish wife—or even, in time perhaps, to shed himself of the dratted woman entirely—the servant would not be able to find it in his heart to be saddened.

But the Earl must be made to realize the enormity of his wife's crimes. To this end, the servant went on to expound at some length on the unacceptable behavior of Lady Royston, starting with her first footstep across the threshold on their return from their honeymoon. He went on, in his audacity, to conjecture that Samantha's meeting with the shabbily dressed young man that day was in the nature of continuing a clandestine romance that had been the cause of all of Samantha's deplorable excursions in masculine dress. When at last his impassioned speech trailed off in mutterings about the Royston good name and warnings of what the dowager might think, the Earl rose from his chair and, with his hands clasped behind his back, proceeded to pace about the room.

Eventually he halted in front of the butler and said, "Is it not strange, Carstairs, that for the last ten minutes I have listened as you unburdened yourself of your dislike of my wife? Don't try to deny it, sir," he shot, as the butler began to protest. "As you were speaking, I tried racking my brain to come up with a single instance when my wife—her ladyship to you, my man—ever spoke an ill word of you. I could not do so. Not a one."

Carstairs wanted to say something—it was clear by the way he opened his mouth—but then he seemed to think better of it and shut it again.

It made no matter in any event, as Royston had already made up his mind. "You are dismissed, Carstairs," he told the man.

"You mean, my lord, I may return to my duties?" Carstairs offered hopefully.

"Meaning you are dismissed, sir! See my secretary about your wages and a reference," the Earl returned wearily, before turning his back on the servant and taking up his wineglass.

"Well, that's that," he told himself, as he raised his glass in a mock salute. "Any hope I harbored that Samantha would heed any of my lectures on tramping about London on her own have been thoroughly scotched. I may as well have saved my breath."