Chapter 4
Chapter Four
K eynsham had at least one misgiving after he rapped on the Sprys’ door. But he shoved it down. A few darkened windows in a house meant nothing. It was only half past eight, after all—not late by the standards of the aristocratic class, which often didn’t rise until well past noon in town. And surely Spry couldn’t be so gauche as to maintain tradesmen’s hours now that he was one of the wealthiest men in England!
But the footman who answered the door looked cross, and his powdered wig was askew, as though he’d just clapped it onto his head. When he saw Keynsham, he straightened immediately and looked—if Keynsham were not mistaken— frightened . “Oh! Your lordship!” He held the door open the merest crack and glanced nervously behind himself. “I—I… that is, the household has been…”
“Who is it, Job?” shouted someone within.
Job winced. “My lord, perhaps it would be best?—”
“I said who is it!” And someone seized the door from the unlucky Job and wrenched it open.
It was Spry himself—Miss Spry’s father—clad in a gold damask banyan and a matching cap. “Why, you…” He squinted, taking in the bruises on Keynsham’s face and his damaged jacket. “What is this? Have you have been out brawling?”
“Sir, I?—"
“You have, haven’t you? You have been out with your drunken friends. How dare you? How dare you come here now, at this hour?”
Was this how Spry would talk to him when he was his father-in-law? If Keynsham hadn’t been honor-bound to marry Miss Spry, he would have left instantly.
“I had not thought that half past eight was late, sir. And I have not been brawling. I was on my way here for this appointment when I was forced to chase off a pair of ruffians who were lurking in this very square.”
“Ruffians? In Grosvenor Square? Pah!” For a moment, Spry looked as though he might spit on the doorstep. “A likely story!”
But at this Keynsham drew himself up. His father might have nearly bankrupted the family. His estates might be mortgaged to the hilt. His sister might never have a proper London season, for all she was the daughter of a viscount. But he was still a gentleman—and Spry had just called him a liar. “I am afraid that I must have misunderstood you, sir,” he said, quietly. “For a moment I almost had the impression that you doubted my word.”
Spry had been about to say something else, but he checked himself. His face passed from rage through to indignation to doubt and thence to an expression that was at least in the general vicinity of embarrassment. “I—I am sorry for it, your lordship,” he muttered. “I did not mean—that is, my manners are sometimes rough. And of course, Arabella…” He cleared his throat. “Well. I am certain that I need not tell you how unpleasant she can make things.”
Keynsham hadn’t yet seen this side of his future bride. He wasn’t looking forward to it.
Spry shook his head. “Ah, well. Since you are here, you may as well come in.” He paused in the open doorway and gave the dense fog in the square a long, suspicious stare. “Ruffians! The Watch must be told of this. I have long said that there is far too much undergrowth in that garden! After this, I shall personally see to it that all those trees and shrubs are cut down and the place laid to grass. I have not paid a fortune to live in Grosvenor Square to have to worry that footpads are skulking about my very door!”
Keynsham followed him through the gilt-encrusted front hall and into his library. The draperies at the French doors hadn’t been drawn and the white fog seemed to press against the glass, as though seeking a way inside. At the same time, he could see nothing but their reflections in the lit room. Anyone outside would be able to see them… without being seen in return.
These weren’t thoughts that would have occurred to him ordinarily. But Miss Ryder’s obvious terror of Wilkes had given him pause—though no doubt her fears were overblown. The thug couldn’t possibly be as all-powerful as she seemed to believe.
Spry followed Keynsham’s gaze. “It is a foul night indeed, if nothing else. Job! Draw these curtains at once.”
The hapless footman hurried to obey. Spry glared irritably around the room as though all of it displeased him. “Well, well. Sit down, sit down. May as well have a coze, now that you are here.” He waved a hand toward a pair of armchairs in front of the fire.
Keynsham was puzzled by his manner. Spry seemed ill at ease—almost as though he couldn’t look Keynsham in the eye, for some reason. It was as though… it was as though he were embarrassed. But why?
He sat down. The library was the most homey and least pretentious room that he’d seen in this house. It was clear that Spry used it as his office. The books in the bookcases looked as though they’d actually been read—which made an interesting contrast to those that his own father had bought by the foot.
“Port?” Mr. Spry went to the sideboard and sloshed liquor into two glasses. He handed one to Keynsham and stood holding the other, grimacing like a child anticipating a bad-tasting medicine. “I dislike alcohol myself. Until recently I abstained, you know.”
“Do not feel that you must drink on my account, sir.”
“No, no.” Spry shook his head. “Arabella says that I must acquire the taste for it, if I am to mingle in society. I am behindhand, you see. I am not in the fashion. But my butler orders the wine, so you may be assured that it is of the first quality.” He took a sip and drew his lips back from his teeth. “Gah!”
Keynsham sipped as well. “It is excellent.”
Spry looked glum. “When I was a 'prentice, our master always said that alcohol was poison. Leave it to the gentry, he said. Let them pickle themselves. All the more business for us. No offense, your lordship,” he added, hastily.
“I took none.” In fact, Keynsham was beginning to like Spry—his rough manners notwithstanding.
Spry dropped into the armchair that faced Keynsham’s and stared despairingly at the port in his glass. He was a distinguished-looking man—hawk-nosed and barrel-chested, with dark hair dashed with silver and a firm jaw. In his luxurious, old-fashioned banyan, he put Keynsham a little in mind of his grandfather, the fourth viscount. He supposed that Lady Sophronia—who, though she had many fine qualities, was a snob—would be deeply shocked if she knew that such a thought had crossed his mind.
“That is a lovely portrait of your late wife.” Keynsham already knew what Miss Spry’s mother looked like, as there was another portrait of her in the pink sitting room upstairs.
“Aye, and it ought to be—for what I gave for it.” Spry set his barely touched glass on a side table and folded his arms. “Now then, your lordship. Before I say anything else, I may as well tell you that I like you. Your conduct has been beyond reproach—which is certainly more than I can say for… Well.” He cleared his throat. “I am sorry. It has been a bad business—but I hope that it will not long trouble you.”
What was he apologizing for? Keynsham waited for him to explain. Spry’s jaw worked for a moment before he tried again. “What I mean to say is that the rules of high society are all very well—but not when they make more problems than they solve, if you take my meaning.”
Keynsham did not take his meaning. But Spry gave a decisive little nod, as though a matter had been settled, and visibly relaxed. “Well, now, your lordship! I must say that your face is rather less pretty than it was the last time I saw you! That is not a blacked eye, however. It is a contusion upon your cheekbone. And to make matters worse, I should say that the man who struck the blow was wearing a ring.” He squinted at it. “Yes. I shall give you an ointment to take down the swelling.”
Spry had been a prosperous apothecary with his own shop before the success of Rose Lotion had taken London—and then the whole country—by storm. He crossed the room to a battered cabinet that didn’t match the other furniture and hunted around on its shelves before presenting Keynsham with a small tin. “Pot marigold, comfrey, and hyssop. Apply this to the bruises as needed. It will constrict the vessels and prevent the blood from stagnating.”
“You are very kind, sir.” Keynsham turned the tin over in his hand. “Thank you.” He had the strange feeling that Mr. Spry had just given him… a parting gift? A consolation prize?
“Papa! Papa!” Miss Spry came flying into the library, her raven ringlets artfully unbound. She stopped mid-flight, one delicate hand at her throat. “Oh! Why, Lord Alford! Why—I had not—I have only just awoken—I did not realize!”
Miss Spry might be very pretty and very rich, but she wasn’t a very good actress. Even her own father merely smiled indulgently on her performance as she pretended to be astonished to find Keynsham in the library, despite the fact that his carriage was drawn up in the square outside, clearly visible from every one of the windows on the front of the house.
She was attired in an evening gown—which, it went without saying, was pink. She was also wearing large pink sapphire ear bobs. Despite her loose hair, both of these things made her claim of having been asleep unlikely.
The ring box grew heavy in Keynsham’s jacket pocket. Now that the moment was here, how could he do it? How could he propose to her? Spoiled and flighty as she was, she wasn’t yet eighteen. He was certain that she—or perhaps one of her friends—had sent the note about the library meeting without thinking through the consequences. She didn’t love him. And he could never love her. Indeed, after tonight he was even more certain that…
But no. He must not even allow himself to think that way. He must do what he’d come here to do—his duty. He cleared his throat. “Miss Spry, will you do me the honor of granting me a private inter?—"
Her mouth dropped open. She gasped theatrically. She put one hand to her throat. “But what has happened to your face ? Oh, Lord Alford! You have been in a fight! A dreadful, violent fight! Oh dear! Oh! Oh! It is too shocking!” And—with a quick glance behind her to make sure that there was no furniture in the way—she crumpled gracefully to the thickly-carpeted floor.
“Job!” Spry sounded resigned. “Fetch the sal volatile. Miss Spry has fainted. Again. ”
“Air! Give her air! Stand back!” The butler, a housemaid, Miss Spry’s French maid, and Job all bustled around Miss Spry’s prone form. Keynsham wondered if he ought to offer to help. But it appeared that the household already had a routine for these circumstances and that he would only be in the way.
Spry beckoned him away from the furor, nearer to the window. “I can tell you from experience that this will go on for some time.”
“Oh.”
“But now you see how it is. She has a mind of her own. I would have forced her to go through with it—but it will not fadge, sir. It simply will not fadge.”
Job passed the sal volatile under Miss Spry’s nose. It had no effect.
Her father sighed. “Well, it is a shame. The fix that you have been left in is no fault of your own. And I should not be in the least surprised if you make good yet—mark my words!”
What was he talking about?
“Well, we understand each other. And I am glad of it, your lordship. A little plain talk is always enough to settle such matters—without the slightest need for fainting and theatrics.”
Plain talk? Keynsham glanced over at the scene by the door. “Miss Spry seems, er… very shocked by my appearance.”
“Pah!” said Spry, unfeelingly. “Bruises heal. She’s seen your fizzog without 'em. No, no—let us not sugarcoat matters. She has put everyone to a great deal of trouble and expense. And for what? A momentary fancy that has come to nothing.”
Keynsham wished that he hadn’t been punched in the head before this meeting. He seemed to be having unusual difficulty understanding exactly what Spry was driving at. He would almost have said that he was hinting that Miss Spry no longer wished to marry him.
But that was impossible. When a young lady claimed to have been compromised, marriage was only remedy for the situation. So, it could not be that. He cleared his throat. “Ladies may be easily overset.”
Spry snorted. “Oh, Arabella used to be a level-headed enough girl, before she got so high in the instep.” He set his still barely touched glass of port down on a corner of his desk with a bang.
The hubbub around Miss Spry increased. It appeared that two footmen were preparing to carry her unconscious form from the room.
“Are you certain that she is quite well?” Keynsham was a little taken aback by Spry’s casual assumption that his daughter was playacting.
“Oh yes. Healthy as a horse. She has taken a fancy to these fainting fits, that is all.” He raised his voice so that his daughter would hear him as she was carried out. “Swooning, she thinks, gives her the appearance of great sensibility and refinement!”
Miss Spry kept her eyes determinedly closed. The footmen who were carrying her maintained their stoic expressions. One of the housemaids shut the door behind the retinue of servants.
The sudden silence was a relief.
“Well, that is that.” Spry sighed again. “Once she takes it into her head to be unconscious there is no telling how long it will last. Some say that I am too lenient with her—and perhaps I am. But since the death of Mrs. Spry…Well. It is a hard thing to lose one’s wife and helpmeet, sir—a hard thing. I hope that you never experience such sorrow.”
Keynsham couldn’t imagine that anyone would ever describe Arabella Spry as a “helpmeet.” He bowed. “I shall send for word of Miss Spry’s health in the morning.”
“I assure you that there is not the slightest cause for concern, your lordship. She has had her fainting fit now and cannot want for another for a few days, at least.”
“I shall send a note, regardless.”
Spry gave him a look that seemed to mingle pity and incredulity. “Well, please yourself—although after the shabby way that she has treated you, I should say that you are taking fine manners a deal too far, your lordship—a deal too far indeed!”
He sucked air through his teeth and shook his head. “I had my doubts about you at first—I do not scruple to tell you so. But you have proven yourself an out-and-outer. You did your best, sir. You did your best.” He clapped him on his shoulder. “And that is the most that any man can do.”
Keynsham tried and failed to find a comfortable position against the squabs. His ribs ached where Wilkes’s blows had fallen, and pain radiated from his left cheekbone.
The whole evening had taken on a surreal quality. Miss Spry’s unconvincing fainting fit was the least of it. Spry had been attempting to communicate something important, he was certain—and yet, he still couldn’t grasp what it was.
And above all, Miss Ryder’s face haunted him. There had been such fear in those wide eyes with their long, dark lashes. Why had she refused to tell him who this man Wilkes was, and why he was chasing her? Surely she didn’t believe that she could manage the situation on her own!
In the single night that they’d spent together, over a year ago, he’d noticed her talent for becoming involved in chaos wherever she went. But this was something different. This was something serious and sinister.
The carriage drew up before the steps of Alford House. Despite his sore muscles and aching ribs, he sprang out and was up the stairs before Young could even climb off the box. He must not fail to compose a note enquiring after Miss Spry’s health before he went to bed, so that a servant could deliver it first thing tomorrow morning—along with a pink bouquet for the invalid, of course.
Then, while the note and bouquet stood in for him, he would go to Grafton Street, press Miss Ryder to explain why Wilkes was pursuing her, and make a longer-term plan for her safety.
The past year had taught him to juggle more than just money. He’d become an expert at very nearly being in two places at once and—through relentless attention to detail—almost managing to satisfy everyone’s demands.
But the problem of how to help Miss Ryder, while not failing in his obligation to Miss Spry, was a complex one. And as he entered his house, he didn’t notice the fog-shadowed figure of a man in the mouth of the mews across the street.