Chapter 11
Padua faced the morning in a muted mood. There were those who claimed sleeping on a problem brought clarity, and her view of the last evening’s events loomed awkwardly lucid in the light of day.
Besides concluding that years of abstinence had made her a sitting duck, she drew no conclusions and placed no blame. She did, however, admit that she had to leave Langley House.
At least she had some money now. She had promised not to use the money found in her father’s apartment yet, but spending her own savings would be easier now that the other money resided in her valise.
She enjoyed one more elegant breakfast, nostalgic already for the luxury.
For a brief while she had felt important and notable.
Just walking through these spaces made one stand tall and proud.
She asked to eat in the dining room. She took her time, then went to her chamber and called for her servant. At her instruction, the girl began folding up the few garments.
They were almost finished when the door opened. Ives walked in. Padua wished her heart did not jump at the sight of him, but it did.
No wonder she had been so reckless yesterday. He exuded a masculine power that demanded compliance with whatever he wanted. She had always been at a disadvantage, and fighting a rear-guard action against the effects his presence had on her. It would only be worse now.
He saw the valise, and the stack of clothing beside it, on the bench near the window. “You are almost packed, I see. Good. I came up to tell you to do so at once.”
She asked the girl to leave, then began stuffing her garments into the valise herself. “How gracious of you. I suspected your glib words about taking all the blame were just polite cant, but I did not think you would throw me out like so much bad baggage.”
A touch on her shoulder drew her attention. She conquered her humiliation before looking at him.
“I am not throwing you out, but you cannot stay here. I have no guarantee that you will not be followed, or interfered with, as was tried yesterday.”
“I trust you warned them off?”
“I did. Both the man who lay in wait and his masters.”
“Then I am sure no one will interfere with me.” She returned to her packing.
She wished he would go. Vivid images from yesterday evening invaded her mind while he stood there. Knowing that he harbored more erotic pictures made it worse. How did people have conversations after indulging in such intimacy? It was all she could do not to choke on her own breaths.
“I disagree,” he said. “It would be best if you left London so the trail goes cold.”
“If necessary, I can go to Birmingham.” At least she knew that city. She would not be lost in it.
“That will not do. I need to keep an eye on you. I am taking you to Merrywood Manor, Aylesbury’s country home. We will leave at once.”
She stopped packing. She stood frozen with comb and brush in hand. He had issued a decree, not a request.
“I will be in the way there.”
“You will not be.”
“Is it unoccupied, like this house?”
“My brother is there. I must be too. Our other brother will be returning from a tour of the Continent, and I should welcome him and his wife back.”
She tucked the comb and brush into her valise. “I will definitely be underfoot, then.”
“A person could live her life in that house and never see another soul, Padua. Isolating yourself will prove very dull, but you can do so if you want.”
She peered into her valise, at the old garments she knew too well. “I will have to. I have nothing suitable to wear at a duke’s table.”
“No one will care about that.”
Oh, yes, they will. Even he had noticed how poorly she appeared when she first called on him, although he would never admit it.
She noticed him taking in every sad inch of her dress and pelisse and bonnet.
I will care too. She did not want to suffer the pity of this other brother’s wife.
It was one thing to be a woman of modest circumstances, and another to be the intruding, dowdy guest.
She would indeed isolate herself, and not obligate this family to pretend they entertained her sort all the time.
“I will wait below for you.” He turned to go.
“Where did they travel? The brother and his wife?”
He shrugged. “Rome, Florence, Venice, and thereabouts. The Alps, I expect. France. They have returned sooner than planned. They chose to shorten the journey.”
Venice? Florence? Padua reconsidered her resolve to be invisible. She supposed she could suffer a little pity if she learned about the sites and environs of those cities. Her mother used to reminisce about her visits to Venice, and it would be good to learn how things had changed.
She closed her valise after Ives left. Before she went down, she jotted quick letters to Jennie and Mr. Notley, to let them know she was leaving town but that mail sent to her at Langley House would find her.
* * *
Ives spent the better part of the journey to Merrywood up beside the coachman. The alternative, to sit inside with Padua, promised to cause him nothing but discomfort. Far better to face the autumn wind than her palpable fear.
The expression on her face when she left Langley House had not been companionable. At the inns she retired to her chamber and took her meals there. Only a fool would not recognize the signs of a woman keeping her distance.
She thought he would seduce her if he had her alone again. Finish what he had started. Pass the long miles dallying the best way one could find. He had sworn to himself he would not do that, but he guessed the odds were at best even that he could resist the temptation if he met it.
Therefore he kept his distance, too, up on the board. He took the reins at times, so his mind would not dwell too much on the woman out of sight a few feet away.
The reception at Merrywood involved only servants. Ives watched Padua escorted away by the housekeeper while he went in search of Lance.
He found his brother in the library, wearing riding clothes that displayed a good deal of autumn mud. Lance’s acknowledgment was a gesture toward the brandy and a raise of his own glass.
“Have Gareth and Eva arrived yet?” he asked Lance.
“Tomorrow. He wrote with their plans two days ago. They made a stop at Langdon’s End first, then at Birmingham.”
“I trust that means Eva is in good health.”
“He did not say she wasn’t.”
Ives threw himself into a chair. “Did you just get back from riding?”
Lance shook his head. “I returned at least an hour ago. It was a most peculiar ride.”
“How so?”
“I came upon Radley riding too. He joined me. I spent the next two hours in his company.”
Sir Horace Radley was a magistrate. He had occupied himself for half a year now trying to prove Lance had murdered their eldest brother, Percy.
“Did he question you yet again? I will lodge the strongest objection. Enough is enough.”
“I said it was peculiar, not typical. He might have been my best friend, he proved so jovial. His only comment about my unfortunate dark cloud was to say, and I am quoting him now, I’ve cause to think an error has been made, and I shall address that soon.”
“Odd.”
“Isn’t it. I have spent the last hour contemplating how odd. He did not say, for example, I have concluded you are innocent and much maligned, did he? It was more ambiguous than that.”
“Yet his friendliness would imply—”
“Nothing at all, perhaps.”
Ives wished a more optimistic reason were at work. He hoped this peculiar conversation heralded the end of the matter.
“I should probably tell you that I did not come alone. I brought a guest,” he said.
“So the footman whispered when he hurried in here to inform me of your arrival. A woman, he said. A Miss Padua Belvoir.”
“I am sure you will like her.”
“Do you? Like her, that is? You must, if you brought her here. You have never done that with your actresses and opera singers before. Nor do your mistresses usually call themselves Miss anything.”
“It is not like that. It is not what you think.”
Lance stood and ambled over to the brandy. “What do I think?”
“She is not my mistress, or an opera singer, or an actress.”
Lance took that in with a vague smile. He returned to his chair, stretched out his legs, and gave Ives the kind of focused attention that he rarely showed these days. “Then what is she instead? If I am to be her host, I should probably know.”
“She is—was—a schoolteacher. She got sacked, and needs a bit of help until she decides her future course of action.”
“Is this the same woman who was my guest at Langley House the last few days? The butler does write to me when interesting things happen. Perhaps you did not know that.”
So much for simple explanations. Ives cleared his throat. “I came to know her because of a case I am involved in. Upon learning of her dire straits, I could not just leave her destitute and homeless.”
“Of course not. That would not be chivalrous. However, you could have left her in London, at Langley House, rather than journey several days in her company, and bring her here. You could have found her other lodging, at an inn for example.”
He cursed Lance under his breath. He had grown accustomed to his brother lacking interest in anything, and had counted on that. Instead, for some reason, Lance kept digging. The hole was getting very large.
“I did not think it wise to leave her in London.”
Lance just looked at him.
“Here is the thing. I have some reason to think she is in danger of abduction by agents of the Home Office. It was best to get her out of town.”
“So this woman had drawn the attention of the Home Office, and you concluded she should leave London. You then decided to bring this troublesome baggage with you to this house, so the Home Office could wonder even more what our involvement with her might be. Do I have that at least half-right?”
“At least half.”