Chapter Three
T he minute Doctor Newberry entered the upper drawing room, Viv relaxed the rigid smile she had in place for the Strydes. Their daily visit was most ill-timed today. Viv sat within reach of Lady Melforth’s papers and spectacles while from across the drawing room Mrs. Stryde gave one of her scolds.
“Dear Aurora, you will never really recover health without the strictest regimen of abstinence from all stimulants, and avoidance of rich foods.”
At any moment Aurora was likely to snap and send her visitors downstairs.
The doctor flashed Viv a grin that told her he was on her side. He knew the danger she faced. As active members of the London Anti-Vice Society, the Strydes must not discover Mr. Larkin below. They would use his presence as a reason to discharge Viv, and just now when Lady Melforth was at such a low ebb, she might not resist her cousins’ tactics. Viv could be sacked before she and Lady Melforth finished their London guidebook for women.
Newberry crossed the room, going straight to Lady Melforth, inquiring in his warm, direct way about her symptoms.
“Oh, Doctor,” she said. “I’ve had such flutterings and tremblings today.” Lady Melforth lay swathed in a lace wrapper against the cushions of a pale Aubusson sofa, her injured foot elevated on a peach velvet ottoman. Partly, the lacy wrapper and querulous complaints were an act Lady Melforth put on for the cousins, but Viv knew her employer was genuinely ill. For weeks now, maybe longer, Viv had been handling all of the lady’s correspondence and all of the manuscript pages of the guide and making weekly visits to Dodsley, their publisher.
“We’ll put you to rights, ma’am, Miss Bradish, Jenny, and I. Tell me what you’ve taken today for your distress.” The doctor pulled up a chair beside Lady Melforth, and taking her hand, felt for her pulse. After a silent moment, he said, “Let me send Viv downstairs to fix a soothing draft for you.” He winked at Viv.
She grinned back at him and hurried from the room. Newberry might enjoy the awkwardness of Viv’s situation, but he was willing to help. She could count on him to support Lady Melforth for a few minutes while Viv made sure Mr. Larkin was on his way.
Viv wished the Strydes were not so dogged in their attentions to her employer. Their daily visits appeared as concern for Lady Melforth’s health, but Viv was certain it was the lady’s fortune that mattered most to her persistent visitors. Viv did not know the details of her ladyship’s will, but Mr. Stryde, as Lady Melforth’s nearest male relative, would inherit the bulk of her estate. Each of the Stryde’s visits caused Lady Melforth to fret a good deal about being fair to people she didn’t much like. Why must they be so disagreeable? she would ask. The fretting made Lady Melforth uncomfortable at night, unable to sleep, her heart racing.
At the base of the stairs, Viv met her ladyship’s youngest footman, Thomas. She sent him to Mrs. Brandle the cook with instructions to prepare the doctor’s usual soothing draft. Then she squared her shoulders, and turned to the dining room. A word from Haxton stopped her.
“I believe the visitor is in the drawing room, miss.”
Viv corrected course. “He is still here then?”
Haxton nodded. “Jenny has removed all signs of the doctor’s treatment from the drawing room.”
An odd little bud of relief sprouted in Viv. She could count on Haxton and Jenny. Of course, her relief had nothing to do with seeing Mr. Larkin once more. She opened the door to the green drawing room and found him standing at the window looking down into the darkening street, his profile sharp-edged against the blackness outside. His presence added something sensual to the room with its straight perpendicular lines. It was a momentary impression. As he turned her way, she saw that he was his orderly self again, neck cloth, waistcoat, and coat in place so that no one would suspect him of having sustained a wound.
“You’ve been tended to, I see,” she said.
“I have.” He watched her cross the room. “Thanks to your Doctor Newberry.”
“The bullet did not lodge in your side?”
He held out his hand, and uncurled his fingers, revealing the spent ball in his palm. “It caught in my coat.”
“Oh.” It was no bigger than her thumbnail, so small a thing out of which to make a connection. It occurred to her that he would have expenses. “I must apologize to you again for any… inconvenience I’ve caused. You will let me know your tailor’s charges.”
She would dip into the monthly sum she sent her sisters if his tailor charged heavily for the damaged clothes. Each sister was to help the next to a new beginning in London. Pippa, at fifteen, was already dreaming of the pleasure gardens and balloon ascensions she would see when her turn came.
Mr. Larkin looked at the ball in his hand, not at her. “Your doctor friend told me I might treat this as a souvenir.” The word souvenir felt like a dismissal, as if he were already relegating her to the past, to his store of memories. And he seemed to have a wrong idea of her relationship with Newberry.
“Will you make a story of me?” he asked abruptly.
“A story?” It was true, but he had that wrong, too. Surely, there was something more to their meeting, some fated element that made it inevitable and necessary to each of them.
“The doctor said it’s what you do, tell stories to amuse your employer.” His gaze rose to challenge her, the blue intense and bitter. “Every street has a story, you said. So, am I to be the poor sap you shot in the street?”
“Yes, I might tell Lady Melforth a story about meeting you, but no, you will not be a poor sap, as you put it. You’ll be another man who thinks women cannot fend for themselves in our great city, a man who thinks we ought to stick to safe pathways.”
He moved then, coming toward her, stopping just short of the wide circle of her skirts. “What do you know of this city? You have money in your purse.”
She gave a short laugh, conscious of the awkward truth that her purse had been full of pebbles. “Had,” she recovered. “What’s money got to do with it?”
“Without it, without Lady Melforth, you’d find London a far different city. You’d know it better.”
“What?” He trivialized her stories. He doubted her ability to know the city.
“Your enemies would use your trip to Babylon Street against you.”
“You speak… plainly. I do not have enemies.”
His gaze didn’t waver. “You do. I heard them in the hall. Your employer’s cousins. Who are they?”
“Oh, the Strydes. They’re members of the Anti-Vice Society.” She wondered how he’d learned of their enmity in the hour he’d been in Lady Melforth’s house.
“They’d like to see you lose your position.”
“They said as much? You heard them?” She had suspected them of scheming against her for some time.
He nodded. “They did.”
“Well, you needn’t be concerned for my position. I’ll not be driven away by them.”
“You could shoot them.”
“Don’t be daft. I only—”
“Shoot strangers?”
“I will simply stay until Lady Melforth no longer needs me.”
“And then?”
She tried to penetrate his gaze. The whole conversation was going wrong. She didn’t understand why he was challenging her, trying to throw her off-balance. She folded her hands together. “I’m not without resources. I will find another employer. Besides when our book is…”
“Is that what you want? To be employed, at the beck and call of some grand lady? I thought you wanted to be… an independent woman.”
“I beg your pardon. We…you and I are hardly acquainted. You know nothing about me.”
At the sound of voices on the stairs, among them Haxton’s, indignant and affronted, she froze. Mr. Larkin apparently caught the sound and shot her a questioning gaze.
“The Strydes. Oh no! They’re coming. They mustn’t find you here.” She glanced around. “Move. Crouch behind that sofa.”
With the same quickness with which he stepped between her and the pickpocket, Mr. Larkin dropped to one knee in front of her. She started, her skirts swaying with her movement, the blue silk lapping at his booted foot. The door opened behind her.
Mr. Larkin took her left hand in his and slowly slid the garnet ring into place on her ring finger, looking up at her.
Behind her Mrs. Stryde gasped as Viv looked down, meeting Mr. Larkin’s gaze. In spite of the pose of ardent worship, it was not love she saw in his eyes, but a challenge, a dare. Maybe he did understand her, after all.
She gave a nod, unable to speak.
“Miss Bradish,” he said in a loud, clear voice. “You have made me the happiest of men.”
Mr. Larkin rose, still in possession of her hand and turned her to face the others. The hand in Viv’s was steady. She had no idea what Mr. Larkin would make of the Strydes, but she sensed that he had their measure. Mrs. Stryde leaned toward them like a dog straining against its lead.
“And who are you, young man?”
“Good evening, Mrs. Stryde, Mr. Stryde. Though we’ve not met, Miss Bradish has mentioned you to me. I beg your pardon.” He turned and gave Viv such a besotted smile that she wondered if he was an actor in a London theater, maybe the Camberwell, a theater known for its showy performances.
“Our pardon?” Mrs. Stryde was tall, thin, and severe in the lines of her face, and rigid in her bearing in spite of dark curls over her ears and layers of flounce on the sleeves of her Nile-green gown. Mr. Stryde’s blue eyes were small behind his round spectacles. His jaw bristled with straw-colored whiskers, like the whiskers of a fox, and his person was as comfortably padded as a velvet cushion.
“Yes, your pardon. I admit to seizing the occasion of your visit to Lady Melforth to have a word with my… betrothed.”
“Your betrothed?”
“Only today. It was mere luck that I called at a time when Miss Bradish could step away from her duties, however briefly, for as you must know, she is devoted to her ladyship.”
Viv did her best to maintain her composure. She could not look at him. He was remarkably adept at making statements that were true, but far from illuminating. He was, perhaps, too good at it.
“But how can this be? How can you have met Miss Bradish when…?”
“In the most ordinary way. Over a book.”
Mrs. Stryde shook her head. “A lady’s companion may not enter into a clandestine acquaintance with a gentleman. To do so violates the rules of her employment, and indeed, of decent feminine conduct.”
“Ah, but there has been nothing clandestine about our acquaintance. As a lady, Miss Bradish knows what’s due her station and her family.” He turned to Viv again. “Will you permit me to explain how we met, my love?” he asked. One of his dark brows quirked upward.
Viv nodded. She had no idea how she managed to keep her countenance. The part he played and asked her to play grew riskier by the minute.
“Miss Bradish had been looking for a particular book for… some time. The Spanish Brothers. Do you know the novel?”
“A rubbishy novel? Full of folly and vice? Of course not. What does a novel have to do with this… intrusion into Lady Melforth’s house?”
“As the usual booksellers failed her, Miss Bradish was forced to apply to… collectors.”
“And?”
“My employer is a known collector of rare books.” He spoke as if his words perfectly explained the situation, but Viv could see the Strydes’ baffled expressions. She admired his coolness in spinning a fiction out of the merest details of their meeting. He offered crumbs of information and never a direct answer to Mrs. Stryde’s questions. He’d altered his voice to make it a bit more pompous .
“Your employer?”
“Yes, among my… other duties… I see to the cataloguing of certain collections. Naturally, it fell to my lot to deal with Miss Bradish’s inquiry. You cannot blame me for being curious about a lady whose bookish interests match my own.”
“Bookish?” Mrs. Stryde stared as if Viv had sprouted a second head. Viv managed a faint smile.
“See here, fellow,” said Mr. Stryde. “You’re giving us a bit of a runaround. Who is this employer of yours?”
The drawing room door opened again, and Newberry entered. He glanced at Viv’s hand in Mr. Larkin’s, and frowned, turning a cold stare on Mr. Larkin.
“The duke does not wish his name bandied about in conversation. However, he was happy to make Miss Bradish a present of the book she sought.” At that, Viv could not help giving her accomplice a quick reproving glance. Where did a duke fit in the story? He gave a careless shrug. “And thus, we met.”
“A duke? What duke?” demanded Mrs. Stryde. “Who are your people, young man?”
Viv felt Mr. Larkin’s hold tighten on her hand, but he merely said, “My people are old Londoners.”
“Well, Mr. whoever you are… a man without fortune or connections, how are we to believe you have ties to the peerage?”
Viv stiffened. She did not know why Mr. Larkin had brought a duke into the story, but Newberry could easily sink them. He might not know the full details of how Mr. Larkin had come to be in Lady Melforth’s red-and-green drawing room, but he knew enough to cast doubt on any pretensions the gentleman might have to such lofty connections.
Newberry turned a skeptical gaze on Mr. Larkin, as if daring him to produce a duke.
“If you must know, it has been my privilege to spend a number of years in the Duke of Wenlocke’s household.”
Viv tried to look very much at ease with the revelation. Mrs. Stryde gave a good imitation of a landed fish gasping on the shore. Her husband took her by the arm to offer his support. Newberry shook his head. Viv had to act. It was necessary to remove Mr. Larkin from the line of fire before he said anything more outrageous and before the Strydes recovered their full faculties.
“Pray do excuse us,” she said. “We must share our happy news with Lady Melforth. Haxton will see you out.” She gave a tug on Mr. Larkin’s hand, and headed for the door.
She did not slow her steps until they reached the landing above. There, she halted, conscious of a mad jumble of feelings, gratitude for the way he’d faced the Strydes, admiration for his quick wit, and vexation for how he’d complicated her situation with the charade of a betrothal. She turned to him and released his hand. It was one thing to deceive the Strydes about the nature of their connection, but she did not want to conceal the truth from Lady Melforth, who had been her benefactor, friend, and mentor for the best part of a year.
“What?” he asked.
“I don’t want to… lie to Lady Melforth.”
“You think I lied to the Strydes?” His sharp blue gaze challenged hers.
“Not lied, but omitted… certain details. And a duke? You had to bring a duke into it? Do you really catalogue the Duke of Wenlocke’s collections?”
He gave a careless shrug, and winced. “I’ve known him for many years.”
“Why did you do it, anyway? Propose to me?”
“I couldn’t let you get sacked for helping me.”
“But I shot you.”
“Do you want to give your employer the pickpocket and pistol shot version of our betrothal?” Now he looked amused.
“Ooh, when you put it that way, I don’t see how it can be done. What am I to say—that I went husband-hunting with a gun and bagged you?”
“Tell her whatever convenient fiction you like, but if you don’t want to be sacked…”
“Very well,” she said. “We met over a book and are betrothed and will remain so until—”
“—you decide we no longer suit.” His gaze didn’t waver.
Viv shook her head. “Until Lady Melforth and I finish writing our guide.”
“Your what?”
“Our Lady’s Guide to Walking in London .”