Seventeen
She turned to Nathaniel and latched onto his arm. “I fear I’ve developed a bit of a headache. I wonder if you might see me home early, if your sister is all right, of course.”
“My parents have her well in hand now, so Caro’s fine.” Nate nodded correctly to Lord Fishwick. “I wish you continued good health, my lord. You’re something of a luck piece for me now.”
Roger’s cheeks flushed a florid red. He was obviously not at all pleased about being relegated to the status of a rabbit’s foot.
“Don’t antagonize him,” Georgette murmured under her breath as Nathaniel led her away. “You don’t know what he’s like.”
Nate chuckled. “Sure I do. Spoiled. Sulky. Always expecting others to pick up after his mess. I believe I have Lord Fishwick’s measure.”
Georgette bade the Daventrys a good evening and thanked them for inviting her. Then she smiled across the room at Lord Winthrop, who’d been not-so-covertly watching her all evening, no doubt hoping to catch her in some unroyalty-like faux pas.
“Speaking of taking someone’s measure,” Nathaniel murmured as Lord Winthrop lowered his lorgnette and nodded at her gravely.
“He’s doing his job, I suppose, but it does grate on one to be under constant scrutiny.”
“I believe that about sums up the life of a royal. But cheer up, Georgie. Looks as if you passed muster,” Nate said as he draped her short cape over her shoulders.
“You were serene, elegant, and as remote as the moon. Clearly regal material. His Highness’s lapdog seems satisfied with your performance. ”
Georgette snorted. The idea of the corpulent Lord Winthrop on anyone’s lap was laughable.
“So Winthrop is a lapdog and, according to Roger, you’re a wolfhound,” she said. “It seems I’m besieged by canines at every turn.”
“I won’t argue the point. As a general rule, all gentlemen are dogs and—what do you mean, Roger?” He had been about to pop his top hat on his head, but he stopped with the hat halfway to its goal. “Just how well do you know that dandy?”
“Don’t make a fuss,” she said as she led the way out the Daventrys’ double doors and into the crisp, starry night. “Not that it’s any of your business, but Lord Fishwick and I crossed paths as children. I know him well enough to know he can be a very unpleasant person. Let’s leave it at that.”
He offered her his hand and helped her into the waiting carriage. “Was he troubling you?”
The only man in the world who truly troubled her climbed after her into the barouche and settled on the squab beside her. “If he was, it’s none of your affair.”
“I’ll make it my affair.”
“No, you won’t,” she said in clipped tones. “Because you don’t mean any of it.”
Georgette pressed her lips tightly together. She hadn’t meant to toss his words from that night in the library back at him. The fact that she did meant they’d wounded her. And she couldn’t bear him knowing that.
She drew the velvet curtains aside and looked out the window, feigning interest in the twisted spider-leg streets of London that sheared off the main thoroughfare. So many lives intersecting in those little crooked ways.
Nathaniel took her hand, but she still didn’t turn her gaze from the window. She also didn’t pull her hand free.
“Georgette, I’m sorry I hurt you. Contrary to Lord Fishwick’s opinion, I’m not a hound of any sort,” he said. “I’m a cur.”
“Yes, you are.”
“You weren’t supposed to agree so quickly.”
Against her better judgment, a smile tugged at her lips. “I can’t help it if I’m the agreeable sort.”
“Ha! You are many things, Georgette Yorkingham, but agreeable is not one of them. In fact, I think it irks you when you have to be.”
He knew her too well for her comfort. Well, he would, wouldn’t he, seeing as how he’d all but known her in the biblical sense.
“If I’m not agreeable, what am I?”
His thumb circled her gloved knuckles. She let the curtain drop back into place and wished the thin silk of her gloves didn’t separate her skin from his touch.
“You’re infuriating,” he said. “Mostly.”
She jerked her hand away at that. “Careful, sir. A lady can only stand so much charm,” she said, her tone sharp with sarcasm. “You’ll turn my head.”
“I meant it in a good way,” he amended.
“How, pray tell, can one be infuriating in a good way?”
“Infuriating probably isn’t the right word. What I really mean is that you irritate me.”
She laughed mirthlessly. “Not an improvement. A word to the not-so-wise: when one finds oneself so deep in a hole, it’s generally advisable to stop digging.”
“Irritate isn’t quite right either. It’s like you’re…a burr under my saddle.”
“Well, what woman doesn’t live to hear that?”
He exhaled noisily. “You don’t understand.
When you have a burr under your saddle, you have to stop and fix it.
” He caught her with his intense gaze and for the life of her, she couldn’t look away this time.
“Don’t you see? You make me…Georgette, you make me want to stop what I’m doing and fix things. You make me want to change.”
She blinked in surprise. That was possibly the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her. She swallowed hard.
“What are you doing that you ought to stop?”
He leaned toward her. “Trying to seduce you.”
“Oh.” She felt herself being drawn to him and found not a particle of will to stop it. “Perhaps we could begin with other things about you that need changing first.”
His smile lit up that dimple in his cheek again. “Perhaps we could.”
When his lips met hers, all the frustrations of the evening melted. She melted. The whole world slipped away in the liquid warmth of Nathaniel Colton’s kiss.
There was no pending match with the Duke of Cambridge to fret over. No residual discomfort from her conversation with that smarmy Lord Fishwick.
There was only this moment, this man, this mingling of souls.
Until she realized vaguely that the carriage had come to a stop and someone was pounding on the door.
“Oh, my lady!” Mercy cried.
Georgette leaned across Nathaniel and peered out through the slit in the curtains on his side of the carriage. By the light of the gas lamp near Yorkingham House’s front door, she could see that Mercy’s face was wet with tears and her nose was running.
“Thank God, ye’re home.” Mercy clung to the carriage handle but didn’t wrench the door open.
“Come away from there, girl.” Mr. Humphrey, usually the picture of decorum, came bolting out of the big double doors and bounding to the street with unaccustomed speed. “You know better than to be seen in front of the house. What are you troubling my lady about?”
“It’s all right, Mr. Humphrey,” Georgette said as Nathaniel handed her down from the carriage.
“This note…it came whilst ye were gone.” Mercy waved a bit of foolscap as if it were a white flag. “Oh, they’ve gone and done it. And there ain’t no comin’ back from this.”
“Please, Mercy, not on the street,” Georgette said. Who knew if the Duke of Cambridge had other watchers posted besides Lord Winthrop? “Besides, I can’t very well read it here. Come inside.”
Mr. Humphrey gave a surprised sniff when Georgette put her arm around Mercy’s shaking shoulders, but wisely refrained from comment.
Georgette paused in the foyer long enough to allow the steward to divest her of her cape before shepherding Mercy into the parlor.
Nathaniel lit the wall sconces and the room blazed with light.
“You’re shaking like a leaf,” Georgette said. “Here, Mercy, have a seat.”
Mr. Humphrey had turned their outer garments over to a waiting valet and followed them into the parlor. “Begging your pardon, milady, but it’s highly inappropriate for one of the staff to be seated in your presence.”
“Would it be more appropriate to allow Mercy to collapse on the floor? Sit,” she ordered.
Mercy did. Georgette ignored the fact that her maid cast a sly smile toward the steward.
It was merely Mercy’s way to tweak those in authority, and besides, her expression returned to one of abject misery quickly enough.
“Please bring us some tea, if you would, Mr. Humphrey.”
Once he was gone, Georgette studied the note. “It’s for you, Lord Nathaniel. The seal is broken.”
Mercy swiped her nose on her sleeve and had the grace to look chagrined.
“I could see it was from Mrs. Throckmorten, and I ain’t heard from Vesta for a couple days.
I thought she mighta gotten herself into a spot of trouble, so I figured if I could sort it out without troublin’ the pair of ye, well…
but I can’t sort this out.” She erupted into fresh sobs.
Georgette pulled the lace handkerchief from her own sleeve and handed it to her maid.
“What’s this about, Mercy?” Nate asked.
“They killed her.”
“Killed who?” Georgette tore open the much folded foolscap and ran her gaze over Mrs. Throckmorten’s neat script. Unfortunately, Mercy’s tears were making Georgette’s vision cloud up as well. No one ever wept alone in her presence, and she found she couldn’t read the note.
“I think that was meant for me,” Nate said as he removed it from her grasp with gentleness. “I am Mrs. Throckmorten’s employer, after all.”
He skimmed over the note. “It seems Vesta was late returning from the florist’s shop, so Mrs. Throckmorten sent the girls out to look for her. Her body was discovered only a few yards away from the house on Lackaday Lane.”
Georgette sank into one of the Sheraton chairs because her legs would no longer support her.
“They done for her,” Mercy muttered.
“Mrs. Throckmorten does suspect foul play.” Nathaniel refolded the note and thrust it into his waistcoat pocket.
How could the man be so maddeningly calm at a time like this? “We must summon the magistrate,” Georgette said.
Mercy’s laugh was like the tinkle of broken glass. “For a whore? Bless me if sometimes I don’t think ye’re a bit simple, milady.”
Georgette glowered at her maid. “Vesta is…was…no longer a prostitute. But even if she was, she still deserves justice.”
“You’re right,” Nathaniel said. “But Mercy’s right too. No magistrate is going to appreciate being rousted from his bed for the sake of a dead whore, reformed or not. And even if we could get a Bow Street runner to take the case, they’re more effective in the better part of town.”
“Then we’ll have to see to it ourselves.” Georgette stood, feeling less shaky for taking action. “You said, ‘they done for her,’ Mercy. Whom did you mean?”
“Ye don’t think I know, do ye?” Mercy blew her nose noisily. “I suppose Vesta might have gotten crosswise of someone she owed.”
“But I just paid off her debt,” Nate said.
“The debt she owed Madam Bouchard. That don’t signify that she didn’t go out and get herself into dun territory with someone else,” Mercy said. “Being a flower girl don’t pay near as much as kicking yer heels over yer head. And Vesta always did like nice things.”
“It doesn’t seem as if there’s been enough time for her to accumulate that much debt,” Georgette said.
“When a body don’t have any blunt, ye’d be surprised how fast the debt grows,” Mercy said dryly.
“Oh!” She straightened and scooted to the edge of the seat.
“A passel of people stand to lose when a girl stops liftin’ her skirt.
Could’ve been any number of folk what don’t appreciate your new House of Sirens, my lord. ”
“And you think killing Vesta might be a warning to the others?” Nate said.
Mercy shrugged. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Hearts is hard on Lackaday Lane. Always look to the main chance and feather yer own nest. Them’s the watchwords.”
Nathaniel started toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Georgette asked.
“Mr. Bagley has quite a bit to answer for. I hired that old pugilist to protect those girls.” Nate’s jaw clenched in a determined line. “Mrs. Throckmorten may know more than she was willing to commit to paper. It’s not much, but it’s all we have to go on.”
“Then I’m going with you.”
“Bloody hell,” he said with a snort. “You most certainly are not.”
“There’s no need to be vulgar.”
“Yes, there is. There’s every need. If ever there was call for vulgarity, murder is one of those times. And if a little foul language upsets you, you should take it as a sign that the rest of the evening is not likely to meet with your approval either.”
“Nevertheless,” she said, advancing to stand almost toe to toe with him, “I will accompany you to Lackaday Lane.”
“You forget yourself, princess,” he said. “I’m not your hired man and you’re not royalty yet. I do not take orders from you.”
“Fine.” She fisted her hands at her waist. “Go ahead, but once you’re gone, I’ll only send for a hackney and go by myself.”
He stared at her for a moment and she willed herself not to blink. Finally, he swore again. Georgette wasn’t sure what the unfamiliar words meant, but she suspected it was something a good deal more offensive than “bloody hell.” He slapped his gloves against his thigh.
“Mercy, stop blubbering and get your mistress changed into something a little less conspicuous than a gown fit for a princess.”
“You won’t leave without me?” Georgette said.
He glowered at her as if his dark frown would convince her to stay when his words hadn’t. “No. I have something else to do while you change your clothes.”
“What?”
“Load my pistol. Someone chided me once for wandering into that neighborhood without one.” He stomped away. “Sounds like prudent advice now.”