Lady Daring (Ladies Least Likely #8)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Most young ladies spent the morning before their court presentation preoccupied with their dress.

Henrietta Wardley-Hines was engaged in a kidnapping.

Rescue, she reminded herself as the carriage moved down Clifford Street, the clip of the horses’ hooves muffled by the early morning fog. This was a rescue. And a test of her worthiness to enter the exalted ranks of the Minerva Society.

A test she was determined not to fail.

Only the night soil men and milkmaids were abroad at this hour, and they stepped aside for the smart phaeton and its stylish passenger.

While Henrietta had dressed plainly for their covert operation, Lady Bessington’s picture hat and her enormous muff of coppery fox fur proclaimed her an expensive lady likely returning home after a night of entertainments.

A woman engaged in dashing activities, perhaps, but nothing nefarious.

Henrietta could afford to be neither dashing nor nefarious, given all that hinged on the success of the looming court presentation, etc.

But their abductee had agreed to be carried away. Perhaps that would excuse them before the magistrate if the girl’s master called the constable.

“I don’t see her,” Henrietta whispered, peering down the empty alley as her groom, riding the lead horse, turned into the mist-enclosed mews. “You don’t suppose she changed her mind?”

“She’ll come.” Lady Bess stayed tucked beneath the calash hood pulled down against the chilly air. “I informed his lordship that I could find Nancy the service he requests. He’s quite eager for it to be performed.”

Henrietta’s stomach turned, not alone from the ammonia scent of horse leavings and cesspools that lay behind the row of expensive town houses.

She agreed with her whole heart with the objects of the Minerva Society, dedicated to improving the lot of women of all ranks and means.

But there were so many who needed assistance.

So many a woman who, by wile or force or sheer bad luck, had been left with children she couldn’t support, debts she couldn’t repay, dreams she couldn’t rebuild.

While so many men went along their way, unrepentant of the lies they told or the innocent hearts they’d broken.

A cold droplet worked its way down the collar of Henrietta’s worn riding habit. Busy London, waking behind the looming fog, suddenly felt immense and lonely, a world apart from the quiet estate where she’d been born and raised.

“We’re not returning Nancy to him, are we?” she asked.

Lady Bess gave a serene smile. “Not unless she wishes, and I very much doubt she will.”

James slowed the glossy pair and grumbled from beneath the turned-up collar of his greatcoat. “Cavey business, Miss Hetty, gettin’ in the way o’ swells.”

“Let me down here, James, and mind you don’t spatter Lady Bess with mud.”

“As if I would!” James retorted. “Fine steppers your Titans are, but gentle as lambs. Sir Jasper chose a cracking come-out gift.”

Henrietta’s heels smacked on the cobbles as she jumped down, and she whisked aside her wide hem before it fell in the muck. She wondered what her father would make of the use to which she was putting his extravagant gift.

She stood with the line drawn clear before her, and because she was the calculating sort, she knew full well what lay on either side.

Plain Henrietta Wardley-Hines, a northern mill owner’s daughter, could racket about London attending debates and writing petitions and enjoying as much freedom as her family would allow, which admittedly was a great deal.

Henrietta Wardley-Hines, daughter of the newly knighted Sir Jasper, would have sharper eyes upon her once she made her curtsy to the Queen.

She would enjoy a wider reach for her business interests and greater support for her causes, or so she hoped.

But she would carry the weight of that rank and its dignities.

If she withdrew now, she could remain safe and above reproach.

She would be accepted, mostly unobjectionable.

The girls would grow up unshadowed, or only a little shadowed, by their eccentric half-sister, and neither Charley, nor Clarinda, would have grounds on which to lament or disapprove her behavior.

If she withdrew now, she might not lose Lady Bess’s friendship, but her ladyship would certainly not sponsor Henrietta’s invitation to the Minerva Society.

And she would still be Henrietta, inheriting the stubbornness of both her parents, unable to look away from injustice if she could right it.

Meddling, Charley called it. Henrietta rather preferred to think of the Society and its patronesses as a formidable force for good.

Precisely what Henrietta Wardley-Hines wished to be in the world.

She rapped on the bright blue door of the carriage house.

Her knock echoed down the narrow alley, along with the stamp of hooves as James turned the horses. But no one threw up the sash of a window to shout “Fire! Murder! Thief!”

The door cracked open, and a young woman in a drab muslin frock and large mob cap slipped through. “Nancy?”

A short, portly man appeared behind her, and Henrietta’s heart sank. He wasn’t supposed to be here.

The maid clutched a cloth bag and stared with wide eyes. The girl’s fear roused Henrietta’s protective instincts. Nancy might be her age, but what a world of difference in their stations. What a difference in what they could expect of life.

“I expect her back tonight, and you won’t make a hash of the business.”

His lordship had the flaccid, calculating face of a man who set his own pleasures above all, no matter the cost to others. The look he flicked over Henrietta’s faded habit and unadorned bonnet held utter scorn.

His eyes narrowed as he took in the carriage. Henrietta guessed he identified its occupant despite the lowered hood and the fog. “And you’ll keep quiet about it, too,” he said.

Henrietta bit back a retort. Here was another man who thought of the women around him as objects provided for his comfort, convenience, and use. His property. But more tastes ran toward sweet than tart, her great-aunt Davinia always said, so Henrietta forced a brittle smile.

“I presume you’ve furnished Nancy with funds?”

The maid sucked in her breath. Henrietta would have laid odds that after this man had assailed his servant and left her with child, he expected her to pay to be rid of it.

Most men of his station would turn the girl off without a character, setting her and her babe-to-be in the street.

That he was here meant she could negotiate.

She extended her hand, hoping that, in the dim light, he wouldn’t see her trembling.

His lordship glared and fiddled beneath his coat, then thrust a small purse in Henrietta’s direction. “Now be a good girl, Nan, and no fussing.” His oily smile dripped with warning. “I’m the one taking care of you. Remember that.”

Henrietta hefted the slight weight of the purse. It could hold only a few shillings. “Come now, milord!” she chided, mouth dry at her own audacity. “If you want her taken proper care of, you’ll have to do better.”

Nancy shrank as her master growled. Henrietta held in a sigh of relief as his lordship withdrew a handful of guineas and smacked them into her palm.

“There, and be gone with you,” he snarled. “I’d best not see you again, you conniving wench.”

“That you won’t, sir!”

She should have made some attempt at disguise, Henrietta realized. Next time, she would. Euphoric and shaking, she led Nancy to the waiting phaeton, where Lady Bess pulled down the folding seat in welcome.

James watched with slitted eyes as his lordship slammed the blue door shut. “Best bite the gold, Miss Hetty, and make sure ’e ’asn’t shaved the silver. Don’t trust a flash cove with the gelt, I don’t.”

Henrietta hauled herself up the high step, kicking aside the heavy skirts of her habit. “Away, James, before he decides I’ve robbed him.”

“Well done, Hetty.” Lady Bess bestowed a kind smile on their guest, who looked as sick with fear and deliverance as Henrietta felt. “Now, my dear Nancy, where shall we take you?”

“His lordship said…” Nancy trailed off, her gaze falling.

“But he is not here to command us, is he?” Lady Bess tilted her chin. Her eyes shone beneath the brim of her hat as James urged the horses down the mews and back to fashionable Clifford Street.

Henrietta smiled as Nancy’s mouth fell open. “Milady, you can’t mean— His lordship thinks—”

“Oh, I know what he thinks,” Lady Bess said. “I told him what he wanted to hear. But you may decide your own fate now. Are you acquainted with the Benevolence Hospital? The matron is prepared to take you.”

The Benevolence Hospital for the Support of Orphans and Women in Distressed Circumstances, one of several philanthropic causes upheld by the Minerva Society, was currently full to the rafters with souls in need.

But part of her test, Henrietta was sure, entailed not countering Lady Bess, much as argumentation might run in her nature.

Nancy shifted. “I-I’d like to go to me sister, mum. She’s a widow now, and if I say I’m one too, we can set up together and no one’ll talk.” She placed a hand on her middle. “And me boy’ll have cousins to play with.”

Lady Bess nodded. “Do you wish me to tell him where you’ve gone?”

“Oh, no, mum. I don’t want ’im to have a thing to do wit’ us.” Nancy’s eyes flickered to Henrietta. “I know it’s wrong, as e’s got in a sinful way, but—”

“You did nothing wrong, Nancy,” Henrietta said with firm conviction.

“I love ’im already,” the girl whispered. “And I never ’ad a thing o’ my own to love. Not really.”

Henrietta’s last hesitations whisked away with the parting fog.

She had both feet in the pudding now, as her great-aunt Davinia would say, and she regretted nothing.

This was her cause, and the Minerva Society her people.

She had found them through the grace of her sainted mother, and she would do whatever it took to be accepted within those ranks.