Chapter Nine The Secret Kindness
Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam did not, as a rule, skulk after servants through London's streets. It was undignified. It was beneath him. And it suggested a level of desperation that Black Thunder—who judged everyone, silently and without mercy—would find pathetic.
And yet, there he was, trailing Schmidt through Piccadilly like a spy assigned to shadow a quite uninteresting courier.
He had spotted her by chance, riding back from the barracks, when the unmistakable broad-shouldered silhouette of Miss Bingley's maid had lumbered into view.
She moved with the weary determination of a woman who had spent her life lugging hatboxes for a mistress with a pathological fear of under-accessorising.
Schmidt carried a basket. An ordinary wicker basket, the kind used by sensible people to transport sensible things.
But Richard, whose military training had honed his ability to spot anomalies in civilian behaviour, noticed the way she kept glancing over her shoulder.
Not the furtive darting of a thief, but the calculated awareness of someone who preferred not to be noticed.
Intriguing.
He dismounted, pressed a penny and a warning into the palm of a street urchin ("If he bites you, it is your own fault. He has standards."), and followed.
Schmidt navigated the streets with confidence, knowing exactly where she was going—past the coaching inn, past the apothecary, past the milliner's shop where Richard had once endured Miss Bingley's infamous violet pelisse, a garment so aggressive it could have been classified as a weapon of war.
Finally, she stopped outside a modest tea shop sandwiched between a tailor and a chandler.
The sign above the door, Mrs Paulson's Tea Room, was written in gilt so faded, it had given up on life.
The place was respectable, clean, and smelled faintly of resignation—the kind of establishment where overworked servants took refuge before returning to the battlefield of their employers' demands.
Richard waited until Schmidt disappeared inside, counted to ten (because even spying required decorum), and followed.
The interior smelled of bergamot and fresh bread, a scent so wholesome it almost made him suspicious.
A handful of tables were occupied by shopkeepers' wives and clerks who had been defeated by ledgers.
Schmidt had claimed a corner table and had lowered her basket onto it.
Her sigh was so profound it indicated her spine had just filed for early retirement.
Richard approached.
Schmidt looked up. Her eyes widened. For a moment, he thought she might bolt for the door, basket and all.
"Colonel Fitzwilliam!" She lurched to her feet, nearly sending the table into orbit. "I did not—that is—good afternoon, sir!"
"Good afternoon, Miss Schmidt," Richard said, executing a bow so polished it only made her look more alarmed.
"Forgive the intrusion. I saw you from the street and thought you might appreciate some assistance with your…
" He gestured to the basket, which appeared to contain enough parcels to provide for a small army, "… errands."
She stared at him as if he had just suggested they rob a bank together.
"Assistance, sir?"
"You seem to be carrying the weight of the British Empire in that basket," he said. "I am at liberty this afternoon. Allow me to lighten your load."
Schmidt's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. "That is very kind, sir, but I could not possibly—"
"Nonsense." Richard pulled out the chair opposite hers and sat before she could protest. "Consider it an act of mercy. Your spine is one hatbox away from staging a mutiny. But first, I need fortification. You do not mind, do you?"
The maid sank into her seat as if it might explode beneath her.
Richard signalled to the proprietress, a stout woman with flour dusting her apron and the weary smile of someone who had long since stopped questioning the oddities of human behaviour. "Tea for two, if you please. And your freshest biscuits."
"The lemon cakes, sir," the woman said. "They are our speciality."
Schmidt clutched her basket like it held the Crown Jewels. "Colonel, I really must—"
"You must sit and drink tea," Richard interrupted. "It is medicinal. I have read reports—highly classified, of course—that tea is the only known cure for chronic hatbox-induced scoliosis."
A flicker of a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "Miss Bingley does have strong opinions about hats."
"Miss Bingley has strong opinions about everything," Richard agreed. "It is one of her most terrifying qualities."
The tea arrived. Richard poured. He had learned the skill in war zones, where a poorly steeped cup could spark an international incident. Schmidt accepted her teacup with the caution of a prisoner eyeing a suspicious loaf of bread offered by the jailer.
"Tell me," Richard said, stirring sugar into his tea with unnecessary vigour, "does your mistress shop as a form of gymnastics?"
Schmidt blinked. "Sir?"
"I have seen you hauling enough parcels to supply a regiment," he elaborated. "Does she purchase millinery to build you upper body strength?"
Schmidt softened. She took a sip of tea, then set the cup down with a clink. "It is my job, Colonel. And I am happy to do it."
"Even when it threatens to snap your spine in two?"
"Even then." Her voice was firm. "I would do anything for Miss Bingley."
Richard raised an eyebrow. "Most servants merely tolerate their employers. You sound as though you would take a bullet for her."
"I would," Schmidt said simply. "She saved my family, sir. I owe her everything."
Richard set down his teacup with exaggerated care. "Saved your family?"
Schmidt glanced around the tea room, as if expecting spies to emerge from the cake stand.
Then she leaned in, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
"My brother, sir. He fell ill three years ago.
Fever. The doctors gave him until winter.
" Her hands twisted in her lap. "He left behind a son, just a boy, eight years old. No mother, no other family. Just me."
"I am sorry," Richard said, and he meant it.
Schmidt waved a hand, dismissing his sympathy like an inconvenient fly. "The boy is bright, sir. Sharp as a tack. But he needed schooling—proper schooling, not the parish charity school, where they teach children to be grateful for gruel and beatings."
"And Miss Bingley…?"
"Pays for his tuition," Schmidt finished. "Every term. Out of her own allowance. She doesn't touch the household funds. Doesn't ask her brother for a penny. It is her money, and she spends it on my nephew so he can learn to read, write, and cipher."
Richard stared at her. His brain, which prided itself on tactical analysis, struggled to reconcile this information with the image of Caroline Bingley—a sour woman who wore orange to the opera and insulted his cuffs.
"She pays for his schooling," he repeated slowly.
"Every penny," Schmidt said. "And when he needed new boots last winter, she bought those too. She doesn't hide it, mind you. But she doesn't advertise it either. When I tried to thank her, she told me to stop weeping and fetch her the violet reticule because the green one clashed with her pelisse."
Richard's mouth twitched. "That does sound like her."
"She is good, Colonel." Schmidt's eyes burned with fierce loyalty.
"I don't care what Society says about her.
I don't care if she wears feathers the size of trees or dresses the colour of a bruised sunset.
She is kind. And she is loyal. And if she asked me to give her an arm, I'd hand it over without a second thought. "
Richard thought of the woman he had pulled from a runaway horse—the same woman who had clung to him in terror one moment and glared at him the next as if he had personally offended her sensibilities instead of saving her life. The woman who critiqued his poverty and his very existence.
That woman paid for a servant's nephew to attend school.
That woman, who hoarded her wealth like a dragon guarding its gold, spent her own money on a servant's child.
"Does she visit the boy?" Richard asked.
Schmidt shook her head. "Never. She asked his name once—Thomas—and told me to make sure he learned Latin because 'ignorance is a sin and stupidity is a choice'. That was all."
Richard sat back in his chair, staring at his teacup as if it held the secrets of the universe. "She is not what I thought," he said, though he was speaking more to the dregs of his tea than to Schmidt.
"No, sir," Schmidt agreed. "She is not." She picked up her basket and stood. "If you'll excuse me, Colonel, I must finish my errands. Miss Bingley expects these ribbons before supper, and if I'm late, she'll threaten to replace me with a more competent footstool."
"She would never replace you," Richard realised.
Schmidt smiled. "I know. But she enjoys the threat. It makes her feel powerful."
She bobbed a curtsy and left, taking her basket—and her secrets—with her.
Richard sat alone at the table, lost in thought. Or at least the answer to one pressing question. How had Caroline Bingley, of all people, become a puzzle he suddenly wanted to solve?
She was not just a lemon. No, she was a lemon with sugar. Hidden sugar. The kind she refused to sprinkle on her reputation, lest someone mistake her for nice.
And Richard, who had once declared he would rather eat a living frog than court her, was now grappling with a far more dangerous emotion than annoyance.
Guilt. And worse, curiosity.
He tossed a coin onto the table, reclaimed Black Thunder from the street boy (who, miraculously, still had all his fingers), and rode home in silence. He had a plan, of course. A scheme. A strategy. He was helping Miss Bingley find a husband, purely to determine if he could tolerate her as a wife.
But as he navigated London's streets, a far more alarming question gnawed at him.
What if she was too good for him?
Richard had made a tactical error.
The error was attending Lady Stanhope's rout.