Carola Dunn (2 page)

Thorpe joined him. “Damned if I can make out how you always have the ladybirds squabbling over you,” he said admiringly, “when you never have a feather to fly with, let alone to feather their nests.”

“It’s my natural charm and manly beauty, Gerald. There’s something about black hair, blue eyes and a broken nose to which females naturally gravitate.”

“Ha! M’sister Lottie says you’d be the very image of a pirate if you were bearded and a trifle taller.”

Laughing, Miles glanced back, to see his whilom mistresses with their arms about each other, temporarily united in their temporary hatred of men. Doubtless each would find a new lover tonight, he thought cynically. Already Levison and young Grant were bearing down upon them.

A pretty redhead in a canary-and-rose striped sarcenet gown glided up beside him. “Looking for company, Mr Courtenay?” she enquired coyly.

Miles ran his eyes slowly up and down her lush figure and smiled. “I’m not looking for creampot love,” he warned. “It’s low tide with me.”

Shamelessly matching his deliberate scrutiny, she took his arm. “From what I’ve ‘eard, you’ve other things to offer a girl. Let’s give it a try for tonight, eh? I’m Roxanna, and deelighted to make your acquaintance, I’m sure.”

With a gallant bow, Miles raised her hand to his lips. “The pleasure is all mine, madam,” he murmured.

Lord Thorpe sighed and shook his head. “What I wouldn’t give for your reputation!”

“Deserved, I assure you.”

“Braggart! Will you and Miss Roxanna join Suzette and me at the Piazza for supper? I’ll pick her up at Drury Lane and we’ll meet you there.”

Some hours later, after an energetic and satisfactory night, Miles strolled homeward through the bustling early-morning streets. Always an abstemious drinker, whatever his other sins, he was in excellent spirits. He exchanged cheerful greetings with maids scrubbing front steps, bought from an itinerant vendor a hot meat pie which he shared with a stray dog, dropped a shilling in a blind beggar’s palm, and arrived at his lodgings whistling “Cherry Ripe,” out of tune.

His landlord, a retired gentleman’s gentleman, accosted him when he was half way up the first flight of stairs. “There’s a letter for you, Mr Courtenay, sir.” He held up the folded sheet, just out of Miles’s reach as he leant over the banisters. “And this month’s rent’s not been paid and next month’s is due tomorrow, not to mention laundry and such.”

“
Tempus fugit
, Burkle, which in the vernacular is how time flies! Let me have it, there’s a good fellow. I’ll give you something on account today, I swear it.”

“Paid in full, sir, or no letter.”

“You’re a hard man, Burkle. Still, I expect the letter can wait. Lady Luck’s bound to smile on me soon.”

“It’s been redirected three times, Mr Courtenay,” said Burkle sourly.

Miles was unsurprised. He removed from lodging to lodging often, with the rise and fall in his fortunes, though he’d never yet done a moonlight flit. Perhaps it was time to seek out cheaper rooms, which meant Burkle must be paid. Besides, a real letter sent by the post was a rarity. Most of the communications he received were brief notes from friends, appointing a meeting place; scented love-letters from the more literate of his
chères-amies
; or invitations from those ladies of the ton who had not yet consigned him to outer darkness.

“All right, Burkle,” he said with a sigh, “come up and I’ll settle the score. This month’s, at least. As you pointed out yourself, October’s rent is not due until tomorrow.” He continued up the stairs, the landlord lumbering after him.

His purse lighter by eleven guineas, his conscience by a debt paid, he slit open the seal of the letter. Holding it in one hand and tugging off his neckcloth with the other, he moved to the window to read it.

“Confound it!” He raced out to the landing and shouted down the stairs, “Burkle, is today really the thirtieth?”

The landlord’s injured face turned up to him. “Have I ever lied to you, Mr Courtenay?”

“Hot water! At once, if not sooner!”

Washed, shaved, and dressed for driving in a brown coat, buckskin breeches, and top-boots, Miles hurried towards St James’s. The caped greatcoat over one arm and portmanteau in the opposite hand were scarcely suitable burdens for a gentleman, but few if any of the Polite World were yet about. He ran up the steps of Lord Haverford’s mansion and beat a tattoo on the door.

As the porter opened the door, the butler was crossing the marble-floored hall with a steaming coffee-pot.

“Bristow!” Miles cried, entering without ceremony. “Is Lord Thorpe at home?”

“I shall enquire in a moment, sir,” said the butler, unmoved, and proceeded on his stately way towards the breakfast parlour.

“It’s urgent. Wake him if necessary.” He set down his portmanteau on the floor, tossed his overcoat on a chair, handed hat and gloves to the porter, and ran his hand through his hair.

From the breakfast parlour came Lady Haverford’s stentorian tones. “Tell Mr Courtenay to come here,” she commanded.

Bristow reappeared, sans coffee-pot. “Her ladyship requests the pleasure of your company, sir.”

With a groan, Miles complied, saying over his shoulder, “For heaven’s sake, tell Thorpe I need him.”

The Marchioness of Haverford, who happened to be his godmother, possessed a figure as imposing as her voice. Dressed in
eau de Nil
figured silk, she sat at breakfast with her youngest daughter, a pretty young lady in pink jaconet muslin who blushed as she caught Miles’s eye. She it was who had likened him to a pirate.

He made his bows. “I beg your pardon for intruding, ma’am. I did not expect any of the family to be down.”

“Lottie has fittings this morning. Well, Miles, what brings you bellowing for Gerald at this unlikely hour? Have you breakfasted?”

“As a matter of fact, no.” He was ravenous, he realized, and it would be crackbrained to set off for Dorset on an empty stomach.

“Sit down, dear boy, and Bristow shall bring you a beefsteak. Lottie, pour coffee for Mr Courtenay.”

“Yes, Mama.” Lady Charlotte blushed again as she handed him the cup. Miles wondered what tales she had been told about him. Though Lady Haverford had a kindness for her girlhood friend’s orphaned son, she’d have left her daughter in no doubt of the ineligibility of a penniless rake.

Not that he had the slightest intention of losing his freedom in wedlock, even for the sake of repairing his fortunes.

Either her ladyship had forgotten that she wanted to know what brought him here so early, or she feared his business with Thorpe was not proper for a young lady’s ears. She chatted about the coming entertainments of the Little Season while he attacked a large beefsteak with fried potatoes.

He was half way through it when Bristow reappeared and said discreetly in his ear, “Lord Thorpe’s man says his lordship did not retire until daybreak, sir, and he won’t take it upon himself to wake him.”

Miles nodded. “Never mind, I’ll do my own dirty work,” he said, and rapidly finishing his breakfast, he made his excuses and ran upstairs to his friend’s chamber.

It took a wet sponge to rouse Thorpe and a pint of strong coffee to bring him to something approaching coherence. “Wanna borrow my curricle?” he asked incredulously. “At dawn?”

“It’s not dawn, Gerald, and I have a hundred and thirty miles to go by nine tomorrow morning.”

“Hunnerd thirty! Wha’ the devil?”

“My godfather is dead...”

“Didn’ know y’ad one.”

“Sir Barnabas Philpott, Baronet, of Addlescombe in Dorset. If I’m not there at the reading of the Will, I’ll inherit nothing.”

That caught Thorpe’s attention. “Will, eh? Plump in the pocket, this Philpott fellow?”

“Plump enough.”

“My dear chap, of course you can borrow the curricle. Tell you what, I’ll drive my greys the first couple of stages, see you well on your way.” He swung his legs out of bed and bellowed for his valet. “Or shall I come all the way with you?”

“Lord, no. I wouldn’t for the world subject you to the swarm of spongers the old man kept hanging on his sleeve. He deplored my behaviour, you know, and probably summoned me down posthumously in order to cut me off with a shilling. I wouldn’t be surprised if he regarded his last Will and Testament as a final opportunity to read me a sermon.”

“I can’t believe he’d have demanded your presence if he hasn’t left you something worth having.”

“You didn’t know my godfather,” Miles pointed out dryly. “Dyspeptic, straitlaced, mean-spirited, and utterly determined to be proved right. He said I’d go to the dogs and nothing is less likely than that he’d lift a finger to prevent it. All the same, I’ll have to gamble on his relenting at the last and leaving me a fortune. I’m going to get there in time even if hiring post-horses takes my last penny.”

Chapter 2

“But I can’t ride. There must be some other way to get there!” said Nerissa in desperation.

“Shank’s mare, miss,” said the tapster indifferently, returning to polishing a pewter tankard, “leastways till Thad comes back wi’ the gig which’ll be around noon.”

“I have to be at Addlescombe by nine.”

She had clambered down from the roof of the stagecoach in Riddlebourne, in a dank, grey dawn with rain threatening. After a night squeezed between the iron rail and a stout farmer, in constant fear of falling into the road, she was stiff and chilled through. The bread and butter she had snatched at the brief supper stop last night seemed an age ago. All she wanted was a hot meal and a warm bed.

The Stickleback Inn, a small hostelry of grey Portland stone, could doubtless supply both. What it could not supply, having no pretensions to being a posting house, was a vehicle to carry her on to her grandfather’s house.

Shank’s mare? Nerissa was a townswoman, accustomed to walking no farther than from one side of the City of York to the other, with an occasional stroll along the river or the city walls of a Sunday. Her cheap jean halfboots were far from adequate for a lengthy tramp. Still, she was not quite ready to give in.

“How far is Addlescombe?” she asked.

“A matter o’ six or eight mile, miss. Ye c’n leave your box an’ send f’rit later.”

Eight miles! It might as well have been as far off as the moon. But perhaps the reading of the Will would be delayed for some reason. Perhaps if she arrived before the end, Mr Harwood would make an allowance for her difficulties. Having come so far, she must try.

She picked up the brown paper parcel with clean linen and her toothbrush. “If you please, will you direct me?”

The tapster stepped out of the inn with her and pointed along the street. “Turn right, ‘n’ follow the road along the stream, miss. That’s the Riddle, see. First fork in the road, go left across the bridge, second go right ‘cross that bridge, then on through Riddle Abbas ‘n’ Kingstonriddle. Jus’ past the village, by the big oak, the Addle joins the Riddle. There’s a lane’ll take ye along the Addle to Addlescombe. Can’t miss it.” He scratched his head ruminatively. “Leastways, if ye finds yoursel’ in Upriddle, ye has missed it.”

Thanking him, Nerissa hugged her grey duffel cloak close about her and plodded off. “First bridge left, second bridge right,” she repeated to herself. She’d worry about the rest later. Surely someone in the villages would point out her way.

By the time she reached the second bridge, she knew she wasn’t going to make it on foot. In a daze of fatigue, she sank down onto the low parapet and hid her face in her hands.

And then she heard the sound of hooves and wheels. A dusty curricle turned the corner behind her and started across the bridge. In a final access of hope, Nerissa jumped up and waved her arms.

As the curricle stopped beside her, she cried out, “Sir, please, are you going to Riddle...” A flood of heat rose in her cheeks as she realized the name of the next village had utterly vanished from her mind.

The driver’s blue, red-rimmed eyes brightened with amusement and a grin transformed his tired, unshaven, rather cynical face. “No, ma’am, I fear I prefer cards to charades,” he informed her, tipping his hat to reveal ruffled coal-black hair. His broken nose gave him a slightly sinister air--an Iago, or a Cassius. “However, I can offer you a lift as far as Kingstonriddle if that will be of assistance to you. I am bound for Addlescombe.”

“For Addlescombe?” Nerissa forgot her embarrassment and the stranger’s disreputable appearance. “How excessively fortunate, so am I.”

Miles gazed down at the young woman. Her face pale, with dark circles beneath the wide-set, dark-lashed grey eyes, she looked as exhausted as he felt. She could be a governess in her plain, travel-stained grey cloak, a wisp of brown hair escaping the hood, but as far as he knew Addlescombe had no need of governesses. More likely she was a rival for Sir Barnabas’s fortune.

If he left her behind, she’d miss the reading of the Will, which might be to his benefit. What a pity he had not yet sunk to such depths of iniquity! He leaned down to give her a hand up.

As she settled beside him, he urged the horses onward. A prim and proper miss to all appearances, he thought, though as a last resort she had let a stranger take her up in his carriage. He wouldn’t put it past his godfather to hold her up to him as an example of the rewards of virtue.

“Thank you, sir.” Her voice was soft, but with a curious clarity of enunciation. She sat erect despite her weariness, her clasped hands resting composedly upon the parcel in her lap. “It is of the utmost importance to me that I reach Addlescombe by nine o’clock. I hope you are familiar with the way, for the directions I received thoroughly muddled me.”

“Addled you, as one might say?”

Glancing down, he received a smile of singular sweetness. Her grey irises had an irregular circle of green around the pupils, he noted.

“My wits are addled indeed,” she agreed. “The roof of a stagecoach is not a restful place to spend the night. Perhaps I had best introduce myself, sir. I am Nerissa Wingate, the late Sir Barnabas’s granddaughter.”

“His granddaughter? I wasn’t aware that he had any children, though I have a distant memory of a wife long since deceased.” A sudden notion crossed his mind: could Miss Wingate be a descendant on the wrong side of the blanket? Had the baronet in youth indulged in the profligacy for which he later condemned his godson? After all, popular mythology claimed that reformed rakes made the strictest puritans.