Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Julian resisted the urge to slam the door in Anthony’s face. “What in hell are you doing here?”
Anthony squatted down to pet his dog. “Well, good morning, Ollie.” He peered up at Julian. “You look like hell.”
“It’s called work. I don’t expect you’ve tried it.” He marched out onto the frosty lawn with Anthony smirking attendance, and after Ollie had done her business, walked to the morning room where a maid poured him coffee. Grudgingly, he called for Anthony to be served as well.
His friend settled in his chair, stirring cream in his cup. “Louisa sends her regards.”
“Sod off.” Julian chose the first newspaper from the stack at his left and started reading.
“Really, St. Clair. You’ve broken her heart. The woman’s never been denied and for such a lengthy stretch. Three weeks, was it? Anyhow, that’s beside the fact. I’ve come to gloat.”
Julian kept his eyes on the paper, not comprehending a single word.
“I hear your wife is spending Christmas at Farendon,” Anthony said.
“It’s a wonder you’re not there then.” Julian stuffed the paper to the table.
“In fact, why do you go to the trouble of telling me anything that pertains to my wife? To gloat? I think not. If you had wanted to marry her, you could have proposed in one of your two thousand letters. Further, if you had wanted to rescue Kitty from Staverton, why not have just done it without saying a word? I didn’t go blathering about it.
I walked out of the damn house without an audience and did it. Full stop.”
Anthony drew out a cigar “May I?” Julian waved him on. He lit it on a taper and dropped to his seatback. “The problem is, Kitty has only ever loved you.”
“Your problem, you mean.”
“Yes, and fortuitous. For while I regretted not rescuing her, I realized later I didn’t love her. I loved the idea of her. And getting under your skin, of course.”
“Does your brain ache, from thinking?”
“About as much as yours.” Anthony sucked on his cigar, turned it around to study the embers, and slowly exhaled. “How can I help?”
Anthony assisting with his marriage? Julian couldn’t laugh. “A fox asking to mind the henhouse. No thank you.”
“The offer stands.”
“I’ll assume you’re staying,” Julian said, rising, “and have a room made up for you. My wife planned a Christmas party this evening in our home for the men and you’re welcome to join. Until then, I have work to do.”
A thought occurred to Julian as he neared the door. “We’re to attend a children’s Christmas pageant before the party, so dress for church. Something to protect you from a lightning strike.”
Every matron and miss was charmed down to their stockings by the eligible, blue-eyed heir to the Earl of Wetherden when Julian and Anthony—courtesy titled Lord Darley—arrived at Holyrood Church for the pageant at two in the afternoon on what turned out to be a splendidly sunny day after a week of clouds and ice.
Anthony was a demon in a burgundy velvet suit and lace, a pristine tie wig to put all others to shame, doing that devilish thing he did where he gazed rapt into women’s eyes as if they were the center of his world.
While his friend basked in the glory of female company, Julian, attired in a suit of dark blue wool, a restrained amount of lace, and no wig, accepted invitations to tea and condolences on the passing of his father-in-law.
Such was the life of a respectable married man.
One without a wife, he reflected in misery.
“Lord Darley, you have brought the sunshine,” Miss Pettit exclaimed to Anthony, fanning herself in the drafty church.
Anthony leaned in. “I do try to be a cordial guest.”
“Do tell, my lord, is there a Lady Darley?” asked Mrs. Addicott, a mother of four grown children, grandmother to seven, and great-grandmother to three.
Anthony brushed a lingering kiss to the matron’s gloved hand. “Unfortunately no.”
Mrs. Evans said to Julian where they stood apart from Anthony, “Why did you not alert us in advance of Lord Darley’s attendance? I am inclined to be cross.”
“As am I,” Miss Hamilton said, fingering a barrel curl at her shoulder. “But then, Mr. St. Clair has had much on his mind. My condolences, sir. My mother hopes you will join us for tea tomorrow afternoon. And Lord Darley, if he can bear our modest society.”
“Of course my lord can,” Mrs. Wyatt said. “Only see how he condescends so prettily to associate with us. He is not married, you say, Mr. St. Clair?”
After assuring the ladies that Anthony was unshackled, Julian moved through the crush.
Down the aisle he found Sam and a few of his men loitering by a nativity scene bedded with straw, an empty cradle, and painted wood representations of barnyard animals.
The men’s wives were seeing to the children’s preparations, and by the harried voices, it was going as easy as herding cats.
They conversed on the weather as it affected the yard and the plan to return to work after the Epiphany with a small group of carpenters and laborers to fabricate various fittings in the relative warmth of the loft.
“A shame Madame ain’t here,” Sam said, tugging at his stock.
Joshua Beecham and Harry Plumley in their Sunday best, nodded. Jeffrey Dillon mourned the loss of Miss Dixley’s biscuits.
They had all kept Lovett’s visit a secret from him. They had been relieved when Julian had returned from London and had discovered Lovett’s threat. So why now the long faces?
“I assumed you’d be pleased to have my wife from the yard,” Julian said, and left them to their glum thoughts. They were all boys who had smashed their favorite toy before realizing it was their favorite.
Robert Carleton announced the pageant was to begin in ten minutes, and Anthony dragged himself from his fawning audience.
Julian refused his regular pew in the front of the church in order for the parents to better enjoy their children’s performance.
He had already seen the rehearsed spectacle of wiggling, screeching, and scratching twice, and once was enough.
Anthony settled beside him in the back pew farthest to the left as the children shuffled into the chancel with Miss Dixley and Lucretia Carleton herding from behind.
After accepting a few more greetings and nods, Anthony leaned in. “We can hardly see the chancel from here.”
“Exactly.”
“You don’t like children?”
A complete sham his friend was. Anthony disliked children to the point he had considered it an insult to be referred to as a child when he had been a child.
Miss Dixley in her best grey gown and cap welcomed the audience, provided a brief introduction of the afternoon’s events, and thanked everyone for their support.
“Especially,” she said, “Mr. and Mrs. Andrew St. Clair. Without their gracious support we would not have the pleasure of hearing our children’s voices raised in joyous celebration of the coming of our Lord and Savior.”
The singing, surprisingly in tune, began with a somber rendition of Hark the Herald Angels Sing.
Julian noted it on the program to occupy his time as he did if he was ever unlucky to attend the theater or opera without suitable distractions.
An obsession, wherein he looked at the program more than the stage, ticking off each act or song, and counting down to the end.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Anthony raise his quizzing glass and then slant into Julian’s shoulder. “Switch places with me.”
Julian obliged. It made no difference that he was now staring at the back of a woman’s flowered hat. He returned to the program and counted eight more songs remaining.
“Who is she?” Anthony asked. “The woman singing.”
“Miss Dixley. A pious prig. Avoid her at all costs.”
“I know her.”
Julian shook his head. “No you don’t.” If he recalled, the final song of the pageant was longer than the rest.
“I do know her,” Anthony said. “I never forget a voice.” Julian turned in time to see Anthony frown. “That woman is a pious prig if I’ve got a small cock.”
“Christ. We’re in a church,” Julian said under his breath. But Anthony hadn’t heard him. He’d come off the back of the pew and was staring hard at Dixley. “Are you serious? How do you know her?”
“She tried to kill me.”
“What?!” Fortunately, Julian’s outburst was in the midst of a crescendo.
“Remember the red-headed temptress? The one Caxton sent to the club to reclaim his heraldic flag?”
“The one who almost unmanned you and Fitzwilliam?”
“Mm-hmm. After an astonishing feat of fellatio, I’ll add.” Anthony dropped his quizzing glass, catching it by its ribbon and tucking it to his waistcoat. “Whatever her name, she’s dangerous. Rumor has it she took out Sully Camden after he killed that revenue officer, Captain Watkins.”
This was too ridiculous to entertain. But Julian entertained. “She’s an assassin?”
“The question is, why is she here?”
“She was living in my home up until ten days ago.”
“And you’re still alive,” Anthony said, “so she must be spying.”
Julian squinted down the nave to the sanctuary steps where Dixley conducted the children. Her prayer book dangled from her waist. “This is a joke, isn’t it? You’re good.”
“Ask Fitzwilliam. He remembers her.”
Julian shoved from the pew. Shrugging into his greatcoat, he slipped outside to the portico and went back to reviewing the program.
Seven more songs. Just seven and then he’d be free to leave.
Ah yes, free to host a family Christmas party that he had no business hosting.
The only parties he had ever managed involved high stakes and high-flyers.
Julian slapped the program to his thigh. Dixley a spy? An assassin?
Anthony slid out the door with a cigar and lit it on a votive he’d stolen from within the church. “If your Miss Dixley wouldn’t have tried to take Fitzwilliam and me on together, she would have been successful in her lethal endeavor. A case of professional hubris, I think.”
“Or efficiency,” Julian said. Yes, he could almost see Althea Dixley as an assassin. It was in that direct stare of hers.