Chapter 6
Chapter Six
“ Y ou play piano?”
“Yes.”
“Speak French?”
“My French is passable.”
“Arithmetic? Geography? History? Needlework?”
“I—I believe that I am reasonably furnished with information and accomplishments.”
“Then, Miss”—she glanced down at the letter—“Ryder, tell me: Why do you not seek employment as a governess? I could send you to speak with at least two ladies in need of governesses this very day! Families in the very first circles of society! Elegant houses! French cooks! Liberal terms! Everything that is comfortable and fashionable!”
The proprietress of the employment agency, Mrs. Lewes, was a middle-aged lady with crimped grey hair peeking from beneath a claret-colored velvet turban. “Surely you realize that a lady’s companion is a position all too often filled by poor relations—or friends of friends. The allowance paid is always small. There is no security, no”—she waved her hand—“ prestige . A governess, on the other hand, has a recognized standing.”
“I had not considered it,” she lied.
“Well then, I advise you to consider it now.”
“I—I have no training as a governess.”
“Nor do most young ladies, when they become governesses!” Mrs. Lewes was beginning to look annoyed. “Think! Your position in the family would be respected. Your wage would be fair. Sundays off! And if you are afraid of the hard work of managing children—well, I have personally seen all too many ladies’ companions treated worse than servants! Shouted at, expected to work without respite, and to run errands in all weathers. Why did you leave your position?”
“Mrs. Allenby had an attack of kidney stones. Her physician suggested the spa at Harrogate. She went to stay with one of her nephews. His wife said that there was no room for me.”
“Ah. Meaning that she did not want a pretty young lady in the house.” She looked knowing. “You quite prove my point, Miss Ryder. You quite prove my point! A lady’s companion is in a precarious position. But a governess—ah, a governess may make a life for herself. You must consider your future security.”
Future security? She suppressed a bitter laugh. After yesterday, she no longer hoped for security... or a future.
“Perhaps you do not fully comprehend the advantages that you are so heedlessly dismissing. I shall read to you from some of the letters which I have recently received.” She turned and began searching through the cubbyholes of a cabinet pushed against the wall behind her. “Why, a Mrs. Abernathy wrote to me only this week! Her letter is just here. Four girls on Cavendish Square. Only imagine the elegance! Cavendish Square! ”
The second floor office was above a fashionable linen draper, and the murmur of voices rose through the floorboards. Celia’s eyes fell on the desk, where an opened letter lay partially concealed by other papers. “Companion,” she read, in a crabbed black scrawl. Her hand shot out, twitched the letter from its position in the stack, and slipped it into her reticule before she could think about right and wrong.
“Here we are!” Mrs. Lewes turned to face her, waving a letter in the air. “A charming schoolroom—new furbished and carpeted, and with a fireplace! Use of a piano, and Wednesday and Sunday afternoons quite at your own disposal! Really, Miss Ryder, if this is not up to your standards, I cannot imagine what would be. Cavendish Square! ”
“I—I do not like children.” That was another lie. How many lies would she have to tell?
“ Do not like children? ” Mrs. Lewes stared at her. “Is that all? That is scarcely a reason not to be a governess! I myself was a governess for many years—and I loathe them. What I am explaining to you, Miss Ryder, is that you have yourself to think of.” She spread her hands. “Look around! I was able to put money by from my salary and open my own employment agency!”
She felt as though she could scarcely breathe. “I—I am afraid that I simply cannot.”
“ Well. ” Mrs. Lewes refolded the letter of reference and handed it back to her. “I must be frank, Miss Ryder. I do not at all care for obstinate young women. I shall not help you. My fee is paid by employers when I fill a position. You have wasted my time. Good day.”
She’d been dismissed. “Thank you,” she choked, and rushed down the stairs to the street.
The cold fog was just as thick as it had been when she’d slipped away from Grafton Street early in the morning. She felt a fool. Mrs. Lewes had only been trying to give her advice. And of course, it would be preferable to be a governess in Cavendish Square! Yet Wilkes’s reach had grown long. If he were to find her, the safety of any children in her charge would be at risk. The possibility was too terrible to contemplate.
Her vision swimming with tears that she tried to blink back, she followed a pair of ladies into the busy linen drapery. At least there, breathing the sweet smell of new cottons, she could take a moment to collect herself.
There were other employment offices, she reminded herself. And she had the purloined letter too—though she would wait until she was alone to read it.
But her fears had come tumbling out of the corners of her mind where she usually crammed them away. Her father was dead. Her family’s money was gone. Her efforts to recover from these blows were but pitiful flailing—the struggles of a fly hopelessly caught in a spider’s web.
And the spider was Wilkes.
She stepped out of the way of a pair of fashionable ladies hurrying past her to examine a bolt of striped damask. Richly colored velveteen… airy printed muslins… deep laces… At one time, she would have loved to visit this shop. But she must not linger here now. She must go on to the next agency on her list.
She only hoped that Keynsham would understand why she’d left—and forgive her.
“Excuse me.” A bosomy lady pushed past her, jostling Celia out of her sad reverie. “It is that bolt of muslin that I mean. No, not that one. The figured one, in the window! With the puce sprigs, at eight shillings the yard. No—the other one with the puce sprigs!” The harassed clerk finally landed on the correct bolt and lifted it out, leaving a narrow gap in the crowded window display.
In the gap there was an eye. And the eye was staring directly at Celia.
She jerked back in fright. The eye disappeared.
Her heart began to pound. It couldn’t be! Anyone might be looking into the shop. Besides, there was no way that they could have found her.
She edged toward the side of the large bow window. From this angle she could see past the bolts of gaily printed muslins and out onto the pavement. There was a man there, his nose nearly touching the glass.
He was the smaller of the two thugs who’d followed her yesterday.
At once she saw how foolish she’d been to underestimate Wilkes. If only she’d listened to Keynsham and stayed in the house! Now that it was too late, she realized that the independence that she’d been forced to develop had led her into a dangerous situation.
She tried to think. Well-dressed ladies, followed by maids or footmen carrying parcels, bustled in and out of the shop. Perhaps she could attach herself to a group of ladies as they were leaving and escape that way.
“May I help you, miss?” It was the same clerk who’d pulled the bolt of muslin out of the window. He stared down his long nose at her.
“No, thank you.” She turned away, hoping that he couldn’t tell that she was terrified.
“Are you certain that you require no assistance?”
“Yes, thank you. I… I am merely browsing.”
“I see.” He continued to stare at her. She felt her face warm. He was watching her… as though he thought that she were about to steal something!
For a moment, she considered telling him that she was hiding from a man outside and asking him to help her. But this was London, and she looked poor. If she seemed likely to cause trouble, he would simply throw her out.
“Excuse me. Excuse me!” A lady glared at Celia as though she were purposely monopolizing the shop clerk. “I require five yards of the rifle green granite cloth.”
“Very good, madam.” With a last glare at Celia, he was forced to go assist the customer.
She checked the window again. The man was still there. Worse, he’d been joined by Dick Fenton! Her knees went weak with fear. So much for her idea that she could somehow slip away. If she stayed here much longer Wilkes’s entire gang would be assembled on the pavement.
She edged backward until she was pressed, uncomfortably, against the shelves that held more bolts of fabric along the wall. Her hand was at her throat. She tried to force herself to breathe—to think.
“Miss, if you are not going to buy something, I must ask you to leave.” The clerk was back—this time with another man.
“I—I am here to look at laces.”
The two men exchanged a look. The clerk pursed his lips. “We have nothing for you here.”
In the background she heard the bells on the door jingle. Suddenly there was a hand on her arm. She leapt sideways with a half-suppressed scream.
“There you are.” Keynsham stared down at the two men, his eyes narrowed. “I hope that you are finished your shopping?”
She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t breathe. She’d been so certain that he was one of the thugs that her voice had gone.
“Good day… your… lordship?” The clerk took in his impeccably tailored jacket and gulped. “Why, if this young lady…”
“My cousin.”
“We are honored indeed!” He twisted his face into an obsequious smile. “May I suggest that you may wish to examine the fine muslins that arrived only this morning from Manchester? Just twelve shillings the yard.”
Keynsham glanced down at Celia. Their eyes met. In the midst of everything she felt, again, the sensation of rightness that she’d been trying to tell herself wasn’t real. It rang through her like the chiming of a bell. For one deranged moment, she wanted nothing more than to throw her arms around his neck, right here in this shop, and kiss him.
“Thank you. I am afraid that we have another appointment. How unfortunate it is that you were not able to be helpful to her whilst she had the time.” He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and turned toward the door.
Everything seemed to slow down. The clerk rushed ahead to hold the door. The manager was bowing and saying something about hoping to be of service in the future. Keynsham’s coachman was only two or three yards away across the pavement, holding the horses’ heads. The thugs fell back in dismay, as though they expected Keynsham to attack them right there in the Strand.
He handed her into the glossy carriage, sprang in after her, and shut the door. A moment later, they were moving off down the busy street. She put her hands flat on the leather seat and tried to breathe.
She wasn’t sure how Keynsham had found her—but he’d rescued her yet again. She must still be in shock, because all she could do was stare at him. The bruises and swelling on his face weren’t as bad as she’d feared. But his ordinarily pleasant, open countenance was tight with fury. She opened her mouth to speak, changed her mind, and shut it again.
“You lied to me.” His voice—that cultured rumble—was the crack of a whip.
“I—I…”
“I asked you to stay—to wait for me. You said that you would. You lied .” His eyes were blazing. “How could you put yourself at risk in this way? Do you not understand the danger in which you find yourself?”
“I did not lie.” As soon as she said it, she knew that her argument was childish. “I did not agree to wait for you. Not in… well, not in so many words.”
His eyes narrowed. “That is nothing but a lie by omission, and we both know it. And a lie by omission is as damaging as any other lie. Why, my father…” He broke off. “I do not care to be lied to. Not by you. Not by anyone.”
She swallowed. In all the conversations that she’d imagined them having, never once had she thought that Keynsham might become angry with her.
“If I had not come looking for you this morning—and if I had not chanced to recognize those thugs loitering outside the shop—what would have happened?”
“I—I do not know.”
“Yes, you do. The moment that you attempted to walk away from that shop, those men would have snatched you.”
“I… well, they would have tried.”
“ Tried! What would you have done to stop them? Do you not see what a foolish risk you ran? How did they know that you were there? Were they following you?”
She stared down at her hands, twisting in her lap. “I—I do not know. I do not think so.”
“Well, perhaps you will tell me how many more times I will have to come to your rescue before you will admit that you need help—and trust me enough to tell me what is happening.”
She fell silent. The carriage smelled of the fine leather that covered the squabs. It was so well-sprung that they seemed to float over the cobblestones. Keynsham was rich. He would never be able to understand how she’d arrived in this position. And he was already injured, and Wilkes had almost shot him—because of her.
“I do not wish to involve you. I could not bear it if…”
The carriage lurched violently. The coachman shouted something. There was a crash and a jolt as something struck the side of it. She gave an involuntary little scream.
“What the devil?” Keynsham lunged for the window but was thrown back against the seat as something collided with the carriage’s side again. “Is this fellow mad? Can he not see us in the fog?” He pushed down the window. “You there!”
Abruptly the other carriage came level with them. Someone inside shoved down its window… and pointed a pistol at them.
She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. All she could do was stare at the black circle of the pistol’s muzzle. There wasn’t the slightest doubt in her mind about who was holding it.
The whip snapped and their carriage leapt forward, swinging perilously as they took a corner too quickly. She was thrown hard against its side. Someone was shouting.
The carriage accelerated through the traffic and the fog, and the shouts were lost behind them. A low, stone wall that she recognized as the abutments of a bridge flashed past. The carriage swayed violently as they took another sharp corner. She felt sick. Keynsham reached across to grip her hand. “Once we are out of this traffic, we can outrun him.”
“Where—where are we?”
“Just south of the river.”
They swerved right, then left. Now the road seemed wider, and they were going faster. A gunshot rang out. She clapped her hand to her mouth to suppress a scream. Keynsham flung himself on her, pushing her flat on the seat.
A moment later, there was another shot, and the glass of the rear window shattered. She shut her eyes tight. Wilkes would kill them both… and it was all her fault.
Keynsham cupped the side of her face with his hand. “Miss Ryder. Look at me. Miss Ryder.”
She forced herself to open her eyes. His face was only inches from hers. “Stay down. Miss Ryder? Listen to me. Stay down .”
The carriage tilted sickeningly as the coachman turned right again. They must surely be on two wheels. At any moment they would crash. They would die in a carriage accident—exactly like her father.
Silent tears trickled from the corners of her eyes. Each moment seemed to consist of tiny, precise details: Keynsham’s weight upon her. The cedarwood smell of his woolen jacket and the buttons digging into her breastbone. The warm strength of his body. The glittering shards of glass on the seat all around her. The pounding of the horses’ hooves and the rattles and squeaks of the carriage.
They slowed unexpectedly and swung hard right again. One window went momentarily dark. The carriage’s side scraped against something. They came to an abrupt stop.
For a moment, all was unnaturally quiet, apart from her pulse pounding in her ears and her own sobbing breathing.
Then, far too close, she heard hoofbeats. “Damn your eyes, Begley, you useless bastard! You lost them!”
It was Wilkes’s voice. She shut her eyes again in terror.
“It’s this cursed fog, boss!”
“It’s not the fog! It’s your incompetence! You turned the wrong way at the last corner.”
“I’ll catch them up, boss.”
“You’re damned right you will—or you’ll regret it!”
They lay motionless. A second later, Wilkes’s coachman spoke to the horses. “Walk on.”
The sound of the carriage wheels receded. “Miss Ryder.” Keynsham’s thumb stroked the side of her cheek. “Miss Ryder?”
She opened her eyes.
“They have gone. They did not see us.” His thumb continued to caress her face. “You are safe.”
Her eyes focused on him. She found herself searching his face—from his warm blue eyes to his firm chin, from the livid bruise on his cheekbone to the cut on one side of his lower lip. His big hand was still cradling her cheek. His eyes fell to her lips. She knew that he was about to kiss her. And suddenly, she was drowning in a wave of desire. Her shaking hands rose by themselves, as though she would pull him down to her…
There was a thump as the coachman leapt off the box. Keynsham jumped, pulled back, and sat up. The carriage door banged open. “Your lordship! We lost 'em!” The young coachman was beaming, silhouetted against the grey light.
“You mean you lost them.” Keynsham turned to help her up. “The credit is yours, Young. You have saved all our lives.”
She brushed shards of glass off her pelisse. Her hands were still shaking—though whether that was because of the ordeal of the chase, or because she’d almost kissed Keynsham, she couldn’t be certain.
“Careful.” Keynsham handed her down out of the carriage.
They were in what seemed to be a muddy wasteland, surrounded by an eerie maze of red brick walls that rose into the mist. “Where—where are we?” Her voice shook.
“It appears to be some sort of building site. And we must be somewhere in Kent.”
Oh. The brick walls were the unfinished shells of buildings, missing their roofs and windows. Young had driven them through a narrow gap between two buildings and hidden the carriage behind. The deep, crisscrossing ruts left in the mud by the workers’ carts concealed the new ones made by the carriage.
All was silent. Keynsham, peering through the fog toward what must be a road, let out a low whistle. “They were only a few yards away.”
And then, from the fog, came the sound of footfalls.