Chapter 20
Francesca had barely finished breakfast when a servant announced that Sir Percival had gone out early on business.
This did not alarm her in itself. Her uncle often kept engagements before the hour at which younger people thought it proper to be abroad.
Francesca settled herself in the morning room with a small pile of papers she had been meaning to sort, and had just begun to believe the day might pass in a degree of ordinary quiet when the butler appeared at the door with a face imperfectly arranged for indifference.
“Mr. Kendall has called, miss.”
For one instant she merely stared at the butler.
Then Thomas Kendall himself entered, all polished civility and easy confidence, as though there were nothing in the world more natural than his calling at such an hour and without prior notice.
He was dressed with his customary care—perhaps a little too carefully for a business errand—and his smile, though pleasant, seemed to her now to hold a quality she had once overlooked: a watchfulness just beneath the smoothness, like a blade kept sheathed but near at hand.
Francesca rose; no one had thought to warn the butler.
The absurdity of that actuality struck her at once.
An entire means of protection had been devised about her movements, yet the first practical gatekeeper of the house had apparently not been instructed that Thomas Kendall was to be denied or delayed.
It might have amused her under other circumstances. Now it merely made her pulse leap.
“Mr. Kendall,” she said. “This is an unexpected pleasure.”
“Unexpected, perhaps,” he returned, bowing, “but I hope not unwelcome.”
He looked around as if to assure himself of their privacy. That single glance did more to unsettle her than any overt impropriety could have done.
“Sir Percival is from home, I understand?”
“He is.”
“That is a pity, although in truth I came in the hopes of speaking to you.”
“Indeed?” she said, resuming her seat because standing made her feel too evidently on the defensive. “Then pray sit down and explain your urgency.”
He accepted the invitation readily. “There is a hitch in the iron-works agreement.”
Her heart gave a sudden, ugly turn. “A hitch?”
“An inconvenient one, though perhaps not insurmountable. For some reason, the owner prefers to deal directly with you.”
“With me? How very odd.”
He spread his hands. “You made the proposal, did you not? Some gentlemen are sentimental about such distinctions. He seems to have taken the notion that the arrangement reflects your particular interest and wishes to receive assurance from your own lips.”
Francesca tried to consider this calmly.
It was not impossible. Manufacturers could be vain, suspicious or obsequious, or all three in turn.
Some might indeed like the novelty of negotiating with a woman if money were involved and the woman in question held the reins.
Yet there was something in the neatness of the excuse which disquieted her.
“When is the meeting?”
“In half an hour.”
“Half an hour?” She allowed genuine irritation into her voice, for she felt it sufficiently. “You bring me astonishingly little notice.”
“I was given little myself.”
His tone made light of it, but she thought his eyes narrowed, as if measuring whether she would resist. Perhaps he expected her to plead inconvenience—perhaps he was counting upon it. The thought only stiffened her resolve.
To refuse might warn him that his footing with her had altered; to go might be folly.
Manners, she thought suddenly.
Who of his associates would be the most accessible, or at least the one nearest enough to be summoned quickly within Town? She must send word at once without alarming Kendall.
“Very well,” she said after a pause deliberately long enough to seem reluctant. “If the matter cannot wait, I suppose I must accommodate it. You will allow me ten minutes, I am sure.”
“Certainly.”
She rose and crossed to the bell. When Nelly entered, as calm and neat as ever, Francesca turned to her with what she hoped was the air of a woman occupied solely with ordinary arrangements.
“Nelly, I shall be going out directly with Mr. Kendall on business connected with the iron-works. You may bring my pelisse and bonnet, and send a note to Major Manners.”
She watched Nelly’s face carefully.
Nothing in it changed. “Yes, miss.”
“Tell him I have been suddenly called to a meeting concerning the iron-works and will have to postpone our meeting until later in the day.”
Nelly inclined her head the smallest degree. “At once, miss.”
Kendall smiled faintly. “Is there an agreement between you and Major Manners?”
Francesca turned back to him without haste. “Whatever do you mean?”
“He is frequently in the neighbourhood. Notes are sent. Outings occur. One begins to suspect.”
She ought, perhaps, to have laughed more freely. Instead she heard herself say, “Is it so implausible that the son of a lord could have a genuine interest in me?”
The words were out before she had fully considered them. They had not been intended, certainly, and yet she did not altogether regret them. It was pleasant to remind Kendall that he did not possess the sole power of observation.
He tilted his head. “Perhaps not, but knowing his occupation, I cannot help but question his intentions.”
There it was, she thought. The line, softly spoken, carried more significance than any smile. He knew something—not all, perhaps, but enough to connect Manners with matters outside the ordinary range of Polite Society.
Francesca let her brows rise. “I daresay soldiering today is nothing more than looking well in a uniform.”
He laughed, and the strain loosened by a degree, though not entirely.
Within ten minutes she was dressed for the street, Nelly wrapped and ready to accompany her, and the carriage at the door.
Francesca would have preferred delay, and yet delay itself might have been suspicious.
Better, perhaps, she reflected, to go and remain alert than to provoke him into improvisation at the threshold.
The drive began innocuously enough. They set out in the direction one might reasonably take for the manufactories in question, the carriage wheels rattling over the frozen ruts with a force that shook the glass in its frame.
Nelly sat opposite, outwardly demure, but Francesca knew her well enough to see that every faculty was awake.
Kendall spoke of practical matters for the first ten minutes: contracts, labour, the rising expense of coal, the advantages of appearing decisive before men who respected profit more than breeding.
It was almost enough to lull her into believing the errand genuine.
Then the carriage turned where it ought not to have turned.
Francesca looked up abruptly. The streets outside the window were no longer those she expected. They had veered away from the direct approach to the works and into a less familiar route, one leading not towards industry but outward.
“Mr. Kendall,” she said, very clearly, “this is not the way.”
He did not pretend to misunderstand her. “No.”
The single syllable, calmly delivered, seemed to alter the whole atmosphere of the carriage. Nelly’s hands tightened over the reticule in her lap. Francesca felt, absurdly, the exact beat of her own heart.
“Are you kidnapping me?”
He looked at her then, and for the first time that morning the easy social smile dropped away entirely.
“Of course not. I am merely ensuring your safety for the next four-and-twenty hours.”
“My safety?” She heard the incredulity in her own voice and did not attempt to ease it. “Thomas, what is happening?”
Something like excitement flashed in his expression, transforming it more than anger would have done. He looked younger, wilder, as though some inward flame had suddenly been permitted air.
“Something,” he said, “that will change the course of history.”
The words made Nelly gasp aloud. Francesca herself felt a rush of cold so complete that she might as well have been plunged into the Thames.
“What are you planning, Thomas?”
“It is best for you not to know.” He leaned back as if the matter were settled and the concealment almost tenderly intended. “However, when I come for you tomorrow morning, everything will have changed. We can make England what it ought to be.”
Francesca stared at him.
There were declarations so extravagant that, heard in safety, they bordered upon the ridiculous.
Spoken in a carriage which was taking one—against one’s expectation—to an unknown destination, they became monstrous.
In an instant the scattered pieces of the past days aligned themselves into a dreadful shape.
Thomas, who had moved so long in the easy garments of a man considered useful chiefly for schemes of money, was now revealed as one who imagined himself called to refashion the nation.
“Tell me what you are planning and why I must be protected,” she demanded.
“No more questions.” His tone hardened, not loudly, but with a force that admitted no appeal. “Promise me you will stay here until tomorrow morning, or I cannot help you.”
“Here?” she questioned. “Where is here?”
“You will see soon enough.”
The carriage continued onwards as London thinned by imperceptible degrees.
Houses grew less continuous. Open ground began to appear between clusters of dwellings, winter-brown and bleak beneath the bright sky.
Francesca forced herself to breathe evenly.
Panic would not help her. She must observe, remember, and conserve her strength.
If Major Manners had received the note, perhaps he and his men would follow.
If not—if not, then she must preserve every detail she could for later use.
Nelly leaned a fraction towards her. “Miss—”
Francesca met her maid’s eyes and shook her head the smallest amount. Not now. Not before him.