Chapter 21
21
“ S o, you’re working for that bastard lowlife?” demanded Mr. Drummond, the most respected banker in all of Britain.
Julia had known walking into Messrs. Drummond was an enormous misstep but even entering the building as Mr. Smallwood and telling the secretary she must deliver the parcel herself caused an uproarious stir. As soon as Mr. Drummond peered at the contents, he turned so red in the face, Julia was afraid he’d blow steam out of his ears. “No, sir, I’m afraid to say that I owe a favor to the person to whom you are referring, and had I not hand-delivered those documents or whatever they are, I?—”
“So, Skinner has blackmailed you as well, has he?”
“Yes, I’m afraid he has.” Julia’s face grew hot as she backed toward the door. She needed to make haste in order to have enough time to dress for the theater. “If you will provide the requested reply, I shall take my leave.”
“How the devil does he do it?” the man demanded.
“What, exactly, sir?”
“We took the utmost care in hiding our client’s identity, yet the maggot tracked him down like a bloodhound. How did he wheedle you into this? Debts? Cheating on your wife?”
“Debts.” Julia placed her hand on the latch while her wrist throbbed. “Not my debts, but those of someone who is unable to pay.” She didn’t know why she was bothering to explain.
“Well, the man’s ballocks have grown too large for his trousers.” The banker pounded his fist on the writing table. “You tell him if he thinks he can swindle Messrs. Drummond, he will find himself swimming at the bottom of the Thames.”
She shook her finger at the inkpot and quill resting beside the man’s hand. “I beg your pardon, sir, but I rather think such a threat would not be anywhere near as effective coming from me as it would from you. After all, you are quite a fierce-looking chap.”
The banker slapped the missive on his thigh as he gave her a glower from head to toe. “You are rather impish are you not?”
“Height challenged, I like to say.”
Mr. Drummond jotted out a note, sealed it, and jammed the document into Smallwood’s chest, grinding his knuckles to boot. “Just take this worthless rubbish and tell your henchman to find someone else to swindle. Unless he wants to spend the rest of his days in Newgate—and you along with him.”
“Me?”
“Remove yourself from my presence! And if I ever see your face in my bank again, I’ll personally have you arrested.”
Julia turned and fled, doing her best to hold her head high and not dash out the doors in tears. This was an untenable state of affairs. There was every chance that she’d have to walk through those doors again when conducting Dunscaby business, and now the head of Messrs. Drummond had all but thrown her out on her ear. She needed to tell Mr. Skinner that she had a reputation to uphold and if he ruined it, his messenger would be useless to him.
Except the last time she’d tried to tell the man his tactics were unscrupulous, she’d ended up all the worse for it. She was better off staying as far away from that scoundrel as she possibly could.
Once she stepped onto the pavement, the clock tower struck the hour of four. Fortunately, it wasn’t but a quarter of a mile to the town house—or ought she go to the boarding house?
Julia had her answer as soon as she stepped into her chamber off the Dunscaby courtyard.
“There you are!” Charity flew out of a chair. “Martin returned ages ago. And given the fact that you need to ready yourself for the theater, you haven’t much time.”
Julia took off her hat and hung it on the peg. “I do have my duty to perform. It isn’t all parties and soirees for the working class, I’ll have you know.”
“Well, you are not of the working class, are you?” Charity pulled the dratted hat off the peg and handed back to Julia. “How is your wrist?”
Julia flexed it, doing her best not to wince. “Nearly healed.” After all, the swelling had eased considerably since yesterday.
“Good, because we need to hasten to the boarding house. I had Tearlach deliver the trunk there this afternoon.”
“Bless you, dearest. You truly are a diamond.”
“I only wish a real gentleman would think so.” She clasped her hands and batted her eyelashes. “It was ever so nice to chat with you when I thought you a man. I even told Marty I would marry you.”
Putting her hat back atop her head, Julia chuckled. “Marry a steward who forever has his nose in his ledgers?”
“Is that so bad? I think I’d rather a man who works hard and prefers to spend his time reading rather than carousing like so many highborn dandies do.”
“They all aren’t rakes.”
“No?” Charity threw out her hands. “Even Marty earned a carousing reputation.”
“Aye, but he has reformed substantially of late. Perhaps you ought to set an age limit—say any prospective suitor under the age of five and twenty is too immature for your sensible nature.” Julia gestured to the door. “You’d best slip out first. I wouldn’t want one of the stable hands seeing us leave together. If you told your brother you might consider marrying Smallwood, the duke would be very difficult to dissuade if he caught wind of any impropriety between us.”
“If he only knew the true nature of our impropriety, he would truly turn into a tempestuous ogre.” Charity giggled as she headed for the door. “Do hasten along quickly. I’ve stacks of gowns and accoutrements to show you.”
“Just make certain the window to the garden is unlatched and I’ll meet you anon.”
The lights in the Theater Royal were not dimmed as low as Martin would have preferred, though the gaslights on the stage did much to illuminate the players in Mozart’s Don Giovani. There were no more sconces lit in the theater than usual but Martin felt as if there were a torch the size of a brazier burning in the Dunscaby box. Prior to inheriting the dukedom, he hadn’t frequented this particular box often. He preferred the one further along that he’d purchased when holding the courtesy title of the Marquess of Ross. The lights from the stage cast shadows across that particular box which made it secluded and private—an ideal place for the preamble to lovemaking.
The box reserved for the Duke of Dunscaby, however, was in the center of the theater and was bright enough to grow tomatoes. The only other box that made its occupants appear as if they were part of the opera was the one reserved for the royal family which, presently, remained unoccupied.
So, there he sat, his sister on one side and Lady Julia on the other, wanting nothing more than to brush his fingers across the back of Her Ladyship’s gloved hand, which was not in a sling, since she professed to be completely and amazingly healed.
Unfortunately, the theater goers in the pit seemed more interested in who the new duke was entertaining than the soprano presently holding forth with an impressive aria.
Julia raised her fan, leaned in, and whispered, “She’s fabulous.”
Martin had spent much of the production watching Her Ladyship’s fingers tap as if playing an imaginary keyboard. “Have you frequented the opera?” he asked, wishing they were alone and she serenading him with a private recital.
“I wouldn’t say I’ve frequented much of anything in London.”
Of course, he knew she had not. As far as the ton was concerned, Julia St. Vincent was a reclusive spinster. “By all the eyes looking your way, I’m afraid your secret has been brought to light.”
Julia, gasped nearly as loud as Senora Catalani hitting a high B-flat. Her Ladyship clutched a hand over her heart, her face stricken as if she’d just received unfathomable news such as the death of a loved one, or the king, or the mass murder in an orphanage full of children. She opened her mouth, but only managed to form an O with those Cupid’s bow-shaped lips.
Martin let his hand drop to his side and hooked her little finger with his pointer. “All the gossips in attendance will ken the Earl of Brixham’s daughter has emerged after—what is it—four years of avoiding the London crowd?”
She tightened her finger around his while her expression softened into a shy smile. “I fear they’ll be sorely disappointed when I leave before the Season is over.”
“The gossips aren’t the only ones who will be forlorn.” He leaned nearer, turning his lips to her ear. “I want to kiss you.”
She pressed the handle of her fan to her lips, a well-known lady’s sign for telling a man she did indeed desire a kiss. A fluttering erupted in the pit of his stomach as if he were but an adolescent lad. Martin glanced to the door behind their velvet-padded chairs. If they slipped away now, on the morrow the papers would not only be holding forth about Lady Julia’s presence in the Dunscaby box, but they’d incite a scandal vicious enough to ruin the lass.
He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it ever so gently and every bit as unobtrusively as possible. “Perhaps you can pretend to fall from the carriage and feign an injury so that you might again occupy the Rose Bedchamber.”
She tapped her lips, obviously restraining a laugh. “Fortunately, the first incident avoided the papers. I wouldn’t chance a second.”
“You have an aversion for risk, do you?” he whispered, not giving a whit what was happening on the stage.
“I am most averse…though…”
Martin’s eyebrow quirked. Her response was too tempting to ignore. “What were you going to say?”
“I don’t know.” Her shoulder ticked up. “It seems peril oft has a way of finding me.”
“Such as?”
“Please, Your Grace. A woman cannot reveal every hazardous circumstance she faces. Besides, doing so might make me appear less worthy in your eyes.”
As far as Martin knew, Julia was sheltered as much as if not more than any highborn female in the kingdom. “Facing risk or hazard, as you put it, only serves to make a person stronger. Perhaps more worldly.”
A sultry chuckle was hidden behind the woman’s fan, sounding far more like Aphrodite than a maid who hailed from a sleepy English village. “I say, your opinion mightn’t be shared by three-quarters of the patrons presently in this theater.”
Martin cast his gaze to the stage, but out of the corner of his eye he focused on Julia. How could this woman ever appear to be less worthy to him? She put her father’s needs ahead of her own. She was spending the greater part of her marriageable years taking care of an infirm earl. If only Martin possessed half of her graciousness. If he’d been a more attentive son, he might have noticed his own father’s decline. There was no question that Lady Julia was far closer to sainthood than he. No matter what secrets the lady might be harboring, they would pale in comparison to Martin’s former exploits including mistresses, gambling, drinking, not to mention a spell of week-long debauchery. Behavior which he oddly did not miss.
It had nearly cut Martin to the quick to escort Lady Julia to the door of her boarding house, kiss her hand and bid her goodnight. With Charity waiting in the carriage, he couldn’t exactly ravish the woman before she ventured inside. And why the blazes had he come up with the idea to put her in a boarding house for women of all places? He should have asked her to stay on at the town house.
Except he doubted she would have accepted such an invitation while Mama was away even if it were extended by his sister. When he’d taken Julia for the ride in the park, the lass had every intention of returning to Brixham. Establishing rooms for her at Lady Blanche’s was the best idea he could think of to keep her from boarding the mail coach for home. Aye, arranging respectable accommodation was the proper thing to do as well, even though, deep down, Martin didn’t give a rat’s arse about being proper.
After they entered the vestibule at the town house, Charity allowed Giles to remove her cloak. “Goodness, I’m weary. I think I’ll head up to my chamber and crawl under the bedclothes with a good book.”
“Perhaps a dram of whisky will help me,” said Martin, giving Giles his great coat and cane.
“Did Julia tell you her rooms are on the first floor overlooking the garden?” asked Charity, looping her arm through the crook in Martin’s elbow.
He escorted her to the foot of the stairs. “Are they?”
“Indeed—framed by trees as if that wee wing is tucked away in a forest.”
“It sounds like the setting for a fairy story.”
“I do believe it could be.” Charity kissed Martin’s cheek. “Sleep well, brother.”
He watched her retreat upward until her skirts disappeared. A secluded garden and rooms on the first floor?
“Would you like your drink in the library, Your Grace?” asked Giles.
Martin retrieved his hat and coat. “I think not.”
“Are you going out, sir?”
“I’ve a great deal on my mind—I believe a late-night stroll is in order.”
Giles opened the door. “Very well, sir. Shall I wait up?”
“No, no. Go on to your bed.”
Once outside, Martin pattered down the town house steps whistling a Celtic ditty. Perhaps his risk-taking days weren’t entirely over.