Chapter Twenty-Two
The note had been written on hotel paper.
Poppy did not notice at first. She saw only Mama’s looping hand and the sentence that made every dreadful possibility rush into her mind at once.
I am on my way to solve all our difficulties.
Those words might mean anything from taking passage to America to inviting a foreign prince to take up permanent residence in the blue bedchamber.
Gabriel took the letter from Poppy and studied it. “The King’s Arms Hotel,” he said. “Albemarle Street.”
Poppy looked up sharply. “How do you know?”
He turned the paper toward her and pointed toward the small crest pressed into the corner of the sheet. “The note must have been sent after she arrived.”
For one foolish moment, relief loosened Poppy’s chest. They knew where Mama had gone. That was something.
Then the implications returned. Mama had packed a valise. Mama had gone to a hotel. Mama believed she could solve all their difficulties before evening.
Poppy tightened her hold upon the note. “We must go immediately.”
“Yes,” Gabriel said and, in that moment, Poppy was grateful for him. He did not tell her to remain at home. He did not suggest that Lady Viva might return of her own accord. He did not offer some useless reassurance.
He simply reached for his hat.
That steadied her more than comforting words would have done.
She did not stop to change from the pale pink muslin she had worn for Lord Caldermere’s expected call. Let the gown be crushed, rained upon, or ruined entirely. Mama was missing, and muslin could fend for itself.
Jenkins appeared beside the hall table, his composure strained but intact. “Shall I send for a hackney, miss?”
“Yes, please.”
Jenkins inclined his head and dispatched a servant.
Poppy looked again at Mama’s note, trying to extract something useful from the extravagant loops and flourishes.
The last sentence remained the most alarming.
Mama had not known precisely what she was doing since Papa died.
Perhaps before that. Papa had merely been there to catch the pieces when her schemes shattered.
Poppy closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
When she opened them, Gabriel was watching her. Not with pity. Never pity. With the grave attention that saw far more than she wished anyone to see and somehow made her feel safer rather than exposed.
“Poppy,” he said quietly. “Are you well?”
“I do not have time to be anything else.”
His expression tightened, but he did not argue.
A moment later, Jenkins opened the door and announced the hackney. Poppy stepped outside with Gabriel close behind her, grateful for his presence and far too conscious of everything that remained unresolved between them.
Only minutes earlier, he had told her he wanted her. Not merely desired her. Wanted all of it, he had said. Every unpaid bill. Every false count. Every dying poet. Every one of Freddie’s disasters.
Then she had asked him to choose her.
Those words should have filled her head. Instead, the instant Mama was missing, fear swept everything else aside. Poppy climbed into the hackney and gathered her skirts. Gabriel settled opposite her and rapped once against the roof.
The carriage lurched into motion.
For several streets, neither spoke. Poppy read Mama’s note again despite having committed every word to memory.
“You think she means to marry the count,” Gabriel said at last.
It was not phrased as a question.
Poppy looked toward him. “Don’t you?”
“The valise suggests she does not mean to return immediately. The promise that you will not be obliged to marry in haste suggests she believes she has found another means of securing your future.”
“By securing her own,” Poppy breathed.
“Yes.”
Poppy folded the note carefully. The paper trembled between her fingers. “Do you suppose the count has convinced her—”
“Likely.”
The honesty hurt. But it also helped. She had to be prepared for whatever they found at the hotel.
Poppy looked out the window as the hackney turned onto a busier street.
Carriages pressed close around them. Pedestrians moved along the pavement, carrying parcels, baskets, umbrellas, and ordinary concerns.
No one looked like a woman whose mother had decided to solve impending eviction by marrying the first adventurer who offered to sweep her away.
“He obviously wants her money,” she said.
“Lady Montague has no money.”
“No. But the count does not appear to know that,” Poppy replied.
“Then any marriage between them would be brief in its satisfaction.”
“Not to mention Count Bellarosa may not be a count.”
“I have entertained doubts.”
“He may not be named Bellarosa either,” Poppy added.
“I have entertained that thought as well.”
Despite everything, a breath of laughter escaped her.
Gabriel’s mouth softened faintly.
Poppy pressed the paper to her lap. “I should not laugh.”
“I suspect Lady Montague would object if you did not.”
“Yes. Mama objects to sorrow unless it belongs to a poet. Then she finds it decorative.”
Gabriel’s gaze rested upon her. “And what do you find it?”
The question struck too close. Poppy looked back toward the window. “Inconvenient.”
Gabriel said nothing. He did not need to.
The King’s Arms Hotel stood in Albemarle Street behind a handsome stone facade intended to reassure travelers that no calamity could possibly survive admission through its polished doors.
Poppy had lived too long with Lady Viva to be deceived by architecture, however.
Gabriel helped her from the hackney and followed her into the entrance hall. A porter hurried forward, then hesitated when he saw Poppy’s expression.
“I am looking for Lady Montague,” she said.
The porter’s gaze flicked toward Gabriel.
“My mother,” Poppy added. “She arrived this morning.”
Recognition dawned. It was not reassuring.
“The lady in the rose-colored cloak?”
“Yes.”
“With the gentleman?”
Poppy’s stomach tightened. “Which gentleman?”
The porter lowered his voice. “The foreign count, miss.”
Gabriel went still beside her.
“Count Bellarosa,” Poppy said.
“Something of the kind.”
Poppy briefly closed her eyes. “Where are they?”
The porter shifted. “Private parlor on the first floor, miss.”
Gabriel’s voice became cool enough to frost glass. “Show us.”
The porter led them upstairs and along a carpeted passage. Before they reached the end, Poppy heard Mama’s laughter behind a closed door.
Relief swept through her.
Mama was here. Alive. Safe enough to laugh.
Then a second voice rose, magnificent in its self-importance. “Madam, matrimony is a ship upon a moonlit sea. A man must steer. A woman must provide the wind. And occasionally, one requires a little ready money for sails.”
Count Bellarosa.
Poppy closed her eyes again.
Gabriel glanced at her. “Ready?”
“No.”
He waited.
Poppy drew one more breath. “Yes.”
Gabriel opened the door.
The private parlor contained Mama, Count Bellarosa, a bottle of champagne, two glasses, one valise, a ring of questionable size and unquestionable vulgarity, and a nervous-looking man in ill-fitting black attempting to hide a prayer book behind his back.
Count Bellarosa stood beside the mantel in purple velvet embroidered with gold. His sapphire pin glittered at his throat with the blue intensity of an object unlikely to have originated in nature.
Mama sat upon a sofa in her rose traveling cloak, cheeks bright and expression determinedly cheerful. “Poppy,” she said. “Darling. You found me.”
“Yes, Mama.”
Lady Viva looked toward Gabriel and brightened further. “And Mr. Ashby. How useful. We shall need someone to look over the marriage contract.”
Poppy stared at her. “Marriage contract.”
Count Bellarosa placed one hand over his heart. “Yes. ’Tis but a modest ceremony. Private. Sacred. Swift enough to spare all tender sensibilities.”
The man in black shifted near the window.
Gabriel’s gaze fixed upon him. “You are a clergyman?”
The man swallowed. “In a manner of speaking.”
“There are very few manners of speaking that answer that question.”
Count Bellarosa waved one elegant hand. “Mr. Pottle has studied extensively.”
“Studied what?” Gabriel asked.
Mr. Pottle’s eyes moved toward the door. “A number of subjects.”
“Has ordination been among them?” Gabriel pressed.
A pause. “Not formally.”
Gabriel’s expression did not alter.
Poppy had learned enough to recognize the warning in that stillness.
Mama reached for her champagne. “Darling, do not be narrow-minded. Formalities have killed more romance than bad poetry.”
“Nothing has killed bad poetry,” Gabriel said. “Mr. Loxley has proved that repeatedly.”
Count Bellarosa drew himself up. “Sir, you bring an unseemly skepticism into a room prepared for devotion.”
“I bring a professional aversion to fraud,” Gabriel intoned.
The count pressed a hand against his chest. “Fraud?”
“Mr. Pottle is not a clergyman. That document upon the table is not a special license. And unless I am much mistaken, that ring contains paste.”
Mama looked down at the enormous stone. “Does it?”
Count Bellarosa’s grandeur dimmed by a fraction. “Paste has been maligned by lesser imaginations.”
Gabriel crossed to the table and picked up the paper. “This license bears the signature of an archbishop who died eight years ago.”
Mr. Pottle winced.
Count Bellarosa spread his hands. “A clerical oversight.”
Gabriel’s jaw ticked. “An impressive one.”
Poppy looked at Mama. “Mama,” she said carefully, “what are you doing?”
Lady Viva lifted her glass and took a small sip. “Solving things, sweetie.”
“You cannot solve our difficulties by marrying a man whose wedding license was signed by a dead archbishop,” Poppy pointed out.
“One should not dismiss assistance merely because it arrives from beyond the grave,” Mama replied.
“Mama.” The sharpness of Poppy’s voice cut through the absurdity.
Lady Viva lowered the glass.
For one moment, no one spoke.
Then Count Bellarosa said, with a wounded expression perched upon his face, “I should like to clarify that my intentions are entirely honorable.”
Gabriel turned toward him. “Your intentions involve an invalid ceremony conducted by a man who has not taken holy orders.”