Читать книгу Regency High Society Vol 7: A Reputable Rake / The Heart's Wager / The Venetian's Mistress / The Gambler's Heart - Diane Gaston - Страница 15

Mrs Rice sat in the room behind her glove shop, sipping a glass of claret and mentally calculating the amount of money she could wring from her girls this night.

She frowned. She’d recruited one new girl, who was almost useless. Fit for nothing but streetwalking. Without Katy and Mary business had definitely slowed. Profits were down. At this rate, she might make more blunt with gloves than with harlots.

Trigg, the procurer who had let the maid slip through his hands, entered, wearing a smug look on his face.

‘I hope this means you have girls for me,’ Mrs Rice muttered.

‘I have information.’ He sauntered over to her table and leaned in close. She detested the odour of the man.

‘Well, what is it?’ She would love to get rid of Trigg, who was a bit too clever for her to control completely.

He grinned, showing yellow teeth. ‘Word is out that a society lady has them.’

‘A society lady.’ She could guess which society lady. ‘Her name?’

Trigg took a step back. ‘I will discover the name soon.’

Mrs Rice drummed her fingers on the table. ‘It is that woman.’ She hissed. ‘The one who charged in here big-as-you-please.’

Trigg’s brows rose. ‘Describe her.’

Mrs Rice huffed. ‘I cannot. She obscured her face.’

‘A Long Meg?’

‘Why, yes, she was a bit tall.’

He frowned and rubbed his head. ‘I know the one.’

A few minutes later Trigg stepped out into the street, pausing to take a swig from the bottle of gin he carried in his pocket. He headed for a pub he knew of, the place where an acquaintance had heard from another man that some footman spoke of females more like harlots who were guests in his lady’s house. It was thin evidence, and the man said the next day the footman denied it all, but Trigg did not relish hearing Rice ring a peal over his head. Besides, he wanted to believe it was that lady in the park. He’d be pleased to consign her to the devil, quick.

He stepped into an alley, for another quick taste of gin. Suddenly hands grabbed him from behind, dragging him deeper into the dark and he felt a cold edge of steel against his throat.

A sinister voice said, ‘I hear you’ve been asking questions about some missing doxies.’

Trigg nearly casting up his accounts, knew better than to show fear. ‘What of it?’ he growled.

The blade’s edge pierced his skin and he felt his blood trickling warm down his neck. ‘Stay out of it,’ the voice—a familiar voice, he realised—snarled. ‘If you want to keep your head.’ The knife made another slice, not deep, but Trigg was afraid to move lest it sever more than his skin.

‘What’s it to you?’ He tried to sound fierce, but his voice rose like a girl’s.

The man laughed and it was enough to make Trigg taste his own vomit. ‘I have them. The maid and that other one, too. The one who knocked you out. They are mine and the man who takes them from me will not live.’

Trigg tried to laugh, too, but succeeded only in making a gasping sound. ‘Why should I listen to you? Who are you?’

The chilling laugh returned. ‘I am the devil. Touch what is mine and I’ll have my due.’

Trigg was pushed forward, and he fell to his knees into a puddle of filth. By the time he scrambled to his feet and turned around, the man—the man from the park—had disappeared.

Sloane watched Trigg from the depths of the alley, the man silhouetted against the lamplight coming from St James’s Street. As he’d anticipated, Trigg broke into a run. Sloane figured he’d run all the way to whatever dirty hovel he called home.

He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped the blood from his knife. Tossing the handkerchief away, he put the knife back in its sheath in his coat pocket. He left the alley from the back and made his way to the street.

When he stepped on to the pavement of St James’s Street, he looked like any other gentleman pursuing his nightly interests.

It was fortunate Sloane had refused Hannah’s offer of a carriage ride home. The day’s episodes with Morgana had left him disordered, restless, on edge. Having made his way to his post at Mrs Rice’s window, what he’d overheard fuelled his already taut nerves with something more dangerous. The violence of the underworld had taken a step closer to Morgana, and Sloane needed to push it back hard. It was a good night for intimidation. He’d halfway wished for an all-out brawl.

His tactic was misdirection. Trigg would now abandon his search for the ‘lady’ and begin looking for a tougher customer. Sloane wagered the man would not guess it was a resident of proper Culross Street who, as easy as the roughest rookery thief, used a knife to draw blood.

Sloane would return to spy on Mrs Rice’s place again, to make sure his trickery worked.

After thinking about it half the night, Morgana quite sorted it out in her mind that Sloane’s familiarity towards her had been her own fault. He’d seen how unladylike she could be, and, therefore, felt less gentlemanly restraint in her presence. She could still enjoy his company, but she must never mistake it for something more, not when he was intent on marrying Hannah. Better Morgana throw her energies into her girls.

They were gathered in the library, Madame Bisou having just arrived. Morgana happened to mention her invitation to Vauxhall.

Katy flung herself down on the settee. ‘Can we not all go to Vauxhall with you? I am sure I shall die if I spend one more day in this house.’

Morgana regarded Katy with sympathy. Her charges had indeed been trapped within the confines of this house, able to go no further than the tiny garden or the privy. Only Lucy had ventured beyond, but that was merely to the patch of land next door to assist Mr Elliot with his plantings.

‘We cannot chance Mrs Rice seeing us, Katy.’ Mary was at her most earnest. ‘She would make us go back to her.’

Katy waved her hand dismissively. ‘It is not as if Mrs Rice would go to Vauxhall. Besides, we could wear masks. They wear masks at Vauxhall Gardens, do they not?’

‘They do indeed,’ answered Madame Bisou, who gave Morgana a thoughtful look. ‘As I think of it, our girls could do with a bit of practice. We ought not to launch them upon the world without a trial. Do you not agree, Miss Hart?’

How could Morgana agree when she really had no wish to launch her students at all? Sloane’s words echoed in her mind—they would sell themselves to the highest bidder and still be at the mercy of a man’s whims. What if they could not match the success Harriette Wilson had achieved? What happened to failed courtesans?

She feared they would wind up in shops like Mrs Rice’s. Would all her hopes for the girls come to naught?

She had come too far to lose hope now.

‘I do not know.’ Morgana finally answered, her voice trailing off as Katy’s mournful eyes bore into her.

She wished she’d never mentioned Vauxhall Gardens. She certainly did not want to go there and watch Hannah flirt with Sloane. Perhaps Hannah and Sloane might disappear down one of those dark walks that were so whispered about. She would sit in the box with Aunt Winnie and imagine what might take place between Sloane and Hannah.

She gave herself a mental shake and reminded herself again that Sloane had always been Hannah’s, not hers.

‘I have never been to Vauxhall Gardens,’ Miss Moore piped up in a dreamy tone, merely adding to the growing pressure.

Morgana grasped at straws. ‘We do not have clothes for you yet.’

She intended to ask Madame Emeraude to come to the house to measure the girls and make up some dresses for them, but had put this off. It was another task she must do before they could leave her.

Cripps knocked on the door. ‘A trunk has been delivered, miss.’ He announced this as formally as if the Regent had come to call.

‘A trunk?’ Any delivery was unexpected. Morgana certainly did not expect her father to send her anything. He’d barely written to her.

‘From Paris, miss,’ Cripps added.

‘Paris!’ Morgana laughed. Her lost trunk!

‘What is funny?’ Katy grumbled.

Morgana walked over and tweaked Katy’s chin. ‘Your new wardrobe has arrived.’

‘New wardrobe?’ Katy asked cautiously. The other girls looked up in interest, even Lucy, who was beginning to lose some of her maid-like demeanour.

Morgana nodded, still astonished that her missing apparel should have come at this very moment. ‘Unless I am mistaken, it is a trunk filled with the latest Paris fashions, and it has arrived exactly in time to dress you in style.’

‘Paris!’ shrieked Katy, reverting to less-than-ladylike behaviour. ‘Give us a look at it.’

Fate, apparently, had decided to shove Morgana forward. Her girls would go to Vauxhall, after all, and would practice for the coming day when they would leave her house and go to some gentleman’s bed.

Morgana told Cripps to have the trunk brought in to them. Barely had the two footmen set it down in the middle of the room than the girls begged to open it. They pulled out dress after dress of fine muslin and silk. Day dresses, evening gowns, walking dresses. Morgana had forgotten how many her new stepmother had insisted she purchase.

Katy squealed in delight as each one emerged from between layers of tissue paper. Rose took a deep wine-red gown and held it against herself. If such a thing were possible, her features shone even more beautifully with its rich colour. Mary fingered a pale blue muslin, a shade as soft as her voice. Lucy held back, but Morgana handed her a pink confection and made her slip it over her plain grey dress, transforming her into as fresh and innocent a miss as had ever had her come-out.

‘We have the dresses, Miss Hart. Do we go to Vauxhall or not?’ Katy stood hands on hips, ready for battle.

Morgana glanced at Madame Bisou. ‘Who would escort us? We cannot go unprotected.’

‘Robert will come with us,’ assured the madam.

Mary glanced up at the mention of his name.

‘Perhaps Mr Elliot would come as well,’ Lucy added. ‘We could depend on him.’

‘We can dance and have a high old time.’ Katy pulled a paisley shawl from the trunk and wrapped it around herself. She danced around the room as if already at the pleasure gardens. Rose joined her, holding the red dress as if she were wearing it.

‘Oh, very well!’ Morgana smiled, resigned to seeing her fledglings spread their wings. ‘But I will go with you, as will Miss Moore, and we shall all wear masks.’

‘Hurrah!’ cried Katy.

Rose ran to the pianoforte and began a rousing tune. Katy grabbed Morgana while Mary and Madame Bisou pulled Lucy and Miss Moore on to the floor as well. Even Morgana’s grandmother rose to her feet and clapped her hands to the music. Rose began to sing: ‘Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove…’

The others joined in: ‘That hill and valley, dale and field, And all the craggy mountains yield…’

Sloane frowned as he stepped onto the pavement in front of his house. He could hear Morgana and her girls singing.

The shepherds’ swains shall dance and sing;

For thy delight each May morning:

If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me and be my love.

Anyone passing by could hear it. In fact, people two streets away could hear it. Someone was bound to comment. Foolish Morgana. He’d told her to be more discreet.

Live with me and be my love echoed in his brain as he crossed the pavement and headed towards Bond Street. He had no particular errand, just a restlessness that he hoped to walk off. Perhaps he might look in at Lock’s for a new hat or drop in at White’s.

He gave a glance over his shoulder. Instead he might walk round to Morgana’s rear door and join in their gaiety.

He was not sure why he suddenly thought he ought to avoid them. He lengthened his stride.

It was due to Morgana. His rakish interest in her was growing at an alarming rate. He could barely be in her company without exceeding the bounds of civility. Like kissing her as though he meant it. He had meant it, that was the rub—damn Penny for that little stunt. He wanted to dance with her again, not as he had at Almack’s but as he’d danced with her in her parlour. He wanted to feel her body next to his.

This was hardly the way to think when he ought to be heading to Lady Hannah’s to ask for her hand in marriage. Hannah would make a creditable wife. He had faith she would develop into a successful hostess and a pleasing bed partner. As Heronvale said, she would be an asset to any man with political plans.

So why did the idea of even spending a whole evening in her presence at Vauxhall make him want to head back to a smuggling den?

Sloane might have begged off, sent a note around that urgent business prevented him from keeping the Vauxhall engagement. Only one reason prevented him. He longed to see what Morgana thought of the place.

He shook his head in dismay at this thought, and crossed the street. A carriage, his father’s crest on its side, rolled past him and came to a rather abrupt stop.

His father leaned out the window. ‘Cyprian! I desire to speak with you. Get in, if you please.’

Sloane did not please. ‘You may say what you will through the window, sir.’

The Earl of Dorton glared at him. ‘I will not mince words, boy. I have come from Heronvale. The man wants to put your name forward for the Commons. Unheard of, and I told him so in no uncertain terms.’

Sloane gave him an unconcerned shrug. ‘Then you need worry no further.’

His father sneered. ‘I told Heronvale where you came from, boy. He knows it all.’

A muscle twitched in Sloane’s cheek. His conception had always been a matter of conjecture in whispered conversations among the ton. Sloane always trusted his father’s inflated pride to prevent him from confirming such rumours. Apparently the Earl’s hatred of Sloane exceeded even that.

Sloane let his father’s dagger plunge into his gut and twist, and then he mentally pulled it away, telling himself it did not matter. Heronvale must spurn him now. There would be no seat in parliament. It did not matter. Sloane still had wealth and that alone would give him power enough to plague his father to the end of the man’s days.

Sloane leaned into the carriage. Giving his father a direct look, he lifted the corners of his mouth in the sardonic grin that always made the man hopping mad. ‘Dash it,’ he said with thick sarcasm. ‘My political career is ruined.’ He spun around and walked away.

‘Stay!’ the Earl ordered. ‘Stay. I command you!’

Sloane continued on his way, but to his dismay the carriage caught up to him. As he walked, his father shouted from the window, ‘And another thing! You’ll not marry that Cowdlin chit. I’ll see you do not.’ The Earl’s face turned an alarming shade of red. ‘I will ruin you first. I swear I will. I’ll send you back to the sewers or wherever you came by your ill-gotten wealth—’

Sloane stopped and the carriage continued on its way. He could hear his father pounding on the roof and shouting to the coachman to stop, but by the time the man did, Sloane had headed off in the other direction.

His destination was even more aimless than before. His cheeks flamed and he felt as sick to his stomach as if he’d again been nine years old. The streets had not been crowded and there was no indication that anyone had heeded the exchange, but Sloane felt as if he’d been laid bare in front of everyone.

By God, he’d thought he’d mastered this long ago, the humiliation of being pulled to pieces by the Earl in front of relatives, servants, schoolmasters—anyone. He’d perfected the appearance of not giving a deuce what his father said, or he once had. Why now? Why did his father’s words wound him now? Because the Earl had spoken to Heronvale about his mother?

A memory of her flashed though his mind. A fragment, all he had left of her. A pretty lady, smiling at him, laughing, bouncing him on her lap and kissing his cheeks. He had no idea if the memory was truly of his mother, but many a childhood night he’d forced himself to believe so.

* * *

Sloane walked until the dinner hour. He had an impulse to beg a meal from Morgana, but they were probably sitting down at this very moment. He would wait to see her at Vauxhall. He had the odd notion that seeing her would mend the wound his father created. Of course, that was nonsense.

Elliot, efficient as usual, had made the arrangements for Vauxhall, engaging a supper box for the Cowdlin party and ordering the refreshments.

Elliot also had Sloane’s dinner waiting for him. Afterwards his valet helped him dress for the evening, until all he need do was wait for the Cowdlin carriage.

He paced the Aubusson carpet of his drawing room, his footsteps so muffled by its nap he could hear the ticking of the mantel clock. His father’s voice kept ringing in his head. To mask it, he started to hum a tune.

Come live with me and be my love…

His butler announced that the carriage had arrived, and Sloane gathered his hat and gloves. The night was warm, a harbinger of summer nights to come.

He walked up to the carriage and greeted Lord and Lady Cowdlin and Hannah through its open window. ‘Would you like me to collect Miss Hart?’

‘She is not coming,’ said Lady Hannah.

Her mother added, ‘She sent a note today, begging off.’

Sloane frowned as he climbed in, suddenly dreading the long night ahead. ‘She is not ill, I hope?’

‘Not at all,’ Lady Cowdlin assured him.

He worried that something had happened with the courtesan school, while he was wandering the streets of Mayfair feeling sorry for himself. He frowned.

Hannah, who was in very high spirits, did not notice. She could barely sit still. ‘Poor Morgana!’ she said. ‘I hope she did not feel she would be out of place among my friends. Indeed, she has little to say to them. You have been kind to engage her, Mr Sloane.’

‘I find Miss Hart’s company quite pleasant,’ he said, tersely, offended at her characterisation of Morgana.

Hannah responded with a knowing expression, as if she understood he was merely being civil. Sloane gave it up. To say anything else might arouse suspicions that more went on than the Cowdlins should ever know about Morgana.

Hannah’s giddiness wore very thin by the time the carriage rolled over the new Vauxhall bridge.

‘I do wish we were to arrive by boat. It would be vastly more romantic,’ sighed Hannah.

‘Not good for my gout,’ grumbled her father.

Hannah continued to prattle on about everything being ‘exciting’ or ‘marvellous’ and how she could not wait to tell Athenia Poltrop this or that. She barely took heed of the spectacle that greeted them when they crossed through the garden’s entrance.

Thousands of lamps were strung throughout the tall elms and bushes, like stars come down to earth. Arches and colonnades and porticos made it appear as if ancient Greece had come alive in the stars, though the music of the orchestra sounded modern in their ears.

Sloane had always liked the fantasy that was Vauxhall. Nothing was as it seemed here, illusion was its only reality. Here a man could wear a mask and even the glittering lamps could not reveal whether he be a duke or the duke’s coachman. Here rogues and pickpockets shared the walks with frolicking vicars and extravagant nabobs. Indeed, a lady might walk by her maid without knowing her. She might dance next to her footman or the man who delivered coal to her Mayfair townhouse. It was impossible to feel one did not belong in this place.

But Hannah hurried them down the Grand Walk, past the Prince’s Pavilion and the theatre, past the colonnade, heading for the circle of supper boxes near the fountain.

Sloane wondered if Morgana would have rushed down the Grand Walk so quickly. Or would she have become distracted by the sights and all the people? Would she have tried to guess who the people were and to what sort of life they would return when the night was over?

‘I declare, this place is filled with riff-raff,’ Lady Cowdlin sniffed, apparently as oblivious to the splendour as her daughter.

‘Pay them no mind, dear,’ Lord Cowdlin advised. His lordship, however, paid particular mind to a group of women as pretty as flowers, all masked and escorted by two gentlemen. Sloane suspected Cowdlin would search out this very group as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

The supper box Elliot had arranged for them was in a spot with a view of the fountain, its water sparkling like tiny gold coins in the park’s illumination. The music from the orchestra rose and fell, carried in and out on the wind.

Lord and Lady Poltrop were already seated in the box, sipping some of the good vintage wine Sloane—or rather Elliot—had ordered for the occasion. Athenia jumped up when she saw Hannah, and the two young ladies embraced each other as if it had been an age since they’d been together when it had probably been as recent as that very afternoon.

‘No one else has arrived,’Athenia said to Hannah. ‘Indeed, I feared to be the only one here. Can you think how humiliating? Your brother will come, will he not?’

‘I wonder if he and the others were directed to the wrong box.’ Hannah looked about her with a worried expression. She reached out a hand towards Sloane. ‘Mr Sloane, do take us to search for the others! Perhaps they are on the other side. Oh, do take us.’

Lord Cowdlin was too busy whispering something to Poltrop to take heed of Hannah’s request, but Lady Cowdlin magnanimously gave her permission. ‘Do not venture into the Dark Walk, however,’ she warned in a jocular voice.

As if Sloane would be so foolish as to take two silly girls into an area of the park more suited to the sort of rakish behaviour he had forsworn. He’d rather they quickly discover the missing members of their party so he could get some relief from the chatter.

The two young ladies walked arm in arm, keeping up an intense conversation and paying Sloane little mind. He walked a step behind them, close enough to prevent any mischief befalling them. They circled the area where men and women danced beneath the musicians’balcony. Though both girls craned their necks to search the crowd, they spent as much time whispering to each other. Sloane, out of a desperate need for respite from their company, looked around for Hannah’s ‘particular’ friends, the ones who surrounded her at every society function.

He did not see them, but he spied the colourful group of ladies Lord Cowdlin had so admired. Not surprisingly, they had seated themselves in a box where they could be easily noticed.

He guided Hannah and Athenia past them, but one of the prettily dressed females cried, ‘Well, now. Aren’t you the handsome gent.’

Another giggled, but a third said a sharp, ‘Hush.’

Sloane whirled around, but other strollers obscured his view. Lady Hannah and her friend kept walking, and Sloane had to push his way through the crowd to catch up to them.

He looked over his shoulder again and a gap in the crowd afforded him a good look at the group.

One of the young ladies was raven-haired, another a redhead, the others golden-haired and mousy brown. But it was not these his eyes were riveted upon. It was the tall, dark-haired woman who stood in the midst of them.

Morgana.