The Sleeping Partner (17 page)

“Oh, no, miss.” Wheeler put his hand out to stop her. “You put that away. I won’t take money from you. We’re all worried about Miss Evie. Just you find her.” He got to his feet.

Miss Tolerance promised to do her best. “But take this, and drink Miss Thorpe’s health in the servants’ hall, if you will.” She slid a pair of coins across the table. This time Mr. Wheeler did not refuse.

Miss Tolerance emerged from the Spotted Dog to find that night had fallen while she was inside. She looked about for a chair or hackney; seeing neither she determined to walk back to Manchester Square. In this neighborhood most households were scrupulous in observing the ordinance requiring a lantern or torch in the doorway; there was a good deal of foot traffic beside, and carriages in the street. Miss Tolerance crossed Bryanstone Street and turned on to Upper Seymour Street. It was as she approached Portman Square that she first sensed that she was being followed.

The hour was not late. Despite her dress and relative lack of weaponry (after an episode where she had been forced to defend herself with a pocket mirror, she had begun to keep a small pistol in her reticule, but considered it a tool of last resort) she did not feel particularly apprehensive. Seymour Street was too well traveled at this hour for her to feel much endangered. She could not have said why she was certain she was being followed; she had learned to trust her instincts and the odd crawling sensation between her shoulder blades. She increased her pace and took her reticule in hand, just in case.

Two young men, dressed gentlemanly but foolish with drink, were attempting to scale the iron fence that surrounded the green in the square. Miss Tolerance observed them and wondered, if she had to call for help, whether they would respond. As she left the square the sensation of being followed ceased. She kept her reticule in her hand and walked purposefully along, turned on Duke Street, and very quickly arrived at Mrs. Brereton’s house. After a moment’s thought she decided to avoid the darkness of Spanish Place, and knocked on the door of the big house.

Cole opened the door. The hall was unoccupied, and Miss Tolerance thought she might pass through the house to her own cottage without notice. She went past the stair toward the back of the house, noting a good deal of cheerful noise from one of the salons. She skirted the room and had very nearly reached the servants’ door when she was hailed.

“Sarah!”

Miss Tolerance turned. Marianne Touchwell stood in the door of the blue salon. Her expression was unremarkable, but there was something in her manner which expressed wariness. She advanced and laced her arm through Miss Tolerance’s.

“‘Tis a good thing you’ve come,” Marianne said. Her tone was serene, but there was warning in her eye. “You must come and join the toast. Parliament has just voted the regency to the Prince of Wales, and your aunt says she’s to be married.”

Chapter Nine

“Married?” Speaking the word drove every other consideration from Miss Tolerance’s mind. Her aunt to wed, who had always spoken with the greatest feeling against the institution of marriage and in favor of her own form of unfettered enterprise? “Aunt Thea?”

Marianne’s nod was a warning. “Yes, to Mr. Tickenor. Come and wish them well.” She put her hand over Miss Tolerance’s own, where it lay on her arm, and led her into the salon. As Mrs. Brereton’s whores were required, when in the public rooms and not directly engaged with a customer, to be appropriately dressed, it might have been any scene of respectable celebration: women in
mouseseline de soie
and men in evening dress drank punch and engaged in muted conversation. Yet there was a scent of anxiety in the room at odds with merriment. Not one whore there, Miss Tolerance thought, but must be wondering what this news meant for her. As she entered the room a masculine voice called out, “To the happy couple!”

“The happy couple!” The words repeated around the room.

Mrs. Brereton had the place of honor, seated on a sofa near the fire with her intended Mr. Tickenor by her side. Her color was high, her eyes bright; she looked exalted, Miss Tolerance thought. After all these years, could her aunt be truly in love?

“Sarah, you do not drink to me?” There was an edge to Mrs. Brereton’s voice.

“With the greatest joy, the moment I have a glass in my hand, Aunt.” Miss Tolerance approached the sofa, bent, and kissed her aunt’s cheek. “I wish you every and all happiness, ma’am.” She straightened and curtsied to Mr. Tickenor, who was observing her with interest. “And you, sir, have my congratulations.”

Tickenor inclined his head in the manner of royalty. He had, she saw, his arm around Mrs. Brereton’s waist, and was running one finger along the side of her breast. Miss Tolerance had never seen her aunt permit such a caress in public. She looked behind her for Marianne, but her friend was at the table where punch was being served, being talked to enthusiastically by a young man with poetical hair. Miss Tolerance was sure her friend was as disturbed as she herself.

She turned back to her aunt. “When is the happy day to be?”

“We have not yet decided. Tickenor swears he cannot go on long without my undivided attention!” Mrs. Brereton chuckled and tapped Tickenor’s thigh with her fan. “But I must have time to get my bride-clothes ready.”

“Oh, certainly, ma’am.” Miss Tolerance cast about for something else to say. This had the quality of nightmare: her aunt was many things but she had never before been
vulgar.
“And after, will you have a bridal trip? The war makes the matter difficult, but—”

“We haven’t planned that far, have we, my dear?” Tickenor squeezed his intended to him in a rough caress and smiled at Miss Tolerance. The smile did not reach his eyes. “My dear niece, if I may call you so? For now, we plan only to come back and see to the running of matters here.”

“I hope you will not let worry for the house keep you from indulging in a trip, aunt. You know that Marianne and your staff could manage without you for a time.”

It seemed an inoffensive remark, but Mrs. Brereton was determined to take offense. “What do you mean, Sarah? If Tickenor says we will return here, that is what we shall do. Are you trying to prise the management of the house from my fingers?”

“Not in the least, aunt. You know that I have no aspirations in that direction! I meant only what I said: that you should not deny yourself the pleasure of a honeymoon out of concern for your business.”

“Well, it is
my
business,” Mrs. Brereton snapped. “That will not change because I am marrying.”

“I am sure everyone here is delighted to hear it.”

“Everyone?” Mrs. Brereton looked around the room as if she had forgotten the other occupants. “Why?”

“Why, because they care for you and wish you well.” Miss Tolerance gestured to the crowd, most of whom had left off their own conversations and were attending to this one with considerable interest. “And because their livelihoods depend upon you.”

Mrs. Brereton pushed Tickenor’s hand from her breast and stood up. She was nearly as tall as her niece, and looked into Miss Tolerance’s eyes with icy displeasure. “What business is that of yours?”

Miss Tolerance did not wish to quarrel with her aunt. She particularly had no wish to quarrel here, in the parlor of London’s most elegant brothel, with half the world attending. She kept her tone light and agreeable.

“You are perfectly right, aunt. It is no business of mine. I only—”

Mrs. Brereton slapped her. It was so unexpected that Miss Tolerance had not prepared herself to meet the blow, let alone to defend against it. Tears of pain came to her eyes, and she brought her hand up to cover the spot. Mrs. Brereton sat down beside Tickenor again, quite as though nothing had occurred. The rest of the room was silent for a moment, then talk began at an even louder volume.

Mrs. Brereton sipped her wine and said, quite as if nothing untoward had occurred, “Have you heard, Sarah, that Parliament has at last voted? The Regency Act names the Prince of Wales, and poor Queen Charlotte is relieved of all authority. I’ll warrant our friend Sheridan must be in a frenzy tonight.”

Miss Tolerance forced herself to speak. “I imagine the entire Whig party are meeting to see how they can turn the Regency to their best ends. But ma’am, I—”

Marianne was beside her and pressed a glass of punch into her hand. “Drink their healths and say good night,” she murmured.

“Aunt, Mr. Tickenor, again I wish you the greatest joy.” Miss Tolerance raised her glass and drank. “I hope you will excuse me. I am very tired.”

“Of course, my dear.” Mrs. Brereton was all solicitousness, neither vulgar nor enraged now. “Marianne, tell Cook to send supper to the cottage.”

Miss Tolerance murmured her thanks, curtsied, and frankly fled.

In the hall she and Marianne faced each other.

“Has she been bewitched?” Miss Tolerance ran her fingers along her jaw. “What in God’s name could have caused such changes in her? Is it Tickenor? I should not have thought—”

“I think yon Tickenor has his eye upon the business. I’ve seen him prowling about with the same eye a man uses to size up a good horse. But your aunt?” Marianne turned toward the kitchen. She did not continue until they had passed through the green baize door that led to the servants’ hall. “She hasn’t been right since she was taken ill last winter.”

“She has not seemed an invalid—”

“I don’t mean sick; she hasn’t had so much as a sniffle since. But you know her manner’s changed. I’d put it down to—I don’t know what to call it. Knowing that she’s none so young as she used to be, nor her looks won’t hold out forever.”

“But how could vanity account for such a sea-change?” Miss Tolerance considered. “I suppose it would explain Mr. Tickenor, if love does not. But the rest—” Gingerly she put her fingers to her jaw again.

“I don’t know, Sarah. But I’ll tell you what it reminds me of. There was a woman at my—at my first house—”

Miss Tolerance had never before heard so much as a hint that Marianne had not joined Mrs. Brereton’s establishment straight from her ruin. “Last house? Where? When was that?”

“In Westminster. I left there a year before you came to us. T’was not so
congenial
a place as this one.” A wealth of sobering information was contained in one word. “The abbess’s mam lived in the house. She was an old whore, retired, and we all thought her fit as a horse. She kept household, a merry old thing. Saw to the table, ordered the candles and the laundry done. Then, as winter started to come on she—first she wanted to start whoring again. Kept nosing about the gentlemen who came for us girls, talking coarse and shoving her bubbies at them. Flirting with them! You might imagine how it took the men aback! Then she took the notion that someone was trying to poison her. She flew into tempers over nothing, went for the cook with a knife! Finally Mrs. Deeper—that was the abbess—had to lock her in her room.”

“What happened to her?” Miss Tolerance could not forbear to ask, horrified.

Marianne shook her head. “I don’t know. I left. It wasn’t a pleasant sort of place, even before the old woman went odd. But I remember someone there saying she believed the pox had gone to the old woman’s brain.”

“Pox? But you said she was retired.”

“She was, but you know that sometimes the treatments don’t take. I don’t know, Sarah. I mention it because it’s the only other time I’ve seen anyone so changed from her nature.”

“Last winter, didn’t the doctor suggest my aunt be treated for—”

“Pox? Yes. But she never was. She thought—we thought, Frost and I—that all the change in her was due to the apoplexy she suffered when she was feverish. But this—madness….”

“Do you think that is what this is? What are we to do?” Miss Tolerance regarded her friend with horror.

“I don’t know. Wait to see if this brainstorm passes and speak to her if it does. I know she don’t like doctors, but there must be someone who could see to her. Like that man that tried to help the King when he went off his head.”

“Doctor Willis?” Miss Tolerance pursed her lips. “He died some years ago, I believe. And I don’t believe we will easily persuade my aunt to see a physician.”

The two women stopped at the door to the garden. “Then we must wait and hope,” Marianne said. “To be honest, Sarah, I do not know what to counsel else. And I should go back.” She looked over her shoulder toward the salon.

Miss Tolerance nodded. After a moment of uneasy silence, Marianne embraced Miss Tolerance. “We shall look after her and see she comes to no harm. Now, I’ll have Jess bring some supper over, shall I?”

Miss Tolerance spent a bad night and felt thick-headed and useless the next morning. She dressed, and was lacing her boots when Keefe knocked at the door.

“You never ate your supper, Miss Sarah.” He looked at the untouched tray on the table with disapproval.

“I beg your pardon, Keefe. I forgot about it completely.”

The porter nodded, frowning. “These is worrisome times.” He was not, she knew, speaking of the war or the Regency. He withdrew a fold of paper from his pocket, an object whose dignity did not merit being presented on a tray. “Them boys come this morning with your report, miss.”

It took Miss Tolerance a moment to recall who “them boys” were and what they might be reporting on. Then, with more eagerness, she took the paper. “Thank you, Keefe. What did you disburse on my behalf?”

He named a sum; Miss Tolerance paid him. “Thank you, miss. I beg your pardon for asking, but…what’s to become of the household?”

Oh dear.
“I do not know, Keefe. I have very little power to do anything,” she told him frankly. “But what I have, I shall use to make sure that my aunt does not forget her responsibilities to all of you.”

Keefe nodded. “I knew you would, Miss Sarah, but it’s relieving to hear it said. I’ll tell the others.”

The porter left. Miss Tolerance hoped she had not promised more than she could accomplish. She opened the paper Keefe had brought her.

As before, it took a little time to decipher Ted’s scribbles. A sharper pencil and less inventive spelling would have helped, as would punctuation. Lady Brereton had visited in a house in Cork Street and returned after an hour. Mr. Henry Thorpe had visited, then gone on to his club in St. James’s Street and stayed there late—too late for that spy to stay out, lest he get a whipping from his mother. Lord Lyne had been the busiest. He had gone to his club, to a haberdashery, then back to his home. He had then gone out again an hour later, to a shop in Fox Street in Shadwell. The business located there was (if she could trust Ted’s scrawl) called Amisley and Pound Drayage, and Lord Lyne had spent half an hour there before returning home for the evening. The man to whom he had spoken, Ted wrote, was the same red-haired man in the green coat who had visited in Duke of York Street the day before. What business would bring a man from Shadwell to Lyne’s house, or take the baron to Fox Street? If it were a simple matter of shipping, might it not as easily be handled by Lyne’s agent or secretary? Somehow she had assumed the man in the green coat was an acquaintance of Henry Thorpe’s, not Lord Lyne’s. Decidedly this red-haired man was a person of interest. Miss Tolerance decided that a call at Amisley and Pound Drayage was in order.