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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” Dany asked her sister as she peered through the semidarkness in the bedchamber, as all the draperies had been pulled tightly shut.

She probably should have asked that of the pair of maids collapsed on chairs, mounds of toweling at their feet, one still holding a horsehair brush in one hand. Both scrambled to their feet when Dany spoke, gathering up the toweling and hastening from the room, probably to beg the housekeeper for restorative cups of tea and buttered biscuits.

“No, I’m not all right,” the countess answered sourly from the bed. “Only you could ask such a ridiculous question, Daniella. My head aches from all the repeated washings, my face is still covered in splotches and I have all but begged someone to bring me some cucumber pickles in cream and no one has paid me the least amount of attention. Where have you been?”

“You said you didn’t care where I went,” Dany reminded her as she hopped up onto the bed. “Your hair looks much better, Mari. And it definitely smells better in here.”

“I will not consume chicken again, not for the remainder of my life!”

“Yes, fowl creatures,” Dany agreed, although she knew she was the only one who would appreciate her small joke. “But you’re all right? I mean, in general? With the baby and all?”

Mari pulled a pink lace bed jacket more closely around her. “You certainly are persistent today. Yes, I’m fine. Has the baron recovered my letters as yet? Is that where you were? With the baron? Where did you go?”

There wasn’t much that could be circumspect in Dany’s answer, not if she answered truthfully. So she summoned a lie.

“We took a stroll along Bond Street and then another in Green Park, where his lordship took my hand and we disappeared into the trees so that he could kiss me. Twice, if you can imagine.”

“Oh, you did not. The baron would never so compromise you, not when he has no real plans of wedding you. Nor you him? Dany, you aren’t getting any foolish ideas, are you? I appreciate what you’re doing, but I don’t want you hurt. You are my sister.”

“No, no, of course I won’t be hurt. Yes, I was fibbing, silly. As if he’d kiss me. I wanted to be certain you were paying attention. You often don’t, you know. I don’t know why Mama thought you’d be a good chaperone.”

Mari burst into tears, which was the very last thing Dany wanted.

“I’m so, so sorry,” the countess said, taking Dany’s hands in hers. “I’m a wretched sister. I’ve set a poor example, I make silly mistakes and now I’ve confined myself to my room until these nasty, horrid splotches go away, and the Little Season will be over before we know it. What can I do to make it up to you?”

“Well, um, I’m sure I can’t know. I mean, really, Mari, you’re the best of sisters, and I’m so delighted that I am to have a niece or nephew in a few months, and I truly love being here in London in any case, even if I don’t attend another ball or musical party. Although...”

Mari squeezed her hands. “Yes, yes? What is it? Honestly, Dany, unless you want to do something totally outrageous, I’m sure I can approve. Will I approve?”

“Oliver is still traveling?” Dany asked, getting down from the bed. “He won’t come strolling in the door in the next four and twenty hours?”

“No, no. I counted out on my fingers, from the day he first said he’d return. It will be at least another three days. I simply have to be healed by then. Mrs. Timmerly said I will be, using the cream she said her mother swore by, and her mother before that. Why? Isn’t that enough time for the baron to retrieve the letters? Tell me the truth, Dany. I must know the truth. You said he knew the identity of the blackmailer.”

“True enough, but he wouldn’t tell me. Aren’t you simply itching to know?”

Mari shrugged. “I suppose so. I may have to meet him in Society at some point.” Now she shivered. “Can’t the baron just shoot him or some such thing? After he retrieves my letters, I mean.”

So much for diverting her, Dany thought, smiling inwardly. Now we’re back, as always, to Mari’s favorite subject. Herself.

“You’d ask a near-stranger to sacrifice his freedom in order to retrieve your silly letters?”

The countess sank back against the pillows. “Not for me, Dany. For the child.”

“Oh, yes, of course. The child. How could I have been so silly. Babies need fathers, don’t they? Fathers and being named the heir without any niggling little questions as to just who that father might be.”

“You know very well I would never— Oh, Dany, this has to work. It just has to!”

Ah, and now, finally, they were where Dany wanted to be.

“I couldn’t agree more. That’s why I wanted to be certain you were all right. Because the duchess has asked me to dinner, and possibly to spend the night, as she believes her guest, Miss Clarice Goodfellow of the Virginia Goodfellows, you understand, is pining for home and could use some female company more her own age. Are you certain you’d be all right here, on your own?”

“I’m surrounded by people, Dany,” her sister said, actually sounding reasonable. “Besides, how does one, especially one with no prospects or dowry of any import, turn down an invitation from a duchess? No, no, that’s not possible.”

Dany was already heading for the door. “Are you certain?”

Mrs. Timmerly herself entered the chamber, carrying a silver tray holding a china bowl filled to the brim with pickled cucumbers in cream sauce.

Mari sat up, all excitement, and fairly shook in anticipation of her treat.

“What? Oh, yes, yes. I’m sure. Just go. Ahhh,” she said, all attention turned to the tray placed in front of her, employing her fingers to lift one round slice and hold it in front of her eyes. “Heaven.”

Dany didn’t wait to see the dripping thing disappear into her sister’s mouth. As far as she could remember, Mari didn’t even like pickled cucumbers.

Within an hour, fresh from her bath, her short hair hopefully attractively mussed and blessedly dry, a stuffed bandbox already handed over to a footman—and assuring herself that Harry was resting in the servants’ quarters—she was standing in the foyer, awaiting the arrival of the earl’s town coach.

“Miss Foster?”

She turned about, to see Timmerly descending the staircase, a worried look on his face and a folded letter in his hand.

“Yes? Does my sister want to see me?”

The butler shook his head. “No, Mrs. Timmerly is with her. I don’t know if you are aware, Miss Foster, but longtime retainers, such as myself, are privy to information one might think withheld from them. Such...such is the case with her ladyship’s current dilemma. Not that I would say that I...snoop, but there are moments when it may be necessary to...”

Dany had been watching Timmerly’s hand, and the broken seal on the letter he held in that hand. “Give it to me.”

“Oh, thank you, miss. It arrived this morning, but Mrs. Timmerly said her ladyship is already too overset to...”

“‘My dearest wife,’” Dany read out loud, holding out her hand for silence. “‘I’ve left my luggage and the others to follow, frustrated by their slow pace when all I wish is to be home, to see your beautiful face again. Expect me within a day of receiving this. With loving affection...’ Oh, my God!”

“Yes, miss. Mrs. Timmerly is doing her all to soothe my lady’s, um, complexion. But it won’t do to overset her ladyship in her current condition.”

“Her splotches? Ah, Timmerly, if only that were her sole problem. Is the coach outside? I must get to the duchess to, um, assist her and her other guests with a small project.”

And to hopefully find out Coop’s plans for the evening, as they were sure to involve confronting Ferdie.

Ten minutes later, she was being ushered into the private sitting room of the Duchess of Cranbrook.

The duchess was already there, she and all her flounces and filmy draperies. As was Coop’s mother, the infamous Minerva, dressed much more severely and in her clearly favored purple. Clarice Goodfellow, blond curls hanging, was sitting at a writing desk, quill in hand, as the older ladies stood on either side, bent over her.

None of them appeared to have heard Dany being announced, and all the butler did was look at her, shrug and retire from the room, closing the double doors behind him.

“No, that’s not it, Minerva. Clandestine is spelled with two d’s, I’m certain. Clan...des...dine.”

“Did you hear that, Clarice? You shouldn’t. You should be clapping your hands over your ears, rather than to be exposed to such nonsense. The woman doesn’t even know how to pronounce it. Clan...des...tine. Go on, strike it out, write it correctly.”

“Yes, Minerva,” Clarice said, dipping the quill pen and attacking the page once more. “But what does it mean? What is a clandestine assig—assig—nation?”

The two older women exchanged glances, and the duchess put out her hand, indicating that her friend should answer.

“It means, my dear, meeting—lovers most usually—in secret, for reasons of amorous...exploration.”

“Oh, like when you sneak out of the house after midnight to meet up with the cook’s son and do the naughty behind the barn. Why can’t you just say so?”

“You warned me I should be careful of my language around her,” Minerva said accusingly.

The duchess fussed with one of her ruffles. “It wasn’t the girl I was thinking might be embarrassed if you were to in any way encourage frankness, Minerva. And you’re blushing, aren’t you? Clarice is wise beyond her years. We just don’t like to think about that.”

Dany’s unleashed laughter had all three females turning to look at her, and she hastened to approach, curtsy first to the duchess, then to Coop’s mother, and then to simply grin at Clarice.

“Your pardon, ladies. Please believe I wasn’t purposely— Oh, yes, of course I was. Purposely eavesdropping, that is.”

Minerva Townsend looked at Dany from overtop an impressive pair of spectacles. “Does my son know you’re here?”

“Oh, yes. He sent to me to help, as a matter of fact.”

“He did not,” Minerva told the countess. “She lies well, doesn’t she?” She turned back to Dany. “But only when left with no alternative, I’ll wager, while I look at lying as a pleasurable hobby. Do you know where he is?”

“You don’t?” Dany seated herself in the nearest chair, feeling as if all the air had suddenly been knocked from her. “I had so hoped you would. I came to see you, Clarice. Rigby couldn’t keep a secret from you if he tried. Do you know? Somebody has to know. After what happened.”

Minerva came around the desk, the other two close behind her. “What happened? I haven’t seen my son since he left the Pulteney, having turned down Ames’s offer of breakfast. Come on, gel, speak.”

Dany spoke. Stronger people than herself would have broken beneath Minerva Townsend’s stare.

She told them about Ned Givens. She told them about Darby’s visit to Geoff Quinton. She told them about the assassination attempt on the roadway.

She did not tell them Coop’s secret that he was only keeping for someone else, nor did she mention her own sister’s dilemma.

She most certainly did not tell them about...well, about.

“Someone shot at my son? My son?” She dropped into a chair with a thud. “Viv, I need a restorative. Quickly!”

Clarice moved first. “I’ll ring for some vinaigrette. Or we could burn some feathers.”

“Unnecessary,” the duchess said, walking over to a gilt-and-mirrored cabinet and opening the doors, extracting a decanter and two glasses. “Gin, Minerva? I believe it was once your favorite.”

Minerva nodded, keeping her head down even as she shot out her arm, her fingers opening and closing until the glass was in her hand. She downed its contents in one loud gulp, and then held out the glass again. “The first for its effect, the second to help me think.”

Suitably fortified, Minerva leaned forward on her chair, elbows on her knees, and Dany sat back as far as she could on her own.

“From the back, I’ll presume,” the woman said, rubbing the empty glass between her palms. “That’s how cowards operate, from cover, and from the back. Who is he?”

“You...you don’t know that, either?” This surprised Dany. It would seem she was Coop’s only true confidante.

How very lovely.

“I’m sure I couldn’t say, ma’am.”

“Minerva. I’m Minerva to you unless I tell you otherwise. Can’t say, or won’t say?”

Clarice put her hands on the back of Dany’s chair. “Be careful. I’ve never known a woman who could ask the same question so many different ways, until you simply give up and tell her what she wants to know.”

“I don’t know, so it doesn’t matter how many ways she asks me,” Dany said, putting all her conviction into her words. “Wherever Cooper is, I do know this—he is in control of the situation. He’s the hero of Quatre Bras, if you’ll all recall, and knows no fear.”

Surprisingly, this caused Mrs. Townsend to pull a large white linen square from her pocket and dab at the corners of her eyes. “That’s just what I’m afraid of, my dear. I know my son, and if he ever did experience fear, it would be because you were with him when the shot came. That poor Harry was hit, that either one of you could have been killed in his place? No, I’m convinced Cooper is not feeling fear. He’s angry. He’s incensed. I’ve never known him incensed. It’s never prudent to anger a normally calm man. Someone has poked a stick at a sleeping bear. God only knows what will happen now.”

“My Jerry’s with him, Minerva,” Clarice soothed quickly. “And where they are, Darby’s sure as check to be, as well. Our job is to be strong, and to finish what we were commissioned to do. Aren’t I right, Your Grace?”

“Yes, my dear, you’re correct. Sadly. Come, Minerva, we must get back to work. We’re nearly done, but then the whole must be gotten to Paternoster Row by this evening if it is to see publication tomorrow.”

Dany looked to Clarice, who was already seating herself behind the writing desk once more. “You...you’re writing a chapbook?”

“Indeed, yes. Took a devilish long time to come up with a new title. Viv, read the girl the title.”

“Certainly.” The duchess extracted a pair of diamond-studded spectacles from the bodice of her gown, and carefully wrapped the ends around her ears before sorting through the small pile of papers until she found the correct one. “Here it is.” She cleared her throat, and read, “‘The Chronicles of a Hero: Wherein the Hero of Quatre Bras Is Tried and Tempted to the Limits of His Endurance, and Boldly Decides on His Future and His Rightful Place in Society: Third and Final Volume.’” She looked to Dany, who did her best to summon a compliment, and decided to simply lightly applaud instead.

The duchess removed the spectacles, tucking them back into her gown. “Yes, it might still need some work, I agree. But we had to move on.”

“My Jerry thought of it,” Clarice said proudly, picking up the quill once more. “He and I spent all day yesterday visiting the print shops up and down the road, offering a tidy sum to the owners if he could purchase a print of the handsome hero of Quatre Bras as it appeared on the cover of Volume Two. For me, you understand, who would die, simply die, if I didn’t have one for my very own.”

Dany was amazed. “And that worked? You found the print shop that has been producing the chapbooks?”

“We did. On only our very second try. I cry most convincingly, you understand.” She grinned, and then patted at her ample and well-displayed bosom.

“Nothing like a perky young pair to convince a man to do what he wouldn’t believe he would. Cooper should have thought of that on his own,” Minerva said, obviously recovered. “Not the method, of course. That wouldn’t have worked for him. But he should have thought to trace down the printer. Still, hard to believe he was outthought by Rigby, of all people. The printer admitted rather proudly that he had been commissioned for the other two, and had actually been in the process of readying his presses to print Volume Three.”

Dany clapped a hand to her mouth. “Were you able to stop him?”

“We were. I told you Rigby had brought along a purse. It was a comfortably heavy purse. The man was also promised something else to print, another Volume Three to replace the handwritten one he was setting in type. Would you like to see it? We’re keeping most of it the same, but making drastic changes to the ending, because that certainly did not flatter the baron.”

“Coop was right. Volume Three’s planned ending was to brand my son as a despoiler of women, including allusions to doing so at the direction of the Crown for some ungodly reason. I only skimmed, since it was all nonsense. Quatre Bras wasn’t even mentioned save for a demand Coop be stripped of his land and title and cast out of Society.”

The duchess was pouring herself another measure of gin. Her cheeks had already gone rosy, and she was smiling, pretty much to herself. “The populace is expecting an end to the hero’s story, and we are going to give it to them. Otherwise, there would always be speculation, and poor Coop has suffered enough. Minerva, I’ve just had the most delicious idea. Instead of sneaking out into the gardens for a clandestine assignation—so very done, my dears, by others—we could write about the time Basil and I tiptoed past the guards and up into the bell tower of Saint Paul’s. We had to hurry with what we were about, of course, because of the bells, you understand. Our heads would have rung right off our necks. So what we did was—girls, leave us. Minerva and I will finish up here.”

“But...but won’t we just be able to read the chapbook when it’s published?”

“Yes, Clarice,” the duchess said. “What I’m going to say to Minerva is not going to be published anywhere. Titillating as it might be otherwise, in our Volume Three the assignation leads to yet another silly young twit being rescued from her own idiocy by the hero, who then returns to his estate, to live out his days—what was that he’s going to live out his days doing, Minerva?”

“Cultivating a new variety of turnips in order to feed more of the masses,” Mrs. Townsend answered dully. “We’ll have to work on that, as well, won’t we? Ah, well, we’ll think of something. So long as London knows that Volume Three is the very last volume.”

The duchess clapped her pudgy hands (with much more enthusiasm than Dany had been able to muster). “Yes, that’s it. The turnips stay. We’ll first titillate, and then bore them to flinders, that’s what we’ll do. They’ll have some other nonsense to engage them soon enough, and your son can get on with his life. Ah, we’re brilliant. Go on, girls. Minerva and I needs must create.”

Dany was more than agreeable to leaving the room, taking Clarice’s hand and all but dragging her back to the hallway.

“Where can we be private?” she asked her.

“We could walk in the square.”

Dany shook her head. “No, that’s not good. Coop wouldn’t approve.”

“Would he approve of you being here?” Clarice asked, winking at her.

“Probably, if he thought about it long enough. He would not approve of me being foolish, putting myself in possible danger.”

“And walking in the square would put you in possible danger?”

“We were shot at earlier today, Clarice, remember?”

“Crikey, you’re right. No sense in the chicken stretching out her own neck on the block all helpful like, while the farmer sharpens the ax, hmm?”

Dany put a hand to her throat. “Yes, that seems to about sum up the matter. Now tell me where they are. I have something I must tell him. Where did they go?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know, or you’re not supposed to say?”

“I don’t know, Dany. I’m so sorry. I just don’t know.” Then she put out her arms and Dany walked into them, at last giving in to the fear that had settled in her heart earlier, and let herself cry.