Nigel drove me to Heathrow in his Rover because the amount of luggage I was taking wouldn't easily fit in my MG. But he was late picking me up, which added to my already overburdened nerves.
Leaving for six months, with only a week's notice, seemed to me a tricky sort of thing to do to one's husband. But Nigel had waved aside my concerns, saying, “I know this is something you'd give your eye teeth for, Mandy. You should thank your lucky stars Doug Lattimore had a heart attack. I'll be perfectly fine on my own.”
Maybe that was what worried me most. He would be all right on his own. In fact, I often thought he preferred being alone, and my going away for six months might just decide him to live without me permanently. I didn't dare voice that concern, because he would have dismissed it as he dismissed all attempts at a serious discussion of our marriage. “We've managed just fine for twenty-two years,” he was given to saying. “Why rock the boat now?”
If Nigel didn't consider my going to America for a six month exchange “rocking the boat,” it seemed to me a breathtaking example of at least swaying the canoe.
“Have your tickets?” Nigel asked as he pulled onto the M4.
I patted my purse. “Yes, and American currency for when I get there.”
“Did Doug give you last minute instructions?”
“Naturally.” My boss, Doug Lattimore, had insisted that I come by the hospital, where he was still recuperating, for his words of wisdom on how to behave in Wisconsin. He was not at all happy to see me take his place on the exchange.
Nigel grimaced. “He's an idiot.”
That wasn't precisely true. Doug was actually the head of OB/GYN at our hospital and intelligent enough. The problem was that the American exchange ostensibly hinged on a set of pregnancy and childbirth studies with which I was far more knowledgeable than he. This because I'd had to do his contribution to the research for him several years previously. Unfortunately, we held opposite views on the usefulness and implementation of the ultimate findings.
“He said he'd faxed Dr. Hager in Madison with all the necessary information about me,” I said. “That's exactly how he put it—necessary. He didn't mention giving her a glowing account of my abilities.”
“He wouldn't.”
“Perhaps not.” Doug doesn't acknowledge my abilities, though he depends on them. There was just the hint of a threat that I'd better see things his way in America. “He told me he didn't want me harassing Dr. Hager about ECPC data.”
Nigel glanced over at me. “That's what the exchange is about, isn't it?”
“It's supposed to be.” I sighed heavily. “For the next six months I just know he'll be trying to undermine my reputation at the hospital.” When I was there, I had no difficulty standing up for myself. In fact, if anything, I was too blunt and straightforward in my approach to people and problems. More than once my tongue had gotten me in trouble.
“No one is going to listen to his grumbling,” Nigel said absently.
That wasn't quite the point, but I let it go. After all, I'd recognized the possibility of Doug's treachery when I pressured him into letting me take his place. The whole American project had from its inception seemed more appropriate for me than for him. Not only the subject matter, but I liked Americans, felt a kinship with them, which Doug certainly didn't seem to. Doug had been prepared to abandon the exchange altogether after his heart attack. Fortunately, the American OB/GYN coming to England on the exchange hadn't been so sanguine about canceling his own plans.
Nigel frowned at the heavy traffic ahead. “We're running a little close, I'm afraid.”
“Yes, I know. Just drop me off with my luggage. You don't have to come in.”
“That might be best,” Nigel agreed.
Disappointed, but resigned, I changed the subject. “Cass didn't think she'd be able to visit me in Wisconsin. She has definite plans for her holidays.”
Our daughter, Cass, was away at university, studying physics. I think Nigel had wanted her to become a biochemist like him, and I know I'd wanted her to become a medical doctor. Cass had a mind of her own, however, and insisted that she knew precisely what she was doing. Probably she did, but she was ignoring an artistic streak a mile wide to pursue a scientific career.
Nigel grimaced. “The holiday camp. I really can't picture Cass catering to a bunch of tourists for the entire summer. She'd have done something different if the trip to Italy was still on.”
We'd had a summer holiday planned—two weeks in the Florence area—for the three of us. It was impossible to tell if its cancellation was an irritant to Nigel. Cass had merely shrugged it off. “It would have interrupted the summer, anyhow,” she'd said, indifferent. The chances of our vacationing together as a family seemed to have dwindled dramatically the older she became.
“I really regret having to call off the trip,” I said. “But I thought Cass might grab the opportunity for a trip to the States.”
Nigel gave a snort of disbelief. “To visit her mother? I think not. Now if she were offered a chance to tour around the U.S. on her own . . .”
He was right, of course. Cass preferred to associate with people her own age, both men and women. She preferred to study. She preferred to travel. She preferred to hike and ski and do yoga. Her parents made a rather weak showing in any competition for her attention.
Traffic remained heavy the entire trip to Heathrow, and I watched the minutes tick away on my watch with increasing alarm. Nigel, as always, remained calm. On either side of the highway the May morning sparkled with the newness of spring. Inside the car my tension mounted, but I held my tongue. There was absolutely no sense in blaming Nigel for getting us off to a late start. Better to part from him with a smile and what appeared to be a light heart.
As he negotiated the turnoff to the airport, he said casually, “Cass seems to think this is a separation of sorts for you and me.”
Immediately alert, I could feel my pulse speed up. “What do you mean? She knows I'm simply taking Doug's place.”
“She doesn't think you'd go away for six months unless you were considering leaving permanently.” His eyes remained locked on the traffic.
“That's ridiculous,” I said. Snapped, probably. “This is a career opportunity. When did she say that to you?"
“When she called last night before you got home.”
“Well, it's nothing of the sort,” I insisted.
Nigel glanced briefly across at me and returned his attention to the demanding pile of cars all attempting to be at the same place at the same time. “I suppose it is a kind of separation, Mandy. You may not say so, but it's something you've thought about, I know.”
My scalp prickled. My stomach sank. My palms grew suddenly moist. Why was he bringing this up now when there were about two minutes before we pulled up to the British Air doors? What did it mean? “I'm just taking advantage of a serendipitous opportunity, Nigel,” I protested.
As if he hadn't heard me, he said, “Consider it a separation, Mandy. Do what you have to. I'll understand.”
What the hell was he talking about?
The Rover stopped with a jerk and Nigel hopped out of the car. Waving a porter over, he pulled the three large suitcases from the boot and set them on the curb. I watched numbly as the porter loaded them on his dolly.
Nigel moved to stand beside me. He was tall and thin; I was short and round. Dressed for work in a dark conservative suit, he nonetheless remained conspicuous amongst the hurrying business travelers around us. He was not someone who had mingled all his life with indistinguishable, bland, public-school types.
Nigel's features betrayed his origins. Despite his academic brilliance, he could trace his family through generations of seafaring men who had lived near the London docks. Nigel's face was imprinted with the rugged handsomeness of a nineteenth century sea captain.
Compared with his restrained presentation, my own clothing showed a taste for flamboyance. To travel I had chosen to grace my zaftig figure with a purple suit and fuchsia blouse, complemented by a vivid and flowing silk scarf. Nigel tucked the scarf under my suit jacket collar, saying, “We're late, Mandy. You must be a nervous wreck. You'd better run.”
“But, Nigel . . . “
“Have a good trip, and enjoy your time in America.”
Frustrated, alarmed, I couldn't find a thing to say except, “All right, Nigel. I'll miss you.”
He nodded and gave me a little push in the direction of the waiting porter. I wasn't going to let him off that easily. I stood on tiptoe to kiss him, a hearty, enthusiastic kiss which he returned with a familiar peck. But there was no time to continue our discussion, to sort things out. My plane would take off without me.
As I tucked my purse in tight to my body and started to trot off, Nigel smiled and waved. Before turning a corner to the check-in counter, I looked back. But Nigel was already gone.
When the cab dropped me off at Mayfield House, I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised. In the last of the May evening light the red shingled building looked almost enchanted, with the sun gleaming off the west windows and new foliage bursting on a phalanx of bushes. There were charming gables and odd turrets, giving the place an almost humorous appeal. From the driveway I could just see spring flowers blooming wildly in the untamed garden, where gravel paths wound past leafy shrubs and trees. With luck, I thought, my room would overlook the elms and irises, reminding me of my childhood home.
The door of the house opened before the cab driver had finished unloading my suitcases. A young woman with lovely auburn hair stepped hurriedly down from the stoop and hastened toward me. An enormous man with unruly hair and bristling eyebrows followed at a much more leisurely pace. From my insignificant height he looked at least seven feet tall, but I realized later that was merely the impression he gave, and liked to give, I think.
“Dr. Potter?” the young woman asked, holding out her hand. “I'm Angel Crawford. This is my husband, Cliff Lenzini. I'm so sorry we didn't know in time that you'd be arriving tonight. Dr. Lattimore had arranged to be in tomorrow.”
“Not to worry,” I assured her as I shook hands with each of them. “I only called from Chicago so you'd know I was coming on through. Doug had planned to visit a friend there, but I wanted to get in and get settled.”
“Of course.” She picked up one of the suitcases and waited while her husband gathered the other two. “It must be incredibly late London-time. We'll show you to your room.”
I would never myself have chosen a rooming house for my lodging. Give me a kitchen to cook in and the privacy of my own place any day. But Doug had entirely different needs than I did, and for the time being I was willing to accept the prearranged situation. Later I could find an excuse to move to a small apartment of my own.
The front door swung into a spacious hallway with polished hardwood floors and gleaming white surfaces. Oak tables scattered against the walls held vases filled with a variety of spring flowers. A delicate scent wafted across to us and Angel smiled. “Sherri loves freesias,” she said, setting down my suitcase. “She manages the place and cooks the meals here.”
“Welcome to Mayfield House,” Dr. Lenzini said, waving a hand at the spacious hallway. A meaningful glance from his wife inspired him to continue. “Angel wanted me to assure you we don't expect you to stay here unless it suits your needs.”
There, his look seemed to say to his wife, I did it, like I promised. But he turned back to me and added, “I think you'll like it. We're a mixed batch. The two students from Australia who share the top floor don't always get on very well, but I'm sure they won't bother you. On your floor there's a pediatric neurosurgeon going through a divorce, a retired education expert who taught in a one-room country school, and a sculptor my sister discovered.”
“Let's show Dr. Potter her room, Cliff. She's probably exhausted.”
“Please,” I said, “call me Amanda.” Just before falling asleep the previous night, I had decided that Mandy would sound entirely too casual to Americans. They love the formality of the British accent, and they expect a degree of reserve from us which seemed to make Amanda more appropriate.
“And I'm Angel,” my hostess said. As she climbed the stairs she explained that her husband had the suite on the east side of the house. “I don't actually live here,” she explained, “but Cliff is here fairly often.”
Hmmm, I thought. What's that all about? I'm nothing if not curious. My daughter sometimes refers to this as being nosy.
“And Sherri, the woman I mentioned, has a set of rooms at the back,” Angel added.
Her husband, easily hauling the two large suitcases up the broad staircase, said, “The living room, dining room and TV room are for everyone, and the kitchen, too, when Sherri isn't fixing meals. There's a booklet in your room that explains our routines.”
Gratefully I followed the two of them up the stairs while Cliff pointed out features I might not have noticed—like the wall sconces and the intricate turning of the handrail. Americans tend to forget in the face of Old World visitors that our stately homes often date from a period before America was discovered, but I find their enthusiasm charming. That probably sounds patronizing, and I don't mean it that way. We British are entirely too diffident, acting as though we regarded the whole of our lengthy history with a most unbecoming ennui.
Angel was the one who pushed open the door off the upstairs hall and I was instantly struck by the feel of walking into a leafy arcade. The trees outside seemed to frame the window both close at hand and far into the garden. The room's furnishings were simple, good-quality pieces of rugged craftsmanship, not the elegant antiques and frou-frou fabrics I'd found in restored Victorians on other trips to the States.
This first room was a sitting room, with a windowseat facing the garden, a comfortable-looking sofa in a boldly striped material, and numerous bookshelves with a few paperbacks scattered on them. There were two chairs, one a rocker, and a low table, what the Americans call a coffee table. There was a colorful rug (from one of the Native American tribes indigenous to Wisconsin, I later discovered) on the dark hardwood floor. A small television sat on the table opposite the sofa.
“We get cable downstairs,” Cliff explained. “The ones in the rooms only get local stations. And there's a radio in the bedroom because people from abroad don't bring that kind of thing.”
The bedroom was smaller but just as tasteful. The bed was a good size, larger than the cramped double bed Nigel and I shared in London. He would have appreciated the spaciousness and the down comforter that Cliff pointed out. Though Nigel had urged me to buy a queen-size bed, I'd never gotten around to doing it.
“The bathrooms have all been remodeled,” Angel said, leading me through a door off the room. “But yours is especially small because it was a closet. I hope you won't mind.”
Actually, it was dismayingly small for a woman of my generous proportions, but so was my MG, I reminded myself. So I smiled graciously and merely said, “Not to worry.” I am nothing if not polite.
Cliff did look concerned, however. With a glance at Angel and a tsk of annoyance he said, “I hadn't thought of that. It wouldn't be big enough for me, either.”
The moment's awkwardness was broken by a voice calling from the hallway. “There's Sherri,” Cliff said with relief, moving back into the sitting room. “She's the one who handles all the problems around here.”
A very young woman with a mop of brown curls bounced into the sitting room at Cliff's summons. You could tell before she said a word that she was one of those people with energy to spare. On the tray she carried was a small basket, covered with a napkin, from which fragrant steam rose, and a pot of tea with tiny pewter containers of milk and sugar. “It's probably a strange hour for tea, but I thought it would make you feel at home,” she said, placing the tray on the nearest table and extending her hand. “I'm Sherri Hartman.”
“Amanda Potter,” I said, caught up in her enthusiasm. One could accomplish a great deal in life if she had that kind of unremitting vigor. I'd always had my share, but then I came from a family of manic-depressives. They call it bipolar disorder now, but manic-depressive is so much more descriptive. “How thoughtful of you. I shall enjoy it immensely.”
Before I could say more than a quick good-night, they had all decamped and left me alone to my tea. I kicked off my shoes, removed my silk scarf and purple suit jacket, and sank into the enveloping sofa. As the sounds outside my door dwindled, I poured a mug of tea (Americans believe the bigger the cup, the more satisfying the beverage) and smiled at its being one of my favorites, Earl Grey. In the basket were two enormous blueberry muffins and a curl of butter.
Right off I knew Sherri and I were going to get along well. Here was a woman who'd provided delicious sustenance without having the first clue of my roly-poly figure. Nor had she shown the slightest sign of dismay when she did observe it. Not that Angel or Cliff had, except for Cliff's concern with the size of the bathroom. But Sherri would be providing meals, and I had a hearty appetite, for food as well as for life. I ate every bite before stripping off my remaining clothes and heading for the closet-sized bathroom.
* * * *
Birds were already singing outside my window by five in the morning. I'd been awake since four, just lying there drinking in the fact that I really had arrived in Madison, when barely over a week ago I'd planned to spend the entire summer in London, with the exception of the brief holiday to Florence with Nigel and Cass.
Most of the flight from London I'd thought about Nigel's parting words, pecking at them from one direction and then another, as though I could unearth their hidden meaning. To very little effect. Nigel, master stonewaller, had once again managed to totally bewilder me. Wasn't he the one who professed to see no reason to change the status of our marriage?
Well, I wasn't going to spend a beautiful morning worrying about Nigel's intentions. Here I was in Wisconsin, and not just for a holiday. This was a six-month fellowship. Having done an obstetric/gynecology residency in the South while Nigel did a biochemistry fellowship at Duke many years before, I had maintained my American medical license ever since. And my tenacity was finally going to pay off.
My boss wasn't qualified in America, and could have done nothing more than observe and pontificate—which were his favorite activities in any case. But I would be free to absorb the whole experience, to do procedures, to learn new methods, to see how well a typical American university OB/GYN department had adopted the ECPC guidelines we'd all agreed to.
There would be time to think about my marriage later, now that I was thousands of miles away from Nigel. I'd been putting off doing that for far too long.
But I was not going to start now. I scooted out of bed and walked over to the window. My view encompassed the green bower of rear garden, shrubs and trees, but on the fringes I could see neighboring houses. None of them was as unique as Mayfield House but they looked large and well-kept.
It was a cluster of purple flowers in the garden that caught my eye, however. From this distance I couldn't tell what they were, but I suspected they were lilacs, and couldn't believe I'd find them in Wisconsin in early May. Which led me to throw on a pair of slacks and a boldly-patterned jumper, and, pocketing the key I found beside the tray, I quietly let myself out of my “unit,” as Cliff Lenzini had called it.
The house was silent at that hour. On a Saturday morning people probably didn't stir until well past their usual hour, if London was any example. Not that London isn't always throbbing with activity, but it's a different kind on the weekends. If I'd been up most of the night for a complicated delivery, before going home I loved to sit with a cup of tea in Hampstead Village to watch the area come alive. And remember how different it had been when we'd first moved there almost fifteen years ago.
The Mayfield House hallways had carpeting that deadened the sound of my footsteps, but I could faintly hear from above me the raised voices of a man and a woman. Ah, the Australians, I remembered, glancing at my watch. Now what were they doing arguing at five-fifteen in the morning?
Downstairs I wandered through the attractive public rooms, thinking that it might be pleasant to sit in the parlor and chat with the other guests over a cup of tea or a glass of sherry. The table in the dining room was set for breakfast, which apparently was served in warming dishes on the sideboard. There was a variety of fruit in a vividly colored bowl, so I helped myself to an apple and pocketed a pear before wandering through to the telly room.
This contained a group of comfortable old chairs with plump pillows scattered around, and a large bowl of popcorn leftovers which made the cozy room smell like a cinema. An abandoned video tape of Casablanca remained on an oak table near the door. There was a list on the table, too, which apparently allowed tenants to choose what programs they wished to watch, or which hours they hoped to use the VCR. Very efficient, I thought; possibly Sherri's idea.
The building itself, though fascinating, was not what beckoned to me. I found a door at the back of the entrance hall that led toward the kitchen. This was a delightful, sunny space with copper pots hanging from an iron ring above the stove. Off this room, as I'd suspected, I found a door into the rear garden. Just opening it brought in the fresh, damp smell of a spring morning, and the sound of drowsy birds twittering. There were two semi- circular gravel paths leading off, which probably joined each other deeper in the shrub-crowded garden. I took the one to the right.
Along the path were the green tufts of perennials that would bloom later, and just beyond them yellow daffodils, purple iris and red tulips in marching clusters. I wound my way back toward the red brick wall covered with green vines that would become wisteria, or possibly jasmine. Shrubs were everywhere, blocking the view here, offering a peek of color there. I couldn't identify all of them, but thought perhaps the one I was passing was a flowering quince, not quite in bloom yet. The purple I had seen was indeed early lilac, which would come to full flower in another month.
Toward the rear of the yard, where a trail of shrubs formed almost a hedgerow, I slipped through a grassy opening to see what was beyond it. I was startled, and a little alarmed, to find a clearing with a green wood-slatted bench, occupied by a very real human being.
Sara Jane was covering Delivery Room 2, hovering over a thirty-four-week pregnant woman with a placenta previa. The patient was bleeding like a stuck pig.
Though the OB doctor had promised to be there instantly, the situation was becoming desperate and Sara Jane again pressed the call button for reinforcements. This was going to be a real emergency caesarian by the time someone arrived. With her usual calm, Sara Jane spoke reassuringly to the patient as she started an I.V. line in the woman's arm.
Being an OB nurse at Hillside Community infrequently offered such a dramatic scenario for her. Usually there were plenty of experienced people crawling around to assist in a risky birth, but today was a holiday, President's Day, and the OB department was especially short-handed. Sara Jane breathed a sigh of relief as blood squirted into the catheter, indicating she'd hit the right spot.
Dr. Gold burst through the door just as she was hanging the bag of solution. The patient, Mrs. Fellows, moaned. There was a growing pool of blood on the linoleum floor beyond the delivery table. "Damn," Dr. Gold muttered.
"Sara Jane, we're going to need more help. Get another nurse in here stat. Call pediatrics and tell them we're doing a crash c-section on a 34-weeker and I need someone up here now. Get me the anesthesiologist on call and tell the clerk I need two units of blood up here stat. Make it O negative if she's not already typed and crossed." He turned to the patient, but called over his shoulder, "And get a consent form for a c-section."
Sara Jane's rubber-soled shoes squeaked loudly as she raced up the corridor to the nurses' station. The clerk, phone in hand, took one look at her bloody scrub gown, her disheveled brown hair, and winced. "God, you're a mess." Then, extending the receiver to her, "Urgent call for you, Sara Jane."
"Get a number. We have a patient who could bleed out in there."
The clerk, Rosemarie, was a relative newcomer to the floor. "But she said it's urgent, Sara Jane."
"So is this. Five minutes. I'll get back to whoever it is in five minutes. We have to get this under control first, okay?"
While relaying Dr. Gold's orders, Sara Jane swung around and grabbed a nurse as she came out of the patient room across from the nurses' station. "Glenda, Delivery 2, stat, for a crash section."
By the time she returned to the delivery room the monitor showed the baby taching along upwards of 160. The mom's heart rate clocked over 100, and her face was covered with a nitrous oxide mask.
The necessary staff had materialized, becoming an efficient team in which Sara Jane took her part. Bright lights shone down on green drapes, the rusty brown of the woman's betadyne-scrubbed belly, and the trail of red blood that followed the surgeon's knife. The gleaming blade worked down through skin, fascia and uterus until at last a baby erupted from center stage.
Within ten minutes a healthy four and a half pound boy was having his mouth suctioned. But Mrs. Fellows was pale, tachycardic and shocky. Sara Jane estimated that she had lost more than 1000 cc's of blood, and she was still hemorrhaging.
Dr. Gold, a frown wrinkling the brow above his mask, ordered ten units of pitocin I.V. to make the flaccid uterus contract and stop the bleeding. He pressed a gloved hand inside the uterus to clamp down on the placental site.
Don't bleed out, Sara Jane silently begged the woman. This little guy is going to need a mom.
And gradually the bleeding ceased. There was an audible sigh of relief in the delivery room.
So it was thirty minutes before Sara Jane returned to the nurses' station, still disheveled but coming down from an adrenaline high. "You have that phone number for me, Rosemarie?" she asked, reaching out a hand.
"No number," the clerk told her. "She says you know it. Your daughter's babysitter. She says your daughter's sick."
Megan had not been completely well for the last few weeks. The seven year old had had night fevers which Sara Jane assumed to be some version of the flu which was working its way through western Pennsylvania. This one seemed to last longer than most, and was not always discernible during the days, only disrupting sleep at night in some of its victims.
Though her daughter had continued going to school, she was looking more peaked in the last week. If Sara Jane hadn't had to work this shift to repay a colleague, she would most certainly have preferred to be at home with her daughter. Her husband Frank had taken their ten-year-old son to an ice hockey tournament. Sara Jane glanced at her watch. Two o'clock. Still two hours to go before her shift ended.
Feeling a twinge of trepidation, she dialed her friend Letty's number. Megan preferred staying there because Letty's daughter was her best friend, and Sara Jane approved because Letty was both maternal and practical. She didn't fall into a panic at every little sneeze and flushed face. The phone rang three times before it was picked up, and then it was Hillary, her daughter's seven-year-old friend.
"Hillary, it's Sara Jane. Are you having a good time with Megan?"
"Megan's sick," Hillary said. "Her head hurts and her legs hurt and her arms hurt. She can't play at all."
"Poor Megan. I hope she doesn't have anything you could catch."
"Mom put her in the spare bedroom and I'm not allowed to bother her," Hillary said.
Less sanguine than she was attempting to sound, Sara Jane asked, "Can your mom come to the phone?"
"I guess. I'll see."
Sara Jane could hear the child calling in the background, getting farther and farther from the phone. There was a very long wait before Letty picked up an upstairs extension. "Sara Jane? Sorry to have to call you at work, but Megan really does seem to be worse. She's got a headache and she's complaining of hurting all over. She's crying and saying she wants you to come. I tried your house but there was no answer. Will Frank be home soon?"
Glancing once again at her watch, Sara Jane calculated how soon her husband could possibly return from the tournament. "I doubt he'll get back before five." Sara Jane rubbed her forehead in an agony of indecision. They were short-handed at the hospital as it was, and she was covering a shift by working that day, but her daughter needed her. If this was a case of the flu there was little she could do to ease her daughter's symptoms that Letty couldn't, but Megan was asking for her, needing her own mother when she felt so rotten.
"I'll arrange for someone to cover," she finally said into the receiver. "Tell Megan I'll be there soon."
"Thanks, Sara Jane. She'll really appreciate it."
Poor kid, Sara Jane thought as she stripped off her scrub gown. Little Miss Song-and-Dance wasn't accustomed to being sick. In fact, neither of her kids had had many of the usual childhood illnesses. No ear infections, few colds, only the occasional scrape or sunburn. They'd been really lucky, she thought, superstitiously tapping her knuckles on the wooden counter. She'd give Dr. Topping a call when she got Megan home, just to be on the safe side.
Frank Malone was surprised to find his wife cooking dinner when he came into the kitchen behind their son Sam. On days when Sara Jane worked, and he didn't, they had an arrangement that he would do the cooking. When they both worked, they both cooked. Frank knew his wife well enough, after twelve years of marriage, to discern the troubled frown she couldn't entirely banish as she hugged Sam and asked about his day.
Sam detailed their exploits in his too-serious-for-a-ten- year-old voice. Though it was easy enough to tell he had enjoyed himself, he was not given to his sister's light-heartedness. With his sandy hair and freckled face, and the lopsided grin he infrequently flashed, he looked more mischievous than he really was. Sam seldom got into trouble.
As Sam talked, Frank caught Sara Jane's eyes over the boy's head. She seemed to indicate by a slight shake of her head that she didn't wish him to question her while Sam was there. They were probably too protective of Sam, he thought. Maybe the boy wouldn't take everything so seriously if they didn't smooth the way for him. Frank wasn't above wishing that his son was a little more aggressive, a little more rough and ready. The boy took after him too much, his head frequently stuck in a book, his sharp ten-year-old mind questioning subjects beyond his years.
Perhaps if their personalities had been reversed, his children would be more prepared for life in the nineties. But who could want Megan to be other than the delightful charmer she was, and Frank knew that in the long run he would infinitely prefer a serious-minded son to a jock.
Megan took after Sara Jane. They both had short, curly brown hair, and eyes the color of sapphires. But the greatest similarity, Frank realized as he watched his wife stir the spaghetti sauce while she listened to Sam, was that irrepressible joy in living they shared. He was far from sure how Sara Jane had fallen in love with him, her opposite in many ways. At the time he'd thought she sought a balancing influence to her headlong rush into life—her total immersion in nursing, her fun-loving excesses when she partied, her incredible energy level that kept her from sitting still.
When Sam had finished his account, he said he'd go find Megan. Sara Jane shook her head. "She's asleep now, Sam. She's not feeling well. Better find something to do in your room. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes."
The announcement of Megan's illness surprised Frank. When Sam had disappeared from the kitchen, he pursed his lips, frowning. "Sick, Sara Jane? What's the matter with her?"
Sara Jane's shoulders twitched in a restless shrug. "I don't know. Letty asked me to come pick her up early. I called Dr. Topping and he said it was probably flu." Her thick eyebrows drew down over worried eyes. "He said we should watch her overnight, and bring her in if she's worse in the morning."
Frank remained in the doorway, one hand pressed against the frame. "You don't sound convinced that it's flu. What else could it be?"
Sara Jane turned the water down on the boiling pot at the back of the stove. "Her head hurts and her body aches all over. That sounds like flu. But she doesn't have any congestion, and she's had those fevers. And she looks sick. I wasn't surprised that Letty called me, when I saw Megan lying there in bed like all the stuffing had come out of her. It worries me, Frank."
He pushed himself away from the door frame and moved across the brightly lit kitchen to hug her. When he'd first met Sara Jane, such demonstrations of affection were not in his repertoire. But you couldn't be with Sara Jane long and not be converted to her own touchy-feely type of interaction. She kissed people, she hugged people, she touched even strangers' hands and arms as she talked to them. Her whole family was like that—a great clan of touchers.
"Hey, I'm sure it's nothing to worry about, sweetie. The kid's hardly been sick a day in her life. It's not like she's prone to come down with every little thing."
He was alarmed to see moisture pool in his wife's eyes, quickly blinked away. She pressed tightly against his chest and muttered, "I wish I remembered more about kids' sicknesses. I've been an OB nurse so long it's kind of disappeared from my mind."
"Hey, hey, you're getting way ahead of yourself. It's probably the flu, remember?"
He could feel her shiver under his hands. But she stepped back and smiled. "You're right. I'm making too big a deal of it. You'd think there hadn't been enough drama in my day. We almost had a patient bleed out on us just before I left."
"That's what's got you rattled," he said, kissing her forehead. "Can I help with dinner?"
"Sure. Why don't you make the salad and set the table?"
At eleven Sara Jane checked on her daughter for the last time before going to bed. Megan slept, a restless, whimpering sleep, which unnerved Sara Jane. Though she didn't want to wake Megan to take her temperature, she could tell from the heat of the child's forehead that the Tylenol she'd given earlier hadn't brought it down to normal.
Standing in the doorway after she had adjusted the blankets, Sara Jane tugged tightly on the terry cloth belt of her robe. Megan looked so vulnerable lying in the white four-poster bed her grandparents had given her for her sixth birthday. Frank's parents were wealthier than her own, and lavished gifts on both children, their only grandchildren. Sara Jane had finally begged them to slow down. She didn't want her children spoiled.
In a different way Sara Jane's parents attempted to spoil them, too. They didn't offer the expensive trips to Disney World, or tickets to the children's symphony. No, the Stennises had their own way to delight a ten year old boy or a seven year old girl. Her mother knitted bright, adorable sweaters that somehow never were the wrong thing for very opinionated youthful clothing wearers. Her father took them strawberry-picking and fishing, to visit the Pittsburgh zoo or ride ponies on a farm.
Both sets of grandparents lavished love as well as treats on Sam and Megan. They were lucky kids.
Looking around her daughter's room, Sara Jane could pick out the favorite books they'd given, the stuffed teddy bears presented for Christmas and birthdays, and the imaginative, brightly colored toys clustered under Megan's miniature desk.
It had been Sara Jane and Frank, though, who had painted and wallpapered the yellow and white room with its bold green carpet like grass under foot. There was a border of red tulips above the floorboard, and a pattern of purple wisteria on a trellis. When the sun shone in, Megan's room felt like a spring day.
Megan, practically from the day she took her first step, had danced. Laughing and singing and skipping around the bright room, she made her parents laugh, enchanted her grandparents. Soon, Sara Jane assured herself, Megan would feel better. She'd be up and bouncing off the walls the way she always did.
This was just a particularly nasty flu. Dr. Topping said there was plenty of it going around at the grammar schools. He'd seen three cases today alone. And their family practitioner was not above making house calls. If Sara Jane felt Megan needed to be seen that night, Dr. Topping would come.
With a sigh Sara Jane drew the door closed far enough that the hall light wouldn't shine in, but she would be able to hear any sound from her bedroom next door. Their house was compact, with three small bedrooms on the second floor. Sometimes the four of them seemed right on top of each other, the spaces were so constricted. But an older, smaller house was what they could afford, and Sara Jane had had the energy and imagination to decorate it inside to capture the illusion of space and light. Outside it still looked like all the other weathered red brick houses on their street.
Sara Jane blew a kiss to her daughter and slipped into her bedroom where Frank was already lying in bed, propped against the headboard, reading a biography of Lincoln. When he looked up, she could tell he hadn't been concentrating on his book. "How is she?" he asked, placing a bookmark in the biography and setting it on the nightstand.
"Maybe a little less restless, but still feverish." Sara Jane slipped out of her bathrobe and tossed it over the back of the old oak rocking chair she'd used when nursing each of her children. "I left her door open so we can hear her if she needs us."
Frank nodded and watched as she sat down on her side of the bed. "I can stay home with her tomorrow if she's not well enough to go to school. I haven't taken any sick days all year."
Sara Jane would have preferred to be the one to stay home, but it probably made more sense for Frank to do it. She squirted a dab of lotion on her hand and worked it into her winter-dried skin. "Okay. But you have to promise to call me if she gets worse."
"I will." Frank stroked her arm under the flannel nightgown. "Relax, honey. It's just the flu. You're all tense."
"I can't help it. She's never sick."
"I know." Frank plumped her pillow and lifted the corner of the covers. "Come on, get in. Let me hold you."
"Not tonight," she protested.
"Yes, tonight," he said patiently. "It always comforts you."
She needed the comfort of their bodies pressed together, the solace of his flesh on hers. But they seldom managed to merely lie companionably in each other's arms. "I left the door open so we could hear her."
"Good. She's asleep now, isn't she?"
"Yes." Torn, Sara Jane slid under the covers. Frank stroked her arm as she lay rigid at the edge of the bed. This did not seem the appropriate time to indulge in lovemaking. She remained where she was, trying to ignore the soothing effect of his hand's slow rhythm on her forearm. His hands were always warm. It was one of the first things she'd noticed about him when they met a dozen years ago.
Frank had been shoveling snow from his aunt's walk on a freezing winter day. His aunt had moved into a house down the street from her parents, a house Sara Jane knew well because one of her best friends had lived there when she was growing up. Because she now lived in an apartment of her own, nearer to the hospital, it was the first time she had seen the young man.
From the window of the Stennis living room, she had watched him work efficiently down the concrete path to the sidewalk. Despite the cold, he wore no hat. His dark hair curled down over his ears, but she could see that the lobes were pink with the cold. He grinned when his young cousin caught him squarely in the chest with a snowball, but before the boy knew what had hit him, Frank had tackled him into a snowbank. They rolled on the ground, trying to rub snow on each other's faces, laughing uproariously the whole time.
Sara Jane knew she had to meet him.
Without a moment's hesitation, she had grabbed her coat and hat from the closet and charged out the front door, allowing it to bang shut behind her. No stranger to her own impulses, she was not surprised when she found herself halfway to the wrestling duo without a pair of gloves. Regardless, she scooped up a handful of snow and lobbed it accurately at the man, calling, "Bully! Pick on someone your own size."
Startled, he had turned to see where this new attack was coming from, and the boy managed to slip a handful of snow down the collar of his navy loden coat. With a gleeful cry, the boy sped off in the direction of the garage, never looking back. Frank, uncertain as to whether she really thought he had been hurting the child, scrambled quickly to his feet. "We were just playing," he explained, dusting the snow off his brown corduroy pants. "He's my cousin."
"Oh, sure," she said, pretending not to believe him. "And you're such a big guy. Poor little kid must have been terrified."
Apparently he had seen the gleam of amusement in her eyes, because he smiled and cocked his head at her. "Is this how you spend your Sundays, rescuing little boys from their wicked cousins?"
"Most Sundays, though occasionally I have to work."
He narrowed curious brown eyes at her. "What do you do?"
"I'm an nurse, an obstetrical nurse."
"So you do rescue little kids," he teased.
Sara Jane had loved the way he said it, so warmly approving, so casually familiar. He pulled off a soggy brown leather glove and offered her his hand. "Frank Malone," he said.
She allowed him to clasp her hand in his surprisingly warm one, experiencing a sense of expectation. "Sara Jane Stennis. My folks live over there." She pointed to the house with her left hand, because he hadn't let go of her right one. "My best friend used to live here."
"Really? That makes us practically related, doesn't it?"
"I hope not," she said, grinning, as she extracted her hand from his grip. "How about a cup of cocoa?"
It had been as simple as that. He had immediately seemed different than every other man she'd known. And Sara Jane was an outgoing, high-spirited woman at twenty-one. She had dated her share of men, and been intimate with a few. Somehow Frank's touch alone had filled her with anticipation. And it still did.
He had slid the long flannel nightgown above her hips and now drew her against himself. Sara Jane realized that she no longer had any objections. It was usually like that with Frank, even after twelve years, as though he possessed some magic in his touch. She leaned away from him to pull the nightgown over her head and toss it to the floor. For long minutes they shared the pleasure of exploring each other's bodies. Sara Jane felt her anxieties recede far to the back of her mind.
Their joining was slow and powerful. All the coiled tensions of her body exploded in profound release. Frank shuddered and held her tight, whispering, "I love you, Sara Jane."
She traced the line of his jaw with her index finger. "And I love you, Frank. We're very lucky." Before long her hold on him loosened as she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
An hour later the quiet of the small red brick house was shattered by a child's haunting cry.
What dire offence from amorous causes springs,
What mighty contests arise from trivial things . . .
With beating hearts the dire event they wait,
Anxious, and trembling for the birth of Fate.
Say, what strange motive, Goddess! could compel
A well-bred Lord t'assault a gentle Belle?
And now (as oft in some distempered State)
On one nice Trick depends the general fate.
The tall, young gentleman with long, fair hair and aquiline features lounged impatiently before the looking-glass. He drummed his long, slender fingers on the dressing-table to quell his annoyance.
The longcase clock in the chamber next door had just rung eleven, yet his shoulder-length peruke was still resting in the same place it had an hour ago—on its stand instead of on his head. His valet, the little Frenchman who was busying himself in a corner, would never allow himself to be rushed.
Philippe withdrew from the Boulle armoire and returned with a familiar object draped over one arm. His eyebrows raised in a soupçon of hope, he dropped to one knee to display it.
"Would Monseigneur condescend to wear his new satin cloak this evening?"
Gideon gave it a look that conveyed his disgust. The offending garment, a voluminous cloak with three large shoulder capes, all in deep sapphire Duchesse, was precisely the sort of showy tog he abhorred.
"No, Philippe. I will not condescend to wear it this evening . . . nor any other evening, so you will please refrain from holding it out for my inspection."
As Philippe's face sagged, Gideon Viscount St. Mars gave an involuntary laugh. "No one but a damned popinjay would be caught out in the street in a rig like that! I cannot conceive why you persist in wasting my allowance on things I would much rather eat than wear."
"But, monsieur! I have already explained myself with such perfection, if monsieur would but listen. It is precisely the shade of blue—though monsieur refuses to wear it—which will bring out the colour of monsieur's so-beautiful blue eyes."
"Blue eyes be damned!" Gideon muttered, feeling a rush of heat to his cheeks. He tossed a hasty glance in the mirror and was reassured by his glowering expression and the harsh contours of his face. "I have told you I will not be dressed like a petit mâitre at Versailles. I am an English gentleman, not a French courtesan."
"So much is evident, Monseigneur."
"Well, you don't have to agree with me in that dismal tone of voice. I am not completely loathsome, I hope?"
"Mais non, non, non! Monsieur is blessed with a noble countenance and a pair of shoulders one can only call magnifique. It is tout simplement that monsieur fails to take advantage of his splendid physique."
"I took advantage of my splendid physique when I rode ventre à terre to arrive in time to dress for the ball. You should be pleased with me."
"O là! As if monsieur has given me half the time I require to make him présentable!"
"If you would stop lamenting that damned blue cape, which I have instructed you to burn, I should be dressed and at Lord Eppington's house already."
"Very well, Monseigneur."
Philippe's shoulders drooped, but Gideon noted that he folded the cloak and carefully placed it in the armoire to bring out at a later date, when he might find his master more tractable.
Gideon grinned at his impudence. The heir to an earldom must have a valet, though he would happily have managed without if Philippe did not entertain him so.
Right now, Philippe had forgotten about the cape in his absorption over Gideon's maquillage. A nearly imperceptible layer of white paint, a faint colouring of rouge, and a dusting of fine powder were all the cosmetics Gideon would allow, although his resulting pallor when combined with a grey-powdered wig made a touch of red all but essential to his lips.
"And the patches, Monseigneur?" With a long-suffering sigh, Philippe held up his porcelain box with its assortment of shapes and sizes.
"Two," Gideon said.
"But two!" The little valet's resignation crumpled. "But, monsieur! My reputation will be ruined if you do not wear eight at the very least!"
"Two," Gideon repeated firmly. "And none of your hearts or crosses, mind."
Philippe drew himself up like a martyr, the box clasped like a stake to his heart. "Very well, monsieur le vicomte." He was truly offended now, as his flared nostrils revealed. "It shall be precisely as you wish, but I hope you do not live to regret the advice Philippe has given you when Mademoiselle Mayfield decides to marry the Duc de Bournemouth instead."
Gideon turned in his chair so rapidly that Philippe took a hasty step backwards. "You little imp! What the devil do you know about me and Isabella Mayfield?"
"I know nothing, monsieur. And I fear I shall know nothing at all if monsieur refuses to listen to Philippe."
Gideon fixed him with a glare fierce enough to make a stronger man quail, but Philippe knew his master too well to be afraid. In order to keep his position, however, he endeavoured to look contrite.
Reluctantly, Gideon restrained his temper. "Cut loose, you noisome piece of bait! What do you know about Isabella Mayfield and the Duke of Bournemouth? And how do you come to know it?"
"Quand même — "with an exaggerated shrug, Philippe grew very French— "one may be a mere servant, monsieur, and yet not be completely hors du courant."
"By that, I suppose you to mean you have been talking to someone else's servant. Is that it?"
"My lips are sealed."
Gideon would have laughed at the improbability, but he could not allow his valet, or any other servant for that matter, to gossip about the lady he intended to wed. He could do nothing to prevent rumours from spreading outside his own household, but he exercised a considerable authority over his own staff. And, in this case, he would use it.
"You had better seal those lips, or you will have to find another pair with which to eat your dinner. Do you perfectly understand me, Philippe?"
"Oui, Monseigneur." The Frenchman lowered his voice to a confidential whisper. "But, since we find ourselves alone, would you not wish to hear what Philippe has heard?"
Gideon's usual dislike of gossip warred with a distressing curiosity. He could not deny that the pairing of Isabella's name with the Duke of Bournemouth's had caused a nasty turn in his stomach. "Very well." He feigned an indifference he could not feel, which would not fool Philippe for a moment. "Get on with it, curse you, so I can get to the ball."
Philippe took up his hare's foot to brush a tiny speck of powder off Gideon's cheek. The eagerness in his tone did nothing to calm his master's anxious pulse. "Bon! It is said that his Grace is expected to offer for Mademoiselle Mayfield very soon, and that the lady is not at all averse."
"Nonsense! You may tell your sources that the lady would never dream of marrying that dried-up roué. And, besides, that she will soon be affianced to me."
"Exactement! That is precisely what I said, monsieur le vicomte. I could not allow Monseigneur to be so insulted."
Gideon gave a short laugh. "Defended me, did you? Damn, if I won't raise your wages for that!"
"Monsieur is too kind." With a scattering of grey powder, Philippe clasped the hare's foot to his chest, but he did not refuse the offer.
Instead, turning deadly serious, he moved closer to bring his lips to Gideon's ear.
With black eyes meeting blue ones in the mirror, Philippe spoke in a portentous voice. "If monsieur will please but consider, the Duc de Bournemouth is not so old that he cannot attract a younger lady with his wealth—monsieur must trust Philippe on this. And monsieur le duc is a grand seigneur who knows how much the elegant wig and the skillful placement of a patch can please a beautiful lady."
Gideon knew what his servant was about. He wanted to use his master's jealousy to get his way. At the same time, Gideon had heard those rumours himself, and he knew how much Isabella valued a fine appearance. If she did not care so much for fashion, he would never let himself be painted at all.
"Oh, very well," he said. "Three patches, or I don't suppose I shall ever get out of this house. And you may choose the shapes you wish and put them wherever you like. Just hurry, blast you! I would like to appear at Lord Eppington's house before midnight."
Philippe was hardly appeased by the thought of a mere three patches, but he went speedily to work. "Monsieur would have been at the ball already if he had not arrived so late and in such a state as I hope never to see him again."
"I had business with my father." Gideon's curt reply was intended for a warning that this was one subject Philippe had better not broach.
The object of Gideon's visit to Lord Hawkhurst had been the very lady they had just discussed. And the recollection of the argument he had had with his father over Isabella brought a tightness to Gideon's throat.
He had been summoned home three days ago—he had thought—to acquaint his father with the latest attacks on the former Tory ministers. The news Lord Hawkhurst sought was not to be found in the prints, for King George had ordered all justices of the peace to execute the laws against printers and publishers. Knowing how desperately his father wished to keep up with his country's affairs, Gideon had put aside his own engagements to visit White's Coffee House, a Tory stronghold, to hear the version of events his father would want.
The news was not good. The Whig Parliament had threatened the former ministers with impeachment, and nothing Bolingbroke, their leader, could say to justify his actions as secretary of state had managed to turn the Whigs' temper. Even Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester and a confidant of Lord Hawkhurst, had reason to be afraid. He was believed to be the leader of a group that had planned to proclaim the Pretender as James III at the moment of the late queen's death.
Gideon could not send anything controversial through the post. It was said that all letters were being opened. So he rode down into Kent, travelling the more than seventy miles from London to Hawkhurst rapidly by stages. After a wearying day in the saddle, he arrived at Rotherham Abbey, where his father resided in exile from Court, to discover that the earl had already retired for the evening, exhausted by the gout.
If he had known that gossip had carried his intentions to wed into Kent, he would have been more prepared for the vituperative anger he'd faced. As it was, he was blind-sided by his father's wrath.
Gideon presented himself in his father's library early the next morning when, according to their ancient ritual, he went down on bended knee to receive his father's blessing. It was at that very moment when he, with bowed head, was humbling himself, that Lord Hawkhurst charged him with the rumours he'd heard—that his son and heir had formed the ludicrous intention of offering for a girl who was "nothing better than the latest toast of the Kit-Kat Club."
When Gideon, feeling the heat beneath his neckcloth, confessed to his feelings for Isabella, he was treated to a display of anger such as he had never witnessed, a tirade in which Isabella, her family, and her morals were reviled in every possible way.
His temper flared, and he gave in to the need to defend the girl, his passion for her lending a loudness to his voice. "If you do not refrain from speaking of her in this manner, my lord, you will live to regret it!"
"Do not threaten me, sir!" Lord Hawkhurst bellowed, loudly enough to rattle the panes in their glazings.
"I have done nothing more than express my outrage for your unwarranted insults to Mrs. Isabella in the manner they deserve."
"Unwarranted?" Lord Hawkhurst leapt too eagerly on the word. "Do you tell me these rumours are unfounded, my boy?" The gleam that sprang into his eyes made Gideon feel more furious for the guilt it provoked.
Gideon loved his father, and he did not usually allow Lord Hawkhurst's rages to rouse him to such an alarming extent. But whenever he even thought of Isabella, his pulse drummed so furiously that he could scarcely think at all. All he could do was struggle to conceal the intensity of his desire, so as not to make himself the laughing-stock of London.
Weeks of such frustration had fed his impatience. His father's taunts had heated his blood, so now he was stretched so taut as to be beyond all reason.
"I say unwarranted," he bit back, "for you have judged Mrs. Isabella sight unseen. You cannot imagine the goodness of the angel you have maligned."
"Bah!" His father's craggy brows snapped together again. "Don't talk to me of angels, boy, when you have been trapped by a pretty face and a handsome pair of breasts, whose owner knows well how to use them to distract you from her faults."
"I warn you, Papa—"
"You dare to warn me? I have my spies, sir. I have heard of this girl. They say she is a flirty piece. The rage of the town . . . Ha! As if that were enough to make her a fitting countess for my son!"
"Isabella is more than fitting. She will grace our house."
"She may—" his father's words were only briefly deceiving— "until her bloom wears off, and then what? What can she bring to this family besides her fleeting beauty? Her mother is no better than a harlot herself—a gamester who came near to ruining that fool Mayfield, who was a fop and Whig besides! The girl has no dowry to speak of from what I hear."
"Her dowry is adequate. You above others know that I have no need to wed for funds."
"Adequate? Need? When have I ever given you the notion that a portion of three thousand pounds is enough to gain admission to this family? For such a paltry sum, I wouldn't accept her if she was the Virgin Mary herself! And if she's inherited her mother's tendencies, I can assure you she is far from that. I will not allow you to be caught by a buxom figure. You can find your fill of those in Drury Lane. And above all—"
As his father paused to gather his breath, Gideon braced himself for the words he knew would come.
"— I will never permit a son of mine to marry the daughter of an accursed Whig!"
Gideon winced as his father launched into another tirade, not about Gideon's betrayal, but about his duty to their party. It was a theme he had been lectured upon all his life.
But for once he had heard enough of his father's diatribes. He refused to allow Lord Hawkhurst's bitterness to rule his heart.
So, in a terrible calm, he asked, "How do you mean to stop me, my lord? I will not have my love for Isabella sacrificed on this altar of yours. I intend to wed her, and so I ask you—how do you plan to stop me?"
At his quiet words, Lord Hawkhurst grew so enraged, Gideon thought he would surely burst a vessel. The flesh on his face turned a purplish hue.
"I shall withhold your allowance," Lord Hawkhurst blurted finally. "That should bring you to heel."
Despite the tension between them, Gideon nearly smiled. Every time his father was the least bit annoyed, he threatened to withhold Gideon's allowance. The problem was that Gideon possessed a sizeable fortune of his own, derived from an estate in France, which had been bequeathed to him by his maternal grandfather. It would suffice to maintain him and a wife in a comfortable style. Given this, as well as his disinclination to waste money on vices, and Lord Hawkhurst's threat lacked punch.
"I hate to inform you, but you have done such an admirable job in raising me that I save much more money than I spend. It will be a very long time, I fear, before this deprivation can cause me any hardship."
Lord Hawkhurst's expression had begun to relax, and his tantrum might have ended there if Gideon had not perversely added, "So, I shall have to marry Mrs. Isabella without your blessing."
This last statement was a leap of faith, since Gideon had not yet proposed and Isabella had not yet accepted. But Lord Hawkhurst did not know this, and his age-lined face hardened again.
"Then . . . it is over, sir. But I warn you, St. Mars, that that Whig's daughter shall never enter this house."
They parted on that hostile note. As Gideon left by way of the antechamber, James Henry, his father's receiver-general, glanced up from his work to give him a condemning look. Enraged by this impertinence from his father's favoured servant, Gideon strode quickly past the white-faced stares of the liveried footmen, who waited in the hall for their master's orders and stormed out of the Abbey.
His anger, which was normally quick to fade, remained with him throughout the long, cold journey back. Changing horses at the posting houses he had used on the way down, he pushed them each so hard over the deep Wealden roads as to cover them with mud and sweat. The last horse was his, a fine, handsome bay with a great deal of strength. When he saw how badly he had tired it, he walked it over London Bridge instead of taking the horse ferry at Lambeth.
It was long after dark by the time he guided his exhausted horse through the shops and the traffic on the bridge, only to find that the City streets were more than usually teeming. In spite of the bitter March air, men spilled out of the coffee houses and taverns, discussing—some in shouts and some in whispers—the day's disturbing news. Bolingbroke, Viscount St. John, had tried unsuccessfully to justify his actions before Parliament in negotiating the Treaty of Utrecht. Mr. Walpole, the paymaster general of the armed forces—and an up-and-coming force—would chair a Committee of Secrecy to investigate the former ministry and its dealings with France.
Such an investigation, Gideon knew, was likely to turn up Bolingbroke's communications with the Pretender, for like many careful men he had hedged his bets, publicly welcoming King George while secretly encouraging James Stuart.
Gideon had learned this from remarks his father had let drop while bemoaning the lack of leadership in the Stuart cause. But the Jacobites must be aware of it as well, for those in London had clearly been roused.
He passed an alehouse known to be a Jacobite haunt and heard an itinerant singing man booming out the words of an old and treasonable ditty.
The Baptist and the Saint
The Schismatick and Swearer
Have ta'n the Covenant
That Jemmy comes not here, sir
Whilst all this Pious Crew do plot
To pull Old Jemmy down . . .
It was not the deposed James II, but the new Jemmy, his son—the Pretender, James Francis Stuart—who inspired them now. The working people would never tire of the rowdy verses that poked fun at the Whigs and Dissenters, the German, and the Dutch, which dated from the time when James II had been overthrown by the Dutch William of Orange. Even with George of Hanover securely on the throne, the treacherous songs were still sung.
Their harmless words could only rankle Gideon's feelings now. Bitterness gnawed at his tongue when he thought of how his father's political sentiments had driven them apart that morning. Their confrontation had confirmed his fears, that the politics practiced by Isabella's father would count much more heavily against her than a lack of dowry or her mother's morals. Gideon had known all this, and the state of his father's mind was the reason he had not informed him of his wish to marry Isabella.
Lord Hawkhurst lived at his country estate rather than play the hypocrite to Hanover George. Even if he had not chosen to absent himself from St. James's, his Majesty had made it abundantly clear that Lord Hawkhurst and other High Church Tories would not be welcome at his court.
Lord Hawkhurst was a Cavalier of the old school, who would rather draw his sword on a Whig than speak civilly to him. If he would seldom remain in a room that a Whig had entered, he was unlikely to permit his son to marry one. Gideon did not agree that his father's politics should decide whom he could wed, especially when Isabella had no professed opinions of her own. She was young and had no interest in the country's affairs. Even if she had, Gideon had grown so weary of the political strife tearing his country apart that he had made up his mind that party politics would not rule his life as it had his father's.
Now that his temper had had time to run its course, however, he regretted upsetting his father at a time when he had suffered so much disappointment. Lord Hawkhurst had been among the men who had gathered in Kensington at the time of Queen Anne's death to wait for their Tory friends in government to proclaim James III as king. But the party leadership had failed them. The Whigs had moved faster, taking their places as regents to hold the throne for George's arrival nearly two months later. Gideon did not know how his father had survived the blow of seeing the Pretender's best chance wasted through hesitation. He could only be grateful that Lord Hawkhurst's fiery opinions had never led him to take a rash part in one of the rebellions that had occurred in previous years.
He hoped for a chance to repair the breach between them. And he consoled himself with the knowledge that Lord Hawkhurst's tantrums never lasted long. If past experience was to be his guide, he would receive a new summons in a pair of days, bidding him come for a reconciliation. Still, he could not convince himself that Lord Hawkhurst's opinion of Isabella would undergo as rapid a change.
While Gideon would permit no faults to be ascribed to her, he had to admit that her mother, Mrs. Mayfield, might have merited his father's opinion. A shrill voice and the occasional hint of hardness in her eyes had blighted a once-famous beauty. The Honourable Geffrye Mayfield, a man of impeccable lineage, was said to have eloped with her within a month of their first meeting, an unseemly haste which had given rise to speculation. But whatever the reason for it, Lord Stokely, Mr. Mayfield's father, had cut his son off with barely a groat. If Mr. Mayfield had not secured a position at Court with the help of a maternal relative, his family would have suffered much.
But Isabella was so far superior to her mother in every way that Gideon believed it grossly unfair to hold Mrs. Mayfield's sins against her. He had no fears on the subject of Isabella's fitness to be his wife. Last autumn, he had returned from three years' study abroad to find her joy and innocence a welcome contrast to the cynicism and experience of the ladies at the European courts. But in spite of her artless youth—or perhaps because of it—she had raised a desire in him such as he had never known, not even in his earliest encounters with women. He knew he must not marry just to satisfy his carnal desires—the Church was very clear on this subject—but he could not help yearning for the moment he could make her his.
Consumed by these thoughts, Gideon had ridden back to Hawkhurst House, across from Green Park in Piccadilly, still in such a foul humour as to speak curtly to the new boy in his stables who was slow to take his reins. Normally quick with a smile for his servants, he had soon regretted his angry tone and resolved to go out of his way to speak more kindly to the boy in future. But he had been so anxious to see Isabella, to have her smile reward him for his loyalty, that he had not bothered with such a trifling matter then.
Now Philippe's insinuations about the Duke of Bournemouth increased his impatience. His need to speak with Isabella deepened with every passing moment, so he resisted his valet's more elaborate attempts to arrange his long, powdered wig.
Eventually, clad in a knee-length coat with large, turned-back cuffs and matching waistcoat in peach-coloured silk with elaborate brocade, a pair of silk inexpressibles, a fall of long, blond lace at his throat, clocked silk stockings and high-heeled shoes, a gold-hilted sword riding at his hip, and a three-cornered hat, Gideon was at last able to leave his house. He had already sent word to have a fresh horse saddled, aware that riding to the ball would get him there sooner than taking a chair. In truth, he still had an edge to his passion to work off before seeing Isabella.
Stepping out into the wide courtyard of the house, he spied the stocky figure of Thomas Barnes, his groom, walking his mare. Noting the scowl on the face of the man who had guided him and watched over him since his fourth birthday, Gideon smothered an impatient sigh. He was sure to get a sharp scolding, both for his abuse of the horse today and for his intention to ride out unaccompanied so close on midnight.
No moon was in evidence, and the small bit of light that might have been expected from the stars had been smothered by a layer of cloud. On a night like this, the streets would be thick with thieves, eager to strip an unwary man. Tom would be sorely displeased. But Gideon was not in the mood to take a scolding, not after the one he had received from his father.
"Good evening, Tom." Affecting not to notice his servant's scowl, Gideon reached to take the reins.
"'Tis more good morning, my lord."
"Do you think? I have not heard the clock strike, but perhaps the chimes are off. You must remind me to have them checked."
Gideon's irony was seldom lost on Thomas Barnes, who snorted. "Your lordship knows full well what time o' the clock it is, and what your lordship's asking for t' be riding out at such an hour."
"Now, Tom, you must be aware by now that I am a man fully grown, and as such I may keep the hours I like."
"If you are so fully growed, how come your lordship don't know there's footpads wandering these streets just a'waiting for a pigeon like your lordship to pluck?"
"A pigeon? Tom, I fear you do not flatter me."
"No. Nor I won't be flattering your lordship neither till you shows a bit of the sense your father give you."
Reins in hand, and reaching for the saddle, Gideon froze. His words, when they came, were very low. "Thomas, this scolding will have to cease or I shall be forced to find a groom who does not seek to remind me that he instructed me to hold the reins. It is quite beyond my limits to have you pull a prosy face in front of my friends."
"I don't see no friends about," Tom mumbled, as he bent to give his master a leg up, but he threw Gideon up into his saddle without further comment and made the final adjustments to his straps. There would be no point in remonstrating further when my Lord St. Mars took on that tone.
Not that Gideon's voice had betrayed anything more than a wry amusement, but Tom had sensed the steel underneath. And his experience told him that nothing would shake St. Mars from his reckless course when he took the bit between his teeth.
Tom could not be certain why his lordship was in such a pent-up mood of late, but he had a fairly good notion. He had ears just as keen as that fancy French valet's. And, knowing both my Lord Hawkhurst and his tantrums better than the Frenchy did, Tom could well imagine the scene that had just transpired at Rotherham Abbey. His sympathies were divided fairly equally on this occasion, but no words of his would improve Master Gideon's disposition. And it was not for a servant like him to tell my Lord St. Mars whom to wed.
"Foolish is as foolish does," he muttered to himself as he helped his master's diamond-buckled shoe into its stirrup. "And I wonder how he thinks he's going to look, struttin' about her ladyship's ballroom after a ride in them fancy clothes?"
Tom followed Gideon's horse to the immense wrought-iron and gilt gate that shielded Hawkhurst House, with its thirty rooms, its stables and its outbuildings, from the roughness of the city streets. He moved past him to swing the heavy gate open, and Gideon walked his horse through it. There was no more need for talk. Gideon knew the risks he took and had no patience with his servant's worries. For his part, Tom knew that he would not sleep until his master was safely home that night.
The night was as black as the depths of a well, the park uncannily empty, the street immensely quiet, as Tom swung the gate closed. Gideon turned in the street. "On my return, I do not wish to find you manning this gate. The porter will let me in. It is, after all, his job."
Tom was on the point of responding when he heard a horse coming slowly, then faster down the darkened street, its iron-shod hooves ringing sharply on the cobblestones.
With a sudden worry, he swung the gate open again, starting forward just as the shadowy form of a rider came within view.
Gideon swiveled in his saddle to peer at the approaching figure. "What the—"
The stranger was hurtling towards him like a kite diving for its prey. Tom strained to make out the man's face, but nothing could be seen on this moonless night except a black, fluttering mass riding swiftly towards them, its features shrouded or obscured. He had an uneasy impulse to reach for his master's reins, but Gideon stopped him, spinning his mare, one hand reaching for his sword.
"A word with you, St. Mars!" the rider called out, easing up on his horse.
Gideon released his hilt.
It's a messenger, Tom thought with relief—a relief still tinged with a nagging anxiety. A messenger belike from the Abbey and Gideon's father.
Then, as the stranger's horse moved within the circle of light cast by the gate's one lamp, the figure, which was swathed in a long black cloak, began to ride at Gideon again at full tilt.
He wore a Venetian mask. His head was covered by a long, black hood. A glint of steel flashed in his hand.
"Master Gideon, your back!"
Gideon's horse spun on its two hind hooves, knocking Tom aside. As the rider flew past, he raised his weapon and slashed. Reaching for his own sword too late, Gideon jerked with a cry. His horse reared and twisted, flinging him hard to the ground.
I hear her footsteps now, coming softly down the hallway. There is a gentle swish of silk against silk as she approaches. Her head will be held high, her look imperious. She was well named Regina; she is the Queen of Palin Park. My nostrils will be assaulted by the heavy odor of musk that envelops her like a cloud, lingering long after she has gone. Till the day I die, that spicy, musky scent, as of carnations inhaled too deeply, will bring to mind Regina, and Palin Park, and the mourning ring. She is going to offer me the ring, I know. I must accept it, to see how it is done.
My door is ajar. The rustling of silken skirts comes closer, faster. She is here. My life, my recent life, flashes before my eyes, as though it were Death that approached, and not Regina....
I remember my decision to come here—a reckless decision for a cautious creature like Sylvia Thompson, who had never strayed farther from home than the seashore in the summer, with her parents and sister, Rosalie. For us, living in London, the seashore was only forty miles away. It was the longest journey I had ever made. Papa taught in a boys' school, and had a holiday in the summer. Home is still London, but no longer the pretty cottage in Mecklenberg Square. After my parents' death four years ago, Rosalie and I went to live with Aunt Harriet, in her very genteel, very small flat in Upper Grosvenor Square.
Rosalie, though she was three years younger than myself, was the first to leave the nest. Harriet was not sorry to see her go, either. A strong-willed young lady who had gentlemen calling on her, who occasionally even went out for walks and drives with them unchaperoned, was too much for Aunt Harriet to handle. They had a great, thundering argument one day. Rosalie tossed her pretty head, said she would do as she pleased, and got herself a position as nursemaid to a well-off family named Palin, from Widecombe, in Devon. Devon, nearly two hundred miles away! It might as well have been India. I felt sure I would never see her again; I was right, but she wrote letters. I kept them all, read them till I had them by heart, half envying her adventure, half pitying her, so far away, and working for a living.
For six months she wrote regularly, every month, and I of course replied faithfully, trying to eke out my meager news to fill a page, to vie with her rambling epistles. Then the letters stopped. At the expected time, I waited eagerly for the postman's bell, worrying and wondering what had happened. When a letter at last arrived from Widecombe, it was not from Rosalie, but from her mistress, Mrs. Robert Ranke Palin, informing us Miss Thompson had seen fit to leave her service without so much as a by-your-leave, or a single day's notice. She intimated there was a young gentleman in the case, which, to be sure, sounded very much like Rosalie.
"If that isn't just like the minx!" Aunt Harriet condemned, her second and third chins wagging in delighted disgust.
"It is not like her not to tell me," I defended.
"She'll let you know when she gets around to it. Mrs. Palin so kind to her, too. What must she think?"
"She has not been so kind lately," I reminded my aunt. Rosalie's first letters had been gushing rhapsodies on the many excellencies of her mistress. The later ones showed a creeping disenchantment.
I reread the old letters, while waiting for a new one from Rosalie. Through the kind offices of my aunt, I was encouraged to believe the reason no letters were forthcoming was that Rosalie could not sign herself Mrs., and was ashamed to admit it "as well she might be!" She had run off to live with a man without benefit of clergy.
Two months passed, throwing me into such a state of alarm I was ready to set out after her into the wilds of Devon, when an incident occurred which made this unnecessary.
In the Morning Herald, perused dutifully by Aunt Harriet and myself, was a notice that Mr. and Mrs. R. R. Palin, of Widecombe, were visiting London, residing at the Clarendon Hotel, just as they had been when Rosalie was engaged by them. Before my aunt had finished reading the brief announcement, I was dashing off for my bonnet and cape to call on them. I hired a hackney for the trip to the fashionable part of London. The clerk at the desk informed me madame was out, but if I was one of the girls applying for the position advertised by them, I could take a seat with the others in the common room and wait my turn for an interview with Mr. Palin.
It was an expensive morning for me. I purchased another copy of the Herald to read the Help Wanted column, till I found their advertisement. It was a replacement for Rosalie they wanted. It was odd they should have waited two months to do it, odder still to come all the way to London, but likely it was only a minor part of their reason for coming. Rosalie had said they were active socially. I was quite simply agog to meet her, and found it odd the husband should be selecting the nursemaid.
There were three girls ahead of me, giving me ample time to consider my case. After the second was ushered in to Mr. Palin, a toplofty servant informed the clerk, who informed the other and myself, that Mr. Palin was through with interviewing today, and we should return on the morrow at nine o'clock sharp.
At the time, I was both angry and downhearted, but as it turned out, it was for the best. During my absence, a note from Mrs. Palin had arrived at Grosvenor Square, a note that altered my plan. It informed me briefly that, as I very likely knew by this time, my sister had gone off to America with her young man. Mrs. Palin had not received word directly from her erstwhile nursemaid, but had it from local gossip to be the case. On the off chance that we were unaware of the girl's whereabouts, Mrs. Palin thought it best to let us know, to set our minds at rest.
It had quite the opposite effect. Rosalie might well have married some young man out of hand, but she would never in the world have run off without marrying him, nor would she have failed to let me know all about her romance. We were very close.
The more I considered it, the more convinced I became that there was some greater irregularity than running away at work here. I reread Rosalie's letters once again. Small items passed over as gossip, or perhaps imaginings, assumed a larger importance. The first gushing letter gave over to mere satisfaction as she became accustomed to the elegant home, and the high style of life enjoyed there. Then a few complaints appeared; the child was difficult, following her every step she took, the place was lonesome, isolated. Things improved in the next one, when she met a man "who rather reminds me of Jerome." Jerome is the most favored of our cousins, insofar as appearance goes. In the last letter, there were a few sharp comments about madame, but a changed opinion of Mr. Palin, whom she had formerly found stiff and silent. Now he was "nice"—such a vague term.
And at the very end, just missing out on being a postscript, she added a few curious sentences. "But really I should not complain of madame. She tries to be friendly. She wants to give me a ring for my birthday, a great, dark ugly thing that she wishes to be rid of, I expect. I would prefer cash."
I was made uneasy by rereading them. Why should she want cash? That did sound as if she were planning a trip, did it not? Something seemed amiss, but what? I decided that in lieu of going only to talk to the Palins, I would ask them for the job advertised. I would go and see for myself what had happened to Rosalie at Palin Park. It would be an adventure too, for it was so very dull in London without Rosalie. Before a minute was up, I realized they were not likely to hire the sister of the girl who had run off on them without giving any notice. Very well then, I would be someone else.
The resemblance between us had never been striking. Rosalie was smaller, her hair lighter and curlier than my own. She had favored Mama, a dainty, feminine woman, while I inherited the Thompson characteristics. I was tall, slender, with heavy chestnut hair that only looked well when pinned up. Fringes and curls were not, alas, for me. Even our eyes were different. Rosalie had Mama's blue eyes; my own were gray. I liked my eyes. They were the best feature of a somewhat indifferent face, for my mouth was too small. It was like Rosalie's, but it suited her better. We had both inherited Mama's lopsided smile.
The advertisement specified "a mature woman," which it had not done eight months earlier, when Rosalie replied. Their experience with her might account for that. Lest twenty-three not be considered mature enough for them, I would scrape my hair back, wear a plain dark suit, and claim to be twenty-five.
Rooting through drawers for a pair of dark gloves to match my outfit, I came upon Mama's old spectacles. I stuck them on my nose, and found, to my dismay, that the scene out the window fell into sharper focus than before. Every leaf on the trees, every scrap of paper on the sidewalk, ever pedestrian hurrying past jumped into sharp focus. Did I need spectacles so soon? No matter, I could wear them without discomfort.
Aunt Harriet was privy to all my plans. She thought I had run mad, and did not hesitate to say so, several times. She was not so eager to lose me as Rosalie. We rubbed along well together. Still, in her heart I think she believed there was more to Rosalie's disappearance than the Palins knew, or at least told us. She did not forbid me to go.
"You should not wear that suit, my dear," she said, just as I was ready to leave the door.
"Is it too fine for a nursemaid?" I asked, glancing down at my best navy serge.
"Those buttons are sterling silver," she reminded me. They were a gift from herself, and while I did not think the Palins would recognize them for silver, I knew Rosalie had a set like them. Mrs. Palin might possibly notice the similarity. She was said to be fond of clothing.
There was time to cut them off and replace them with plain black buttons. "Keep these for me, will you, Auntie?" I asked, putting them into her hand with a last admiring glance at the dainty things. They were only half an inch in diameter, with a convex face, each imprinted with a small crown. They were family heirlooms, purchased by Aunt Harriet at the time of Queen Victoria's inauguration to honor the occasion, and passed along to Rosalie and myself.
At the hotel, I was the first in line for the interviews that morning. The clerk ushered me immediately into the parlor Mr. Palin had hired for the transaction. He arose when I entered. He was a tall man, about six feet, with dark hair lightening to silver at the temples. He was not gaunt, but lean, the cheeks showing hollows at the back. The eyes were the most arresting thing about him. They were sorrowful-looking eyes—dark, troubled, I thought. He had the elegant air of a gentleman of fashion, a crisp white collar showing above his dark jacket. "Have a seat, Miss Bingham," he said, examining me carefully.
I had selected the name of Jane Bingham for myself. "Have you done this sort of work before?" he asked, settling into his chair.
It had been impossible to invent references that could actually be verified on such short notice. I replied, "No, sir, this is the first time I have gone looking for work. My father died recently. He was a curate in a country parish. I have worked with children, however."
"Brothers and sisters, I suppose?" he asked, with moderate interest.
"No, I have no immediate family. I am an only child. I used to help out at the orphanage closest to my father's living."
"Where was that, Miss Bingham?"
"Northumberland," I answered, choosing the farthest corner of England, in hopes that he would not investigate. When he did not inquire more closely for a place name, I breathed easier.
"You are a long way from home. If you come to work for me, you will be farther away yet. It is an isolated area, Widecombe."
"I know. I looked it up on the map before coming, sir," I said, to explain the knowledge.
All the while he was looking at me closely—at my face, lent an air of mature dignity by the spectacles, at the clothing, subdued into plainness by the removal of the silver buttons, at my hands, divested of all rings.
We talked a little about a variety of matters. My impressions of London, to which I was allegedly a newcomer, about Gladstone and Disraeli, the war in the Punjab. As we spoke, I knew I was being assessed, weighed up for common sense, gentility, maturity. You know when you are making a favorable impression. I knew Mr. Palin approved of me. With a memory of the girls I had sat with yesterday while awaiting my interview, I could not take this as any great compliment. They had been common, ill-spoken, the sort of female too often hired to raise the children of the wealthy.
"When would you be free to come?" he asked after a quarter of an hour. I knew the job was mine.
"I could leave any time."
"Good. I'd like to get away as soon as possible. I must caution you, my son is not an easy child to—watch,"
It was an unusual word to use—"watch." He noticed my frown, and went on reluctantly. "Robert is not quite—normal. He does not speak much."
"How old is he?"
"Four. He is active physically, a well-formed child. I do not mean to give you the notion he is some sort of freak. His mind, I fear, has not developed as it should. You would have to watch him closely. He can be rather violent at times."
"What sort of behavior are you speaking of, Mr. Palin?" I asked, astonished, for while I knew from Rosalie the boy was difficult, she had certainly never intimated he was violent at all. She might possibly have hidden this from Aunt Harriet, not wanting to admit she was having a perfectly wretched time, after her brave running away.
"He might strike you, push you, that sort of thing. You would have to be careful of yourself, and him."
"I cannot believe a four-year-old child could inflict much damage on a grown woman!"
"I only wish to let you know of the problem. He is not a normal boy. It would be unfair to take you so far, and have you learn there the difficult nature of the task you are undertaking."
I came to understand now the reason for that troubled, brooding look he wore. He was a little stiff, as Rosalie had said, but it did not take me six months to find him also nice.
"I am willing to give it a try, if you wish."
"You will do excellently, Miss Bingham. Could you be ready to leave in two days? My wife has some shopping and other business to tend to. We came on the train, to give it a try. We will be returning the same way. Have you ever traveled on a train?"
"No, it sounds very exciting!"
"It is, and so very fast compared to horse and carriage. We made forty miles an hour. Can you be here at the hotel at nine the day after tomorrow, with your trunks? I can have them picked up for you, if that would be more convenient."
"No," I said quickly, not wishing him to discover my address, in case he recognized it for Rosalie's. "I mean, I can be here, but my uncle will bring my trunks. I am staying with him for the present."
"That's it, then. You're hired," he said, arising with a smile. "I was beginning to despair of ever finding a suitable girl. There was no one at home, and the applicants even in London were not of so high a caliber as last time, till you came in."
This indirect reference to Rosalie caused my color to heighten, my ears to perk up with interest, but he said no more, and it was too early yet to start asking questions. "I shall be here at nine."
He walked to the door with me. Just before he opened it, he said, with an amused smile, "Are you not curious to hear what wage the position pays?"
I gave a mental cringe at my first blunder. Naturally a penniless woman would be greatly interested in this. "Indeed I am, sir. I hoped you would mention it."
"You did not strike me as being such a timid woman. It is inexperience, I expect. The pay is two hundred a year, along with your room and board, of course."
"That is satisfactory," I said, knowing Rosalie had received only one hundred and fifty. A thirty-three percent increase in salary seemed quite high, but I could not mention it.
The door was held open; I left, feeling those dark eyes following after me. The clerk at the hotel got me a hackney, and I rattled home to tell Aunt Harriet of my success, and to make further plans.
"He seemed very nice, gentlemanly," I assured her.
"You didn't get a look at his wife?"
"No, she was not there. I am to go on the train, Auntie! Isn't it exciting?"
"Be careful, Huskisson was killed on the tracks," she warned, harking back to ancient history. I believe this tragedy had occurred decades ago, upon the opening of the railway. "How much is he paying you?" was her next question.
"Two hundred a year. We must devise some way to be in touch. I shall write to you here, and post the letters myself in Widecombe, so no one at Palin Park will know who I am writing to. When you write to me, remember to call me Jane Bingham, and call yourself Mrs. Bingham in your signature. You must not use your monogrammed stationery, Auntie."
"I'll use my old cream set. But do you think they will read your mail, Sylvia?" she asked, her chins jiggling in shock.
"No, of course not, but let us just be safe. Call Rosalie my cousin Laura, if you wish to tell me anything about her, or ask any questions. If you do hear from her, be sure to let me know at once."
"I shall, my dear. You do the same. Talk to the servants. Find out who that fellow was she was seeing, the one who reminded her of Cousin Jerome, and see if he has also left Widecombe. That will be a clue she has run off with him."
"She never said the man was not eligible. If she decided to marry him, she would have told us."
"It does seem odd, surely. I am very uneasy, your following off in Rosalie's footsteps. Whatever shall I do if you disappear on me too, Sylvia?"
"Why in that unlikely event, Aunt Harriet, you must call in Scotland Yard," I told her, but in a rallying way, making light of her fears.
"I hope Julie arrives before you leave," was her next concern. Her cousin Julie was coming to stay with her during my absence.
As she had to come no farther than from the other side of London, she arrived that same evening. Her coming left me free to prepare my belongings for the trip, regretfully sorting out to leave behind anything of elegance or a partying nature. The impoverished daughter of a curate would not be so fashionable as Miss Thompson, living with her well-to-do aunt. My gold locket and my watch were the only pieces of jewelry I took with me. When anything fine I possessed had been removed, there was only one trunk to go to Widecombe with me. We had it sent to the hotel in a hackney cab the evening before I was to leave, in case it had to be there early for storage on the train.
I had the intervening day to say goodbye to my few friends, and to invent a story to account for my absence. A connection in Scotland was turned into an ailing aunt who required my services, for I did not intend to tell anyone but my aunt where I was going. I slept little the last night at home. In my mind, I was already at Palin Park, searching for Rosalie.
Brussels, 1882
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer not to die just yet.”
“You bloody well don’t have a choice. Either you expire voluntarily, or someone else will make the decision for you. I strongly recommend the first alternative.”
Adrian, Viscount Harding, heir to an earldom and extensive land and business holdings, paused in his restless pacing and eyed the lean figure propped languidly against the waterstained wall of his squalid room. Rain beat against the single narrow window, blowing in around the warped frame and seeping into the ancient, rotting sill. The atmosphere was redolent of several hundred years of unwashed inhabitants and moldy walls. “I can take care of myself.”
It was all very well for his companion to talk about Adrian’s disappearing. Fitzhugh Kent could go back to England, take a hot bath prepared by his valet, and sit down to a warm, well-cooked meal in clean clothes ... before going out to mingle with civilized people at one of his clubs.
Adrian inspected his own stained, greasy twill trousers and jacket, unable to visualize a future in which he was wearing anything cleaner. He nurtured a stubborn belief that the rough clothing would retain his shape when he stepped out of them; his personal hygiene of late defied contemplation. But no one knew better than he that Fitz Kent, spy master extraordinaire for Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s government, couldn’t be bothered to worry about his agent’s sartorial problems.
Interrupting Adrian’s bout of self-pity, Kent continued, “Let me review. You overheard five Armenian nationalists plot a takeover of their country, a takeover that will doubtless trigger widespread massacres. I must say this all sounds rather farfetched, but your report is too detailed and the situation too delicate for me to discount it.” He shrugged his elegant shoulders beneath the rough clothing of his own disguise and added cheerfully, “You’ve yet to bring back bogus goods.”
“Believe me, they’re serious. Fitz, the ordinary citizens they recruit will have no idea how ruthless and power hungry that little nucleus is ... until it’s too late.” Adrian shivered. He remembered the cold eyes of each of the five men. The stone walls of the dank basement room had reflected flickering light from a lantern balanced on a squat keg. Adrian had inspected the keg earlier; the contents matched those of the haphazardly piled barrels he had hidden behind. Gunpowder.
Sweat beaded his forehead as he recalled his fevered prayers that no one would upset the lantern. He resumed his pacing.
“Have you any idea who tipped the rebels off to your identity?” Fitz asked.
“Not a clue.” During every minute of his roundabout journey to Brussels, Adrian had reviewed the events leading up to his near capture. Somehow, someday, he would find the bastard responsible. He was alive, but his heart was filled with hatred for whoever had betrayed him.
“When I arrived for work at the railroad the day after the meeting, a chap I worked with pulled me aside to warn me a stranger had been inquiring about me, asking for Adrian Harding and describing me perfectly. Just then I saw one of the men from the night before, the rebel who was second in command, with my superior. He looked right at me, and I didn’t stop to think. I just leaped on a train that was pulling out. That bastard was the most bloodthirsty of the lot.”
“‘Bloodthirsty’?”
“‘The deaths of ten thousand serfs are as nothing,’ I believe was his quaint way of putting it.”
“Adrian, have you any idea what complicated diplomatic channels we’ll have to swim through to get this information to what passes for government in Armenia? The Russians have the best contacts, but first we’ll have to convince them the report’s authentic. Even if they believe us, they won’t necessarily help. The Turks will be even harder to bring ‘round. The warning may not even get through in time.”
Kent stepped away from the wall and brushed flaking paint from his stained and threadbare coat with the fastidious gesture most people reserved for cashmere. “In the meantime, you’re a marked man, so you can’t come back to England and live as Adrian, Viscount Harding. They’ll find you no matter where you go. Whereas if you’re reported dead ...”
Adrian finished his friend’s sentence in a voice filled with despair. “They’ll stop looking.” Halting in front of the single grimy window, he rested his forehead against the pane. Until now, Fitz’s idea had seemed a bad joke. “My God! What about my parents?” His vision of the future was a bottomless void. “What about my life? There’s a girl in London who has good reason to think I’ll offer to marry her.”
“You can resume your life when the crisis is past – once the threat is eliminated. And take my advice. If it’s the
Satterfield chit, you’ll be better off dead,” Fitz advised. Concern filled his voice as he continued, “Look, Adrian, I know how anonymous you can make yourself. Yet by your own account, during your journey to Brussels you were waylaid twice and attacked by bandits on yet another occasion. Do you think those were coincidences?”
Adrian let his arms fall to his sides. His shoulders slumped. “I wish to hell I’d never gotten into this.”
Fitz shrugged. “Then you never should have been so clever with languages.”
“Go to hell.”
“Probably.” Smiling wryly, Fitz returned to essentials. “However, you can’t remain here. The rebels found you already. A distinctly sinister sod turned up in the alley behind this building just this morning. My men ‘helped’ him board a cargo ship headed for Greenland. Others will slither in, and we can continue disposing of them, but sooner or later one will slip through our net, and then Bob’s your uncle.” He smiled deprecatingly at his own wit. “Book passage on the Beggar’s Bride. She sails at eight tomorrow morning. My agents will guard you until you’re safe board.
“You’ll die officially in a mid-channel explosion about noon tomorrow. Once you’re back in England, find a job on the docks. The waterfront is riddled with anonymous boltholes, and you do have that interesting knack of invisibility.”
Adrian rubbed his hands over his face. His eyes burned with unshed tears, tears he would never allow Fitz Kent to see. He felt seven years old and scared out of his skin. “If I survive this, remind me to shelve my linguistic gifts.” He turned again to stare out the cracked window. The daylight was fading.
His hand on the rusted doorknob, Kent asked, “Do you need money?”
“I thought I was to get a job at the docks.” Adrian kept his gaze fixed on a crocodile-like fissure in the bottom pane.
“Right. Well, if you run into a rough patch or if you should pick up anything useful, you might keep an eye out. Someone will come ‘round now and then.”
The situation suddenly struck Adrian as decidedly humorous. “How comforting, old chap. Now go back to England, and instruct some clerk at Whitehall to tell my family I’m dead. But be sure the obituary sings my praises.”
As the door closed, Adrian was horrified to hear his own brittle laughter echoing in the dank air. Then silence filled the dingy room.
England, 1884
“Damn you, Lionel! If you kill me because of your bloody horses, I swear I’ll haunt you forever,” Lady Chloe Lockwood grumbled as she crawled across the velvet squabs toward the door of her father’s swaying traveling coach.
Sounds of neighing horses, a shrill female voice, and shouting men — her twin brother, Lionel, the loudest of all — filtered in from the outside. Chloe decided it was time to act.
Hitching her cherry-colored silk broadcloth skirts above her half-boots beneath her and released the door latch. It swung open, flapping with the movement of the coach, then back again as the well-sprung body lurched to its right. Like a pendulum, the vehicle settled once more to the left, and the door swung outward. Chloe leaped toward safety — which appeared from nowhere in the form of a lean, well-muscled body equipped with strong arms that closed tightly around her before collapsing beneath her on the gravel drive.
The mixed fragrances of hay, horse, and clean, healthy male filled her nostrils. Pressing her nose against a twill work shirt pulled tightly over the unfamiliar toughness of a male chest, she inhaled deeply, savoring the mixture as she luxuriated in the fascinating contours beneath her.
Perhaps she had been a trifle premature in her decision to remain single as had her aunt Heloise. This proximity to a man was more than pleasant; it was invigorating.
“Miss, are you all right?” The urgency in the soft tenor voice pierced her drifting thoughts.
“I’m going to turn you onto your back. Are you injured?” She felt his muscles bunch as if to rise, then, “Miss, you’ll have to let go of me so I can move.” His voice sounded strained.
She realized her fingers clutched his broad shoulders with a grip she could duplicate only if she were about to fall from a precipice. “Oh, dear. I’m frightfully sorry,” she said without remorse. Reluctantly she released him and rolled to one side. “I’m fine. You ... you saved my life.”
As she spoke, she looked at his face for the first time. The deep blue gaze that met hers mirrored the startling awareness she herself felt. The man was a stranger, and undoubtedly a servant of some sort, but she felt ... recognition. As if she had been waiting for this encounter all her life.
As she opened her mouth to tell him so, his gaze became blank. She had the odd feeling his soul had departed while she watched. His lean, aristocratic features were still clearly defined beneath tanned skin, but the life, along with any animation, had leeched from his face.
He rose lithely and extended his hands to assist her to her feet. She accepted the courtesy in a daze, feeling detached from the sounds around them.
“Thank heaven you’re all right.” Lady Heloise Lockwood’s no-nonsense voice brought her back to earth. “That was well done, Drury. Would you be so kind as to give my nephew a hand? Those ill-trained horses he insists on dragging all over England are sure to damage one another if someone doesn’t take charge.”
The words broke the trance into which Chloe had fallen, and she threw herself into her aunt’s arms, grateful for the familiar scents of lavender and laundry starch permeating her tucked white shirtwaist. “Oh, Aunt, wasn’t my arrival exciting? I’m so very glad to see you.”
Heloise released her and stepped back, her dark brown eyes inspecting her niece with their usual thoroughness. Chloe had no fear of such scrutiny, although she knew even her father sometimes quailed beneath the steely glint in his twin’s eye. She met her favorite relative’s gaze with a confident, hopeful smile. “Do I look like someone who’s teetering on the brink of spinsterhood?”
“Indeed, you look like a passably attractive young woman who is wearing some sort of buckram garment instead of a corset.”
Glancing over her shoulder, Chloe saw the servant named Drury leading Lionel’s fractious stallion away from the other four horses, who appeared to have calmed somewhat. Could he have overheard her aunt’s accusation? The mortifying realization made her warm all over.
“We shall discuss your lack of proper undergarments later, in more private surroundings,” Heloise said. She strode toward her nephew, who stood, red-faced and furious, tugging on the lead line he had detached from the rear of the traveling coach. A high-spirited mare danced at the other end. “And what have you to say for yourself, Lionel? These horses should have been sent north by train. Instead, you’ve risked your sister’s life the last three days dragging them behind the coach.”
Lionel started, his customary nervousness in his aunt’s presence communicating itself to the horse, who reared. Before Lionel could speak, Drury appeared from the direction of the stables and removed the tether from his hands. The mare quieted and followed the servant docilely. Lionel said hotly, “It was that bloody red-haired cow waving an apple! Damn it, Aunt, your maid put the wind up my horses before they’d even come to a stop! Don’t she know how high-strung thoroughbreds are?”
“I doubt she does. She’s farm bred,” Heloise said without apology. “Even though you have not yet seen fit to greet me properly, it was kind of you to deliver your sister. I trust you will stay for a light luncheon.”
A chastened Lionel leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “Good to see you again, Aunt Heloise. I’ll be glad of something to eat. We left the inn at dawn this morning.”
Heloise surveyed him dispassionately. “Have you ever considered that your sister might have become fatigued traveling at such a pace?”
“Chloe? You’re on the wrong road there, Aunt. She’s the one who wanted to hurry.” Lionel gave his sister a grateful look. “She knew she’d arrive that much quicker if we pushed.”
Chloe hoped her exhaustion didn’t show. She loved her brother dearly, but the trip had been dreary. Single-mindedly intent on his own plans, Lionel had fretted the whole time about the inconvenience of delivering her. She had mendaciously assured him the rigors of traveling from dawn till dark would be an adventure. For propriety’s sake, her mother had forbidden her to ride, so she had sat in the coach with only two carpetbags of books for company. The lithe, rangy figure of the servant Drury caught her attention as he led away the last two horses. “Aunt ...”
Ignoring her, Heloise motioned to the sweating coachman, who was courageously holding his team steady. “Take the coach around to the back to unload Lady Chloe’s trunks.” That order given, she gestured imperiously toward her niece and turned to lead the way up the broad stone staircase to the door held open by a gray-clad butler.
Thwarted in her attempt to question her aunt about her intriguing rescuer, Chloe grasped for an opportunity to follow him to his destination. “We can’t go inside just yet. Come, I want to show you the present I’ve brought you.” Before her aunt could reply, Chloe seized her by the hand and dragged her toward the brick walk that curved around the left wing of the house.
Going straight to the subject uppermost in her mind, Chloe demanded, “Aunt, is that groom new? I feel sure I don’t remember him from my last visit.” To her horrified delight, her body quivered at the recollection of the groom’s protective embrace as they tumbled to the ground. Was this the physical attraction she’d read about in books? If so, her plans for the future definitely required re-examination. Another little shiver struck her as she recalled the sense of awareness she’d seen in his eyes before he had banked that burst of flame.
“Of course you don’t remember him. I hadn’t set up my stable when you were here last. Drury came to me last fall. He was highly recommended by the vicar’s wife, as I recall.”
They walked toward the large oval of graveled drive beyond the service entrance. As they passed the door, a sturdy feminine figure topped by a cluster of improbable black curls burst out.
“Miss Chloe! Ye’re ‘ere!” Molly O’Day enveloped Chloe in an exuberant hug. Though the top of her head scarcely reached Chloe’s chin, the woman’s grip nearly lifted the girl from the ground. “I’m s’posed to act more dignified-like,” she said, releasing her. “I’m ‘ousekeeper fer yer aunt now. Did yer know?”
“I guessed from what you’re wearing, Molly. Has anyone told you that black makes you look taller and thinner?” Chloe grinned. “And if you ever become too exalted to give me a welcoming hug, I shall have to lecture you.”
As she finished speaking, the coach came around the curving drive and rolled to a stop. Harry Ikehorn, the coachman, removed his hat and wiped his brow. His weathered features wore a relieved expression.
Lionel appeared in the coach’s wake, his face still suffused with anger. “You should sack that red-haired wench, Aunt. My horses could have been injured. And I don’t know what m’father would have said if the coach had been damaged.”
“I intend to speak with Gladys. Now go into the house with Molly. She’ll serve you your luncheon,” Heloise soothed.
Chloe had had enough. She stepped forward and leaned close, peering into her brother’s eyes, a scant inch above her own. “Lionel, you’re an ass. I was in the carriage, and I’m not after the poor girl’s head. Leave off.”
Over Lionel’s shoulder she caught the fierce scowl that flitted across the face of the groom her aunt had called Drury. If she hadn’t glanced in his direction at that particular moment, she would have seen only the bland expression of a well-trained servant, as once more the life faded from his features. Was his face made of India rubber?
“I want to supervise the footmen when they unload your gift, Aunt,” Chloe told her, never moving her gaze from Drury and the coachman as they unhitched the matched grays.
The groom’s sure, economical movements mesmerized her. Why were his twill shirt and trousers a size larger than necessary for the neatly constructed form her body recalled with embarrassing clarity? She could almost feel the heat of that muscular frame. She allowed her imagination to supply the play of muscles in the strong thighs beneath his baggy trousers as Drury strained to pull the reluctant lead horse from the traces.
She felt color rise in her cheeks as she pictured her mother’s hysterics if she knew her gently raised daughter was entertaining such thoughts, but Chloe adamantly believed there was nothing improper about her interest in bodies. Even though her art teacher had insisted that insipid flowers and pleasant vistas were the only acceptable subjects for a young lady, she had ignored the stricture and continued her observations, frequently capturing the human body on paper.
Aunt Heloise’s groom’s loosely fitted clothing concealed something quite out of the ordinary, Chloe was positive. Why on earth would he dress so strangely?
Heat suffused her body. “Dear heaven,” she murmured. She realized she was staring at a groom, the gift she had brought her aunt the furthest thing from her mind. With that lowering discovery, she walked to the side of the coach, arriving just as Drury turned the last horse over to a stocky individual with curiously watchful eyes.
“Would you be so kind as to unload the roof of the coach first?” she asked, flashing a mischievous smile, well aware of the charm of the misplaced dimple at the left of her lower lip.
Drury showed no curiosity, simply swinging himself to the top of the coach and removing the ropes holding the canvas in place. Under Chloe’s watchful eye, he peeled back the co