The Sleeping Partner (21 page)

“Ain’t you going to punish ‘im, miss?” The bandy-legged man who had brought the child back was disappointed.

“I think he meant no harm, sir. But thank you for finding him. Now, if you will forgive me—” Miss Tolerance turned carefully back to the carriage.

The aproned man helped her in. “Where are you wishing to go, miss? I’ll tell the jarvey.” Unable to face the ride back to Manchester Square Miss Tolerance gave him closest direction she could think of; her rescuer closed the door and struck the side of the carriage to let the driver know he might move on. The sound made Miss Tolerance’s head hurt anew.

Within a few minutes the coach drew up in Gracechurch Street, before the house of Sir Walter Mandif.

Chapter Eleven

Perhaps the greatest stroke of good fortune Miss Tolerance had experienced in a singularly luckless day was to find Sir Walter Mandif at home when she arrived. The jarvey, inspired by the promise of a lavish tip, had stepped to the door to inquire there. Miss Tolerance, for whom even the short ride had been as horrid as she had imagined, leaned out at the door of the coach in time to see Michael, Sir Walter’s manservant, open the door. She waved, the jarvey explained, and Michael ran to fetch his master.

A moment later Sir Walter was at the door of the coach, paying the jarvey and assisting Miss Tolerance into the house. He said nothing, for which she was very grateful, but his face was pale and his lips pressed together. Miss Tolerance was brought into a small front parlor which, from its mustiness, she suspected was rarely used, and placed in a winged chair by the fireplace. Michael, who normally bounded about with the energy of a half-grown hunting dog, knelt to catch the fire and then, after a murmured consultation with Sir Walter, left the room.

“I have sent for a surgeon,” Sir Walter said, low. “Have the goodness to sit here quietly while I find bandages and tea and—”

“I shall not move,” Miss Tolerance promised. “You might wish to put a rag upon the back of the chair. I should not want to bleed upon your cushion.”

“The cushion is not of the least consequence,” Sir Walter said, and left the room.

Miss Tolerance, who had begun to feel that chill which sometimes accompanies a sudden injury, sat quietly by the fire, her eyes open but unfocused. She was not aware of how long it took for Sir Walter to return; he was heralded by the clink of china on a tray and the smell of smoky tea.

“First, let me make you more comfortable,” the magistrate said. “Would you prefer to do this yourself, or will you permit me?” He held a damp scrap of linen in his hand. Miss Tolerance bent her head forward, wincing as she did so, and silently offered the back of her head to his ministration. Sir Walter took the remaining pins from her hair and pushed the mass of it forward, away from the wound. He dabbed carefully and inexpertly at the lump.

“I think the bleeding was caused by your hairpins, which the blow drove into your scalp,” he told her. “The worst of that is stopped. But there is some very nasty swelling. You are lucky your hair is so thick; I believe it absorbed some of the blow.”

“I am a lucky woman,” Miss Tolerance muttered. She was beginning to feel drowsy.

Sir Walter cradled her head and guided it back against the chair. “The surgeon will be here soon. Michael has just come from summoning him. May I give you some tea?”

He might have been speaking to her at the punch table at Almacks. Miss Tolerance fought an inappropriate giggle. “Yes, please.”

The hot tea—smokier than the blend Miss Tolerance normally favored—settled her stomach and helped her to focus her thoughts. She was sitting in drowsy silence with Sir Walter, her hands curled around the cup, when the surgeon arrived a few minutes later.

He made quick, brutal work of his examination, and equally quick work of the stitches that closed the gash on her scalp. He echoed Sir Walter’s congratulations upon the thickness of her hair—”‘Tis likely what saved your life, ma’am.”—and fixed a bandage over the wound. When it was done Miss Tolerance was trembling and soaked with sweat. She had not cried out, of which she was pardonably proud, nor had she given in to the profound nausea which had returned at the surgeon’s touch.

Sir Walter saw the surgeon to the door. Miss Tolerance could hear the murmuring of consultation between the two men, then he returned to her.

“Mr. O’Leary says you are on no account to be moved.”

“What, never? How exceptionally inconvenient.” Miss Tolerance attempted a humorous tone.

“For at least two days. May I send a note to your aunt to apprise her of what has happened? I shall, of course, retire to an hotel—”

Miss Tolerance’s head came up too fast. She winced. “Pray do not be foolish, Sir Walter.” She sucked in her breath. “I am Fallen. Do you think I can be further ruined? If I had thought, when I told the coachman to bring me here, that you might be so silly as to—I appreciate your scruples, but I assure you, in this case they are needless. Unless, of course, it is your own reputation that concerns you—”

Sir Walter smiled for the first time, although the crease of worry between his brows did not vanish altogether. “I think I can withstand any gossip. And if you will not mind my presence I am happy to be here: Mr. O’Leary says you are to be closely watched. My cook might have done it, but it would have taken considerable persuasion—Mrs. Yarrow likes her own hearth of an evening, as she has often told me. Now, are you able to tell me what befell you?”

Miss Tolerance proceeded to explain the circumstances of the attack.

“You are certain the boy knew nothing more than he said?”

“I think he was honest—he seemed too frightened to be elsewise. And he was not the sort of poor child who might have been sold to a cutpurse for lookout or climbing jobs. He was well-dressed and well-spoken, neither of which are proof of virtue, I know, but my instinct is—”

“For the moment let us trust your instinct,” Sir Walter said. “More tea?”

Miss Tolerance was later to look back upon that evening as remarkable. She had come to rely upon Sir Walter Mandif’s friendship, but these were extraordinary circumstances, and Sir Walter, in his unassuming attentiveness, behaved like an intimate of much longer—and closer—standing. He dispatched Michael to Mrs. Brereton’s house with a note for Marianne Touchwell—she did not think it wise to tell her aunt what had befallen her at this chancy time. Then, when Sir Walter had assured himself that his guest was as comfortable as her injuries would permit, he brought a book and read to her from Mrs. Edgeworth for an hour. Miss Tolerance was surprised he had such a work in his library, but his voice was soothing. She dozed for a while and woke to find Sir Walter watching her. Had she been well, this sudden intimacy would have oppressed her, but on this evening it was a comfort.

“Have you no work to do? I am very sorry to keep you here if you had ought to be in court or—”

“Do not trouble yourself. I have arranged to be my own master today. Now, I shall check the dressing on your wound and then we shall dine, if that is agreeable.”

Miss Tolerance remembered in time not to nod her head. Sir Walter rose and came around the back of her chair. Again he pushed the heavy fall of her hair forward, off her neck. He pulled back the dressing, touched the swollen lump, and returned the dressing to its place.

The sensation of his fingers grazing lightly across her neck was both pleasant and unsettling. She tensed for a moment, which brought the pain again. She flinched.

“I beg your pardon—”

“No, it is nothing. You have gentle hands,” she said lightly, and relaxed into their comfort.

“I do not wish to hurt you.” Sir Walter came around the chair so that she could see him without turning her head. “There is no bleeding, the stitches Mr. O’Leary put in appear clean, and the lump on your skull seems a little smaller to my eye. How is your appetite?”

“Not very sharp, but I suppose you will say I must eat something to keep my strength up. At least you have not yet required me to drink spirits for their curative powers.”

“If I thought they had any—” he began.

“Mrs. Harris dosed her grandson insensible with gin this morning,” Miss Tolerance said. Sir Walter frowned at the non sequitur. “No, I am not wandering in my wits! By all means, let us have dinner, and I shall explain about Mrs. Harris.”

So they dined. It was bachelor fare, a loin of pork fragrant with apples, and roast potatoes, served to them in the parlor by a large, silent woman whom Miss Tolerance took to be Sir Walter’s cook. Miss Tolerance managed the broth that was placed before her first, and ate a little bread and, at Sir Walter’s urging, a few bites of the roast. But she was too queasy to eat more, and contented herself with describing her visit to Mrs. Harris’s rooms and what she had found there. She did not mention the woman’s occupation; Sir Walter might have been forced to take official action against her, and while Miss Tolerance disliked the woman she did not wish to see her transported.

“So it was by her suggestion that you were in Threadneedle Street?”

“By her suggestion that I was in Throgmorton Street. After that I walked about the neighborhood to think. But yes: if anyone would know I should be in that neighborhood it would have been she. My first order of business, when I can stand up without pitching onto my face, will be to call on Mrs. Harris, you may be sure.”

“Perhaps I should do so—or have Hook and Penryn do so—”

Miss Tolerance entertained briefly the notion of Sir Walter’s two Runners, the Bow Street investigators who worked with him, calling upon Mrs. Harris. Bow Street, while well intentioned, was rarely discreet, and Miss Tolerance had promised her sister-at-law discretion. “I beg you will not. I can just imagine those gentlemen muddying the waters of that particular stream—which is none so clear as it is. I thank you, but will manage the matter myself in a day or so.”

Sir Walter’s eyebrows rose. “You expect to be up to managing matters in a day or so? No—” he held out a hand. “I will not argue with you. Not tonight. Mrs. Yarrow has made up a bedroom for you, if you are up to managing the stairs, and I will send her up to help you undress—”

“I have been dressing myself for years, Sir Walter,” Miss Tolerance said mildly.

“Indulge me.” His tone was dry. “I have sustained a considerable shock today.”

Miss Tolerance smiled and winced. “You do not have injured women descend upon your doorstop every day? I shall defer to your injured sensibilities, of course.”

In the middle of the night Miss Tolerance woke in an unfamiliar bed with a ferocious ache in her head. She could discern the outline of a figure slumped in a chair by the banked fire, but could not think who it might be. She sat up and regretted it, as the pain increased tenfold. She moaned, and the person in the chair stirred and unfolded himself, poured something from a jug on her bedside table, and supported her while she drank it.

“It will help you sleep,” Sir Walter murmured. He lowered her back onto the pillows and Miss Tolerance closed her eyes. She felt his hand on her brow, smoothing her hair away from her face.

A few minutes later, when she looked again, Sir Walter had returned to the chair and was, to all appearances, fast asleep.

In the morning Miss Tolerance received a note from Marianne Touchwell which urged that she take care of herself, and added that Mrs. Touchwell had told a politic story to Mrs. Brereton, both to keep her wondering where her niece was and to keep Sir Walter’s name from the matter.

“It is very kind of your friend, but I don’t think my reputation needs to be guarded.” Sir Walter handed the note to Miss Tolerance.

They were sitting in the parlor again, where Miss Tolerance had been able to eat a little more than she had done the day before. The curtains were drawn, as she found that light made her head hurt; they muffled the peal of bells from a dozen churches, calling parishioners to worship. Sir Walter was looking through papers which he had neglected yesterday.

“I do not think that was her chiefest concern. My aunt has been a little
notional
of late; she seems to resent the time I spend with you.”

Sir Walter was amazed. “Really? We do not meet so frequently—this is, of course, a highly unusual circumstance.”

Miss Tolerance sighed. “You know that my aunt was ill last winter? She has not been entirely herself since. Her jealousy, her betrothal—”

One of Sir Walter’s sandy brows rose. “Her
betrothal?
”

Miss Tolerance nodded—she could do so now without too much pain. “To a man named Tickenor.” Miss Tolerance strove to remember what Mr. Glebb had told her only yesterday, but it seemed to her that the blow to her skull had rattled a good number of memories loose. “He was helpful to my aunt some years ago in setting up her business.”

“Do you know anything about the man?”

“Only that, and—” the memory came back to her. “I am told he is not so deep in pocket as once he was. Which makes me fear that he may be taking advantage of my aunt.”

“It does seem a curious about face for a woman who has been so independent for so long. I thought you had told me she had no use for marriage.”

“She has said as much to me. This has taken us all aback, and I must say I am uneasy about the match. But I can say nothing to my aunt—”

“Surely you would be the most suitable person to speak.”

“I am afraid if I do so she will defend him by saying I am only interested in her business.”

“Her business?” Sir Walter put his papers, tidily stacked, to one side. “And are you?”

“No, Sir Walter, I am not. I have told my aunt often enough that I have no ambition to run her establishment.”

“When you give up your present employment—”

“Give it up? How should I?”

Sir Walter set his jaw as one determined to face an unpleasant task. “You are young now, but surely you cannot continue to face the hazards of your work indefinitely.”

“The hazard is no greater today than it was yesterday. When I am an old lady I shall very likely retire to a cottage in the suburbs and call myself Mrs. Smith or Mrs. Jones, as most retired Fallen do, and live upon my savings. All the more reason to work hard now. But that is not likely to happen for many years.”