Chapter 18
Chapter 18
Julia woke with a start at another knock on her chamber door. Blinking awake, she took in her narrow bed in her narrow room in Mrs. Hayes’s house.
Had yesterday been a dream?
But no. The pleasant twinges that greeted her when she lifted her head from the pillow were more than ample proof of what had transpired the day before.
“Come in,” she called, dashing one knuckle across her lips to wipe away a smile.
It was Jess this time. “Do come quick, Miss Addison. She won’t listen to reason.”
Julia scrambled from her bed, snatched up her dressing gown, and hurried after the maid. After what had happened last evening, she could only imagine Aunt Mildred’s state.
Graham had returned her to Clapham a little bedraggled and damp, thanks to another spate of cold rain, and later than intended, because he had insisted on making love to her again—so gently, so tenderly, his powerful body had trembled with restrained desire. Julia trembled again at the memory.
Daniel had been waiting for them at the door. The boy hadn’t even bothered with a greeting. “Mistress wants to see you,” he’d reported. Julia had already had one foot on the stairs when he’d added, “You too, sir.”
It little mattered that Mildred Hayes was a small, sickly, old woman, propped up on pillows and confined to her bed. The moment the two of them had crossed the threshold of her chamber, she had launched into such a tongue-lashing, punctuating her words by jabbing her folded lorgnette at each of them in turn.
“Daniel—curricle—Scotsman—gone for hours—surely recognized—gossip—reputation—”
“My apologies for distressing you, ma’am,” Graham had interjected smoothly when she had finally paused to draw breath. “Your niece has consented to make me the happiest of men.”
The hackneyed expression was doubly ridiculous from a man Julia knew to be gifted with language, and who kept his emotions under such strict regulation.
But on Aunt Mildred, the words had worked like a magic charm.
Her choleric color had faded to girlish pink, and tears of joy had sprung into her eyes. “My Julia, married, to an earl?”
Graham had left soon after, with a kiss on the hand for Mrs. Hayes and one on the cheek of his betrothed. Julia was left to settle and soothe Aunt Mildred, who had at least been wise enough not to ask questions for which she did not really want answers.
“And to think, it’s all down to that mix-up with my theater box,” she’d said, just before drifting off to sleep. “You really must invite Mr. Pope to the wedding.”
Julia couldn’t guess what this morning’s renewed agitation might portend.
She found her sitting on the side of her bed, her wrapped legs dangling over the edge of the mattress, with her walking stick in one hand and Mrs. Whyte at her other elbow, urging her to lie down again.
“I’m perfectly capable of sitting at a table for a quarter of an hour,” Aunt Mildred was insisting. “There’s correspondence that demands my attention.”
“I can write for you,” Julia said, hurrying to the bedside.
“Not on your life.” She thunked the tip of the walking stick onto the carpet for emphasis, narrowly missing Julia’s bare toes. “Dunstane will write to your brother, of course—has written already, I daresay. Last night, he had a certain look in his eye—the look of a man who wanted to be doing something, anything to move matters along.” She shuffled forward, until her feet brushed the floor. “But I am determined that your mother will hear the news that her daughter is to be the Countess of Dunstane from my own hand.”
There was little to do, then, but help her to a chair—the chair in which Julia usually sat, fortunately just a step away from the bed. Between the three of them, Mrs. Whyte, Jess, and Julia managed to drag the mahogany pedestal table from across the room and arrange it in front of her.
“I’ll fetch pen and paper,” Julia said and went down to the sitting room.
Daniel met her on the stairs. “A message for you, miss.” He’d even remembered the salver—though he gave her the folded missive with one hand while balancing the tray on the other.
“Thank you, Daniel,” she said, tucking it into the pocket of her dressing gown for safekeeping. Who but Graham would have written to her? And his words would be for her alone.
Once Aunt Mildred was busy with her letter, Julia decided it would be safe for her to enjoy hers. Stepping closer to the window, with her back almost to the table, she fished the letter from her pocket and slid her finger beneath the disc of wax. He’d been in such a hurry, he hadn’t even bothered with his thistle seal.
But the hand was strange, and the message stranger still.
Urgent meeting of the Misses. In the usual place, at noon.
—Mrs. G.
“A love letter?” Aunt Mildred tilted her head, the better to spy on Julia’s expression.
Julia started. “No, Aunt. It’s a—” Something about the message made the skin along her spine prickle. Better to spare Aunt Mildred further anxiety. “It’s a notice from the bookshop. That new novel I ordered for us has come in. I’ll just go and fetch it after breakfast, shall I?”
Mrs. Hayes dipped her quill and resumed writing. “And how will I explain your absence to his lordship when he calls on you?”
Before leaving, Graham had mentioned a matter of business to which he must attend the next day. “I don’t expect him, ma’am,” Julia said. “But if he does come, tell him . . .” She sent another frowning glance at the paper in her hand and then mustered a smile. “Tell him it was urgent—we’d run out of Hume.”
* * *
Julia arrived at the bookshop with a quarter of an hour to spare ’til the clock struck midday, but the others had still arrived before her. All but Lady Stalbridge, that was.
Lady Clarissa Sutliffe, Miss Theodosia Nelson, and Miss Contantia Cooper were all seated around the table, in the center of which lay three identical letters. Julia sank into a chair and slid her letter across the scarred and stained wood to join the rest.
“I wonder why Lady Stalbridge needs to see us on such little notice? I had to say that Thomas, my cat, had run away—even though the poor old thing is asleep under my bed.” Lady Clarissa’s eyes were wider than usual, fixed on the pile of paper. “Papa let me join some of the servants in a search for him. I gave two footmen the slip and came here. I figured, it worked for Daphne,” she said with a shrug, a reference to the feline misadventure that had brought Daphne Burke, now Lady Deveraux, to join the magazine last spring.
“I had been wishing for another meeting,” confessed Miss Nelson, “so I could tell you all that I’m to have an article published in the Times.”
“Theo, that’s marvelous,” declared Clarissa, reaching out to squeeze her hand. “I knew you could do it.”
Constantia fidgeted with her pencil, though for once, she did not draw. “I’ve submitted a water-color to an exhibition,” she said, speaking to no one in particular. “Anonymously, of course.”
“Excellent news,” said Theo.
Julia knotted and unknotted her fingers in her lap.
The mood in the room was strange. Nervousness—they’d never been summoned by Lady Stalbridge in such a fashion before. And all these declarations—as if they might never have another chance to speak. It reminded her, oddly, of the sense of anticipation she’d felt in Graham’s cottage as she’d waited for tea. The feeling that something important, something life-changing, was about to be revealed.
Beneath the table, she pushed her damp palms down the front her skirt. “I’m going to marry Lord Dunstane.”
Three sets of eyes—hazel, brown, and violet—bored into her, full of astonishment. But before anyone could say anything, Lady Stalbridge arrived.
“Oh.” She glanced around the room at each of them, looking crestfallen to find them there. “I had hoped . . .” Then her gaze landed on the pile of papers in the center of the table. With a sharp sigh, she opened her reticule, withdrew two letters, and with a flick of her wrist, sent them to join the rest. “Lord Manwaring received one as well.”
“Oh. I thought perhaps that he . . . You didn’t send them, then?” Lady Clarissa’s golden brows still had a hopeful lift. “As a . . . as a sort of . . . joke?”
Lady Stalbridge demurred. “I did not.”
“But—but this means, someone else knows who we all are, even where we live!”
At Theo’s words, Constantia pushed back from the table, her chair scraping noisily across the floor. “You’ll excuse me, please,” she said with a nod and a curtsy. The door shut softly behind her.
She’d left her sketches strewn across the table.
“It’s worse than that, I fear,” said Lady Stalbridge, retrieving another letter from her small, beaded bag. “This was enclosed with the first.” She unfolded the note, spread it smooth with her palm, and scooted it first toward Julia.
You’re not as clever as you thought you were, or it wouldn’t have been so easy for me to learn the identities of Mrs. Goode, Miss on Scene, and the rest.
Next week, at opening night of my new play, you’ll see what I’ve done with this valuable information. Soon,everyonewill know.
—R. B.
Julia shut her eyes and pushed the paper toward Theo.
“Ransom Blackadder.” Theodosia spat out the name as she reached the end of the second letter. “How did he find out?”
“I don’t know yet,” Lady Stalbridge admitted. “I suppose it really doesn’t matter. I’m afraid this is goodbye to the magazine. I’d hoped we’d at least last out the year.” She reached out a hand and covered Julia’s where it lay on the table. “I’m sorry, my dear. It seems all your efforts with Lord Dunstane were for naught.”
* * *
Graham grumbled beneath his breath as he pushed open the shop door and ducked inside. Above his head—but only barely—a little brass bell tinkled to announce his arrival.
After hours of searching, he’d left the bright, polished storefronts of Bond and Oxford Streets behind.
That’s rather an old-fashioned style, sir. I’m afraid we’ve nothing like it here.
No, my lord. I’ve seen nothing to match that description in years.
Surely, you’d rather choose something grander, more suited to grace the hand of the Countess of Dunstane?
This dingy little jewelry shop was his last hope. Or at least, his last attempt before he surrendered to the consolations of a glass of whisky and one of the gaudy pieces that had been pressed upon him earlier in the day.
“How can I assist you, sir?” said the man behind the counter, tucking away a dusty rag that needed to be put to more frequent use. He was sixty if he was a day, white-haired, with small, square-rimmed spectacles perched on his forehead, whose existence he appeared to have forgotten some time ago.
But none of that was what struck Graham first. “You’re a Scot?”
“Aye, sir. That I am. Hamish Armstrong of Dundee, at your service.”
It was an omen, if ever he had heard one. He’d searched the town through for a man who would understand.
“I need a ring for a lass,” he began.
The man gave a knowing smile. “Your lass?”
“Aye.” His. “She’s sweet as the honey made from spring heather.”
“But I’ll wager she’s got a twinkle in her eye, too.” Hamish looked him up and down. “She’ll need it, if she’s to take up with a man the likes of you.”
“Aye, that she does,” Graham agreed with a soft chuckle.
Then he set about describing a ring that existed only in the haziest reaches of his memory, the betrothal ring his mother had worn, set round with pearls and some purplish gem.
“Amethyst,” the jeweler supplied with another smile. “Go on.”
There were no McKay family jewels left. No McKay family left. As Blackadder, he had spent years tearing down everything that carried even a whiff of sentiment. But now Graham had been given an unexpected chance to rebuild what he’d lost, with Julia at his side.
After a few more questions, Hamish disappeared into a back room and returned with a delicate ring held up between forefinger and thumb. “This.”
It wasn’t a question. Graham had to clench his jaw to fight its sudden inclination to wobble.
He would have been willing to swear it was his mother’s ring.
“Aye,” he managed at last.
Hamish put it in a little box and gave it to Graham in exchange for far fewer banknotes than the ring was worth—at least, to him.
“My brother, Tavish, owns just such a shop as this,” the jeweler called after him as he stepped to the door with his prize. “In Edinburgh. If you have need of aught when you’re home.”
Home.
He imagined dancing her around his bedchamber at Dunstane, clad in nothing but jewels.
But first, the ring. That, he would present to her on Monday, after rehearsal. And he’d do it properly too. Fully clothed. Down on one knee. Would you do me the honor . . . and all that.
As he trotted up the steps of the house on Half Moon Street, he patted his breast pocket in almost boyish delight. A footman bowed and, at Graham’s nod, opened the door to the study. He had a letter to write, to Julia’s brother.
But he found his secretary at the desk with his usual array of papers before him.
“Good afternoon, Keynes,” he said, tossing aside his hat.
The man looked up and adjusted his glasses, as if afraid Graham’s good mood was a trick of the light. Graham hadn’t told anyone the source of his present happiness, deciding it was better to wait until he’d spoken to her family and a formal announcement had been made.
Keynes moved to stand. Graham tried to wave him back to his chair, but the man insisted. “I have some news, sir. Something I think you’ll be glad to hear.”
“Oh?” Graham couldn’t imagine anything capable of improving his already buoyant mood.
“I’ve completed my mission, sir. I’ve discovered the name of the person who writes as Miss on Scene.”
The whole scandal felt remote, now. The review. Even his response in The Poison Pen. He was ready to wash his hands of all of it and move on to the next part of his life, his new writing project, his . . . wife. The thought, the memory of what had transpired at the cottage, made one corner of his mouth kick up.
He settled into a chair, picked up a stack of letters, and began to leaf through them. “Hmm. And how did you manage that?”
Keynes drew himself up proudly. “As it happens, the Magazine for Misses leases a room from a bookshop for their meetings. The shop’s chief clerk knew something about the arrangement, of course. Then he was caught stealing from the till and had to be let go. And, of course, a disgruntled former employee can no longer be counted on to keep a secret—particularly not when he’s pockets to let and someone offers a reward for information.”
Graham didn’t look up from the post. “No, I suppose not. Well,” he asked absently, all but indifferent to the answer, “who was it, then?”
“You’ll never believe it, sir. Do you remember that woman, the one who’d mistakenly been sold the ticket to your box at Covent Garden?”
Graham’s ears began to buzz, making Keynes’s voice sound as if it came from another room.
“Mrs. Hayes?” The widow was even feistier than he’d imagined, it was true. Last evening’s display of temper had been something of a revelation. But to think of her composing scathing reviews of plays for a scandalous periodical?
“The very one, sir,” Keynes confirmed. “It seems she’s been employing Miss on Scene as her companion, though I doubt the poor widow knew anything of her double life. A young lady by the name of—” He paused and made a show of looking through his notes.
“Julia Addison.”
“Oh.” Keynes looked up, somewhat deflated by having his triumph swept away so unceremoniously. “Do you know her, sir?”
The ring was a leaden weight resting on Graham’s heart. “Apparently not.”