Wife Errant (18 page)

Mr. Marchant was thrown into terrible uncertainty by the note. Like any childish, thoroughly selfish person, he was soon convinced he had been hard done by. Robbery hardly seemed too harsh a word for Esmée’s stunt, and he did not mean to tolerate it. He would march to her apartment and demand the bracelet back. But first he would have a beefsteak, as it was close to dinnertime, and a bottle of wine to buck up his spirits.

As he ate his solitary dinner, he reviewed his past and came to the conclusion that a married man his age was a fool to trifle with the muslin company. Esmée had cost him a monkey, and put his marriage in jeopardy to boot. It had been a happy marriage, barring a few arguments. His mind wandered to young Henry. He would be growing up one of these days. A man should not show his son a poor example. Yes, all things considered, it was time to reform.

After dinner he made a careful toilette, went out into the street, and hailed a hansom cab to take him to Mrs. Gardener’s flat. There was another advantage to reconciliation. He would have the use of his carriage again. He disliked hiring cabs, like a commoner. It was unbecoming to Mr. Marchant, of Northbay, Wiltshire, and the Briars in York.

**

Lord Revel also had a busy afternoon. He had to see Esmée and feel her out on her view of removing to London. With the lure of a possible marriage and a title, and the actual promise of a diamond bracelet, the lady was not averse. Then he had to buy a diamond bracelet slightly superior to that Marchant had given Esmée. He dashed home to catch Lord James just as he was leaving Lady Revel’s saloon, which saved him a trip to his cousin’s hotel.

They had a word at the front doorway. “James, I am happy I caught you before you left. I have just been speaking to an old friend who will be off to London very soon. She has few acquaintances there. I told her I would ask you to call.”

“Her?”
James asked, honing in on the most interesting word.

“Mrs. Gardener. She has rooms in Bridewell Lane. A charming lady.”

“Marchant’s mistress, and your ex?”
Lord James exclaimed, offended. “A man in my position cannot afford to keep a lightskirt.”

“You misread the lady’s character. She is no lightskirt, James,”
Revel said, feigning shock. “She is a respectable widow. Bath is no city for a lovely young widow. Her every gentleman friend is accused of keeping her. Good God, as though Esmée Gardener needed to be kept. Her late husband left her well to grass. Something in the neighborhood of twenty thousand.”

It was like dangling a meaty bone before a hungry dog. “I daresay I could find time to call, if it would please you,”
Lord James said.

“It would please me exceedingly,”
Revel replied.

“Where will she be staying?”

“She did not have an address yet, when I spoke to her. Shall I give her yours, so that she may drop you a line when she arrives?”

“Certainly, Revel.”
James was unaccustomed to receiving gifts—and tended to suspect any such offering of Grecian tricks. He sensed some chicanery in Revel’s dancing eyes. “I never heard Esmée Gardener was a nabob,”
he said doubtfully.

“She takes care that it is not bruited about ... draws the wrong sort, you know. She is not interested in a common fortune hunter.”

James was cunning enough to read into this that the lady might not be averse to an aristocratic one. He went back to the hotel to oversee his packing. Visions of twenty thousand pounds whirled through his brain. And the lady was not an antidote by any means. In fact, she put any other lady in Bath to the blush, and could even hold her own in London.

Eagerness to begin paying court writhed within him. Why wait until she was in London? The fortune hunters would be knee deep within days. Why not beat the rush and drop in on her this evening? He could leave for London tomorrow. What was the address Revel had mentioned? Bridewell Lane—a promising address!

He drove to his hotel and made a careful toilette, then called for his carriage and directed his groom to Bridewell Lane.

**

At Royal Crescent, Lord Revel took dinner with his mama. They spoke of Lord James’s remove to London and the probable depredations on their silver and valuable bibelots. “Actually, I expect he will not be there long,”
Revel said, biting back a smile.

“I cannot imagine why you offered James the use of the house. Do you have some rig running, Anthony?”
his mama asked.

“Nothing you would want to know about, Mama.”

“Tell me after it is over, and only tell me then if it turns out well. I am too tired to worry about your pranks. I had hoped you were going to settle down with Tess.”

“I am merely cleaning the Augean stables in preparation for it,”
he replied obscurely.

Revel went to his room immediately after dinner. He took a small blue box from the dresser, opened it, and admired the diamond bracelet nestled within. Then he put the box in his pocket, went belowstairs, and asked Figgs to call his carriage.

“Don’t we look dandy,”
Figgs said, running his eyes over Revel’s toilette. “Must be a new lady.”

“Do I not always look dandy, Figgs?”

“To be fair, you do, but you don’t always have a box of diamonds in your pocket. I expect the set that was in your room are tucked in there,”
he said, reaching to see if he was right.

Revel gave his fingers a playful slap. “Don’t tell Mama.”

“Me lips might be sealed for a quid.”

“Crook!”
Revel laughed and tossed him a golden boy.

He went out and directed his carriage to Bridewell Lane.

Mrs. Marchant figured the bracelet would arrive by six, to pave the way for her husband’s return. Six o’clock came and went, and still no parcel. The impatient lady was forced to the conclusion that Lyle was bringing it himself that evening—or he had not bought it at all.

Perhaps he was not coming? Dinner might as well have been served in church, so far as conversation went, nor did the mood improve after dinner, when still the door knocker was silent.

When Mrs. Marchant was beyond speech, her daughters knew the situation was perilous, bordering on the irreparable. Before long, the dame’s patience was at an end. She rose and said, “I shall be in my room, lying down with a migraine. If anyone calls, pray tell him I cannot receive visitors tonight.”

“Yes, Mama,”
Tess said.

“I am sorry, Mama,”
Dulcie added, with a woeful face.

The girls remained in the saloon, sunk in gloomy silence, watching the blue-and-orange flames leap in the grate. Odd how such leaping flames brought no warmth. Tess felt frozen through to the marrow of her bones.

“If Papa does not come tonight,”
Dulcie said, “he might as well never come. She won’t take him back.  I know it. And it is all because of that stupid bracelet.”

Tess, searching her conscience, could assure herself that at least the bracelet was not her fault. Yet she did feel culpable for adding to her mama's troubles recently, and wanted to expiate her sins.

“If only we could get the bracelet back, and give it to Papa to give Mama ... It is intolerable that a stupid piece of stone and metal is tearing the family apart. We must get it back, somehow, Dulcie.”

“But how? I wager Papa asked Mrs. Gardener for it already, and she refused.”

“Brazen hussy! I have a good mind to go over and demand it.”

“Would you really?”
Dulcie asked, her eyes large with admiration. “You are so brave, Tess. I remember how you went to Lady Revel and asked her to make Lord James stop seeing Mama. You have such bottom.”

Tess’s threat had been an exaggeration, but when Dulcie looked at her with hope shining in her eyes, Tess began to wonder if the thing was not possible. Mrs. Gardener was a woman, after all. She had been a wife; she must have some tender feelings for family life.

“Yes, I would—really!”
Tess said as her resolve firmed to determination. “But you must not tell Mama I have gone. I shall sneak out.”

“How will you get to her apartment?”

“Bother, I’ll need the carriage. We must take Crimshaw into our confidence.”

Crimshaw was an old ally in family problems. He was the family butler from Northbay. As he was a high stickler in matters of deportment, however, Tess prevaricated to the extent of telling him she was calling on Lady Revel, to make up a fourth at whist. This, while unusual, was at least respectable, and he called for the carriage without argument.

Tess was trembling from head to foot when she climbed into the carriage and headed to Bridewell Lane. She knew which block of flats her quarry lived in, and would have only to read the name-plates to find the proper set of rooms.

Her greatest fear was that Revel would be there. What would she say to him? The fear gradually turned to a sort of unripened hope as she envisaged the scene to come. She had inherited that much from her mama; the seed of the melodramatic was buried deep in her bosom.

You have Lord Revel, she would tell Mrs. Gardener, while smoting Revel with tear-filled eyes. Can you not give us back our father? Have you no womanly compassion? Do stones and metal mean more to you than our happiness?

Lord James was the first caller to arrive at Bridewell Lane and was entirely welcome. Mrs. Gardener, who had a keen understanding of gentlemen, was expecting him and had prepared an exquisite at-home toilette. Her first choice of black lace was rejected as being too racy.

That Lord James did not know she was expecting him allowed her some latitude with regard to her outfit, but she did not want to appear obvious. The final choice was a flowing gown of creamy silk, embellished with much lace and many ribbons, and cut low to display her shoulders. Her raven hair was undressed and fell in languid waves about her cheeks as she curled up on the sofa with a novel.

She looked up with a question on her face when he was announced. “Lord James Drake? Do I have the pleasure of your acquaintance, sir?”
she asked, with polite indifference, while her eyes assessed his appearance. A little old! But a good figure, and excellent tailoring. Then he smiled, and the years fell from him.

“Mrs. Gardener! You will think me the most farouche creature in all of Bath. Pray forgive my barging in unannounced.”

“You catch me all unawares, sir! I am not dressed for company.”
She shrugged an apology, sending her gown an inch lower and revealing the swell of a satiny bosom. “May I ask what is the reason ... ?”

James thrilled at her performance. Here was a lady who knew how to entice. “My nephew, Lord Revel, suggested I call on you when you go to London, but neglected to give me your address. As I was passing by, I thought I would drop off and discover it now. I shan’t stay a moment, I promise you.”

“Oh, I am not busy,”
she said hastily. “Just having a glance at a novel by Scott. Do stay and have a glass of wine.”
James was not tardy to slide a chair toward the sofa. “Yes, Revel mentioned his cousin was going to town.”

She rose and went to get the wine—and show him her elegant figure. Lord James was bowled over. All this gorgeous femininity and twenty thousand besides!

“I should have offered to do that for you, Mrs. Gardener,”
he said, and darted to her side.

She peered up at him from beneath a sweep of sable lashes and smiled. Such manners! Breeding always tells in the end. “Claret, port, brandy?”
she asked.

“Claret is for boys. I’ll have a man’s drink, brandy.”

“I thought you might,”
she said, with an alluring smile.

When they returned to the grate, Lord James abandoned the chair and sat beside her, where he spoke possessively of the Drake family house on Berkeley Square, where he would be staying in London.

Did Mrs. Gardener care for the theater? She must be kind to an old bachelor and accompany him to the theater one evening. He had a season’s ticket. Loved the theater—or perhaps it was just a lonely bachelor’s way of passing an empty evening.

“Ah, I know what you mean, Lord James. Since Mr. Gardener’s passing, I, too, have found the evenings long. But a good book is like a friend, in a way.”
She carefully arranged her skirt over the racy French novel that had been befriending her that evening.

Lord James was just rising to fetch the brandy bottle when there was a knock at the front door. Esmée looked at him in some alarm. “That may be Lord Revel, come to take his leave of me,”
she said. And to give me my diamond bracelet, in lieu of Marchant’s trinket, she added to herself. It was vital that Lord James not be aware of that transaction.

She was vastly relieved when Lord James said, “You two old friends will want a moment alone.”

“Must you leave?”
she asked, to lend a casual touch to Revel’s call.

James looked, trying to read her wishes. “I must dash off a note to my man of business. Is there a study ... ?”

“Across the hall, the end of the corridor, I shan’t let him stay long.”
She was enjoying Lord James’s call and had no aversion to prolonging it, as long as he remained unaware of the reason for Revel’s call.

Lord James scuttled out, for he had assured Revel he would leave Bath that day. The possibility also existed that conversation might turn to the Revel family mansion on Berkeley Square—and its alias as the Drake mansion be revealed. Best to keep out of sight.

“Mr. Marchant,”
the butler announced, throwing Mrs. Gardener into a tizzy. What was that old fool doing here?

Mr. Marchant stepped in, wearing an angry scowl. “I know you are wishing me at Jericho, Esmée, but I really must ask you to return the bracelet. You have resumed relations with young Revel after all.”

She glanced into the hallway, trying to decide whether Lord James could hear. “Pray lower your voice, Lyle,”
she said.

“I don’t care who hears me. You have no right to keep the trinket if you are giving me my congé
.
”

Here was a problem. Lord Revel was to give her the replacement bracelet in exchange for Marchant’s. Revel might suspect trickery and not oblige her with the replacement. “I don’t have it at the moment.”

“What the deuce did you do with it? Have you hawked it already? I see how little it meant to you.”