Joan Smith (7 page)

His thin lips drew into a sneer. “I’m always willing to listen to advice from a professional,” he assured her.

She threw the reins in his lap, jumped down from the seat, and walked angrily through the streets, with really very little notion where she was going. They had driven east, for Luten wasn’t eager to be seen with an undistinguished member of the muslin company in his open carriage.

He frowned to see the direction she took. Trudie turned at the first corner she came to, which removed her from the residential district. She was now in an alien territory never before seen or imagined, though the name Long Acre would have been recognized as a place to avoid even by her. She passed a few carriage makers’ shops, where young bucks were loitering, happy to have the amusement of a young lady to whistle and shout at. She gathered up her skins and walked faster, turned another corner, and came to Endell Street, where a large building was advertised as a closed bath.

Not daring to look over her shoulder, Trudie didn’t know she was being followed by a pair of the bucks from the carriage works. As there was no crowd around the baths so early in the Season, she stopped to take her bearings and decide how she was to get home. She opened her reticule to check her money, not that there was a hackney cab in sight. She had exactly a shilling and tuppence.

She turned to glance back to the corner for a cab and saw the two young bucks advancing at a swift pace, their faces full of mischief. Her heart began a fierce pounding, and she continued her walk, which was quickly accelerating to a run. The bucks speeded up. They were suddenly by her side, each taking one of her arms to hold her captive. There wasn’t another soul on the street to come to her rescue.

“Let go! Let me go this instant!” she cried.

“What’s the hurry, my little fancy?” one of them asked. “A pretty thing like yourself shouldn’t be alone on the streets of Long Acre. No saying what might happen, eh, Charlie?” he asked his friend.

“Let me go, I say!” she insisted, pulling and squirming to disengage herself from their clutches.

“Let you go? Why, we are offering to go with you, love, back to your place.” The second man laughed.

She was hardly aware of their looks. She saw they were young and extremely foppish, but despite their silly appearance, their arms were strong and their expressions extremely menacing. They tightened their hold on her arms and began pulling her along, vastly enjoying the sport of harassing a lone female.

Though she was frightened, Trudie didn’t think the bucks could do more than annoy her on a public street in broad daylight. She dug in her heels to impede their progress while looking around for a likely doorway to dart to for help. “If you don’t let me go this instant
...
” she blustered.

“Yes, my pretty? What will you do? Shout for help? Bow Street is a few blocks away. You’ll have to sing loud.” The bucks laughed heartily at this sally.

There was the welcome sound of an approaching carriage behind them. She lifted her foot and struck the one she supposed to be the leader as hard as she could with her toe while exerting the force of her body to wrench free of the other’s arm. Her kick caused no pain to anyone but herself, for the dandy was well protected with Hessians, but the surprise of it made him release her arm. She raised her reticule to take one swing at the side of his head, then ran shouting into the road to stop the carriage. It was hardly necessary, Luten had already drawn to a halt and sat grinning at her predicament.

“Out of the frying pan, into the fire, eh, Miss Barten?” he called, just before he turned a black gaze on the bucks.

“Luten!” one of them said to the other. Had Trudie been less agitated, she would have recognized the name, for Clappet often spoke of his uncle. Luten didn’t call the bucks to account as he might otherwise have done. He wasn’t eager to have his identity revealed.

“Beat it,” he growled, and with admirable obedience, they complied with his suggestion.

“Hop up,” he said to Miss Barten, and offered her his hand. She was not quite so swift to act as the bucks, but with a survey of the neighborhood, she didn’t tarry long either. He whipped up his team and they were off.

“Thank you,” she said stiffly, then averted her head and said nothing more for the length of the block, while she recovered her breath.

Luten was equally terse. He said, “You’re welcome.”

Eventually Trudie had wind to give vent to her feelings. “It’s really shocking
....
” But she was still too overcome to continue, so Luten spoke.

“It certainly is,” he agreed, but his voice wasn’t as serious as she felt it ought to have been. “If a woman isn’t looking for that sort of attention, however, she really ought not to go for a stroll in Long Acre alone.”

“You know why I was there!”

“I don’t, really. I thought, when you so precipitately parted company with me, that you would head back to civilization. Why did you come this way?”

“Because I was lost, naturally.”

“Ah, as you were more or less en route to Covent Garden, I thought perhaps
...
It
was
Covent Garden you suggested to me, was it not, as the best spot to make an assignation?”

“Mr. Mandeville, I have thanked you for rescuing me.  Pray do not make it necessary for me to bolt again. Take me home, at once.”

“It will be better if you calm down first. Your aunt will think it is I who have caused your distress if you go home with your face all ablush, and your toilette, if you will pardon my saying so, very disordered.”

She looked down and saw her robe had got twisted around during her fracas with the bucks. Her ribbons were all askew, and her purse was hanging open from being used as a weapon. She smoothed her skirts and ribbons, clasped her reticule shut, and folded her hands in her lap, determined to let her spirits settle, as he suggested.

“That is much better,” he complimented her. “Half an hour’s drive through a well-traveled park and you’ll be your usual demure yourself.”

“I wish to go home at once.”

“It’s a long walk” was his answer to that.

“I thought you only had half an hour to spare.”

“A damsel in distress is reason enough to delay my business.”

“I should think so indeed, when it was
you
who put her in distress.”

“If that is true, I’m sorry, but it wasn’t necessary for you to behave quite so rashly. Even women ought to blend some common sense with melodramatics, don’t you think?”

“I certainly behaved rashly to drive out with a stranger. My aunt was correct; I’ll pay her more heed another time.”

“I’m delighted to hear there is to be another time. I feared your mishap this morning might put you off.”

She gave him her most withering glare. “Not at all. I don’t conclude that
all
men are villains, only because three this morning have behaved with such unconscionable lack of manners.”

“Three? There were only two,” he reminded her, but  soon read her meaning. “I still maintain only two behaved unconscionably. The third had some provocation.”

“What provocation? Didn’t I help you with your Latin, as you wanted?” she demanded.

He gave a sardonic laugh and drew on the reins, pulling his team to a halt. “It wasn’t the lure of a dead language that took me to your apartment, Miss Barten.”

“Then what in the name of God was it? Whatever made you think
...
”

“You know what I want. This,” he said, and swept her into his arms for a kiss, after first taking a peek around to confirm that no one who mattered was around.

His arms were like human coils wrapped around her, holding her arms immobile. There was an instant’s shock while she realized what he was doing. Mr. Mandeville was giving her a very fierce kiss, in broad daylight. Her head was pressed back against the squabs, held immobile by the pressure of his lips against hers. His lips felt hard, savage, totally unloverlike. It wasn’t a kiss at all; it was a punishment.

She twisted aside, breathing hard, and stared into his eyes, which glared back at her, glittering with hatred. Luten stopped, and while he stared, his expression changed.

She was afraid! Scared out of her wits. Oh, she was angry too, but fright was foremost. He noticed when she gulped and swallowed the lump in her throat. An edge of white teeth came out and grasped her lower lip, while she waited, obviously wondering how to escape him. He released her and pulled back, feeling a perfect fool.

She edged away carefully and looked toward the street. A respectable-looking man and woman were just rounding the corner. She took heart at the sight of them. The color slowly returned to her blanched cheeks, and the vinegar was back in her tongue as well.

“That is Great Windmill Street ahead, is it not?” she asked, straightening her crushed bonnet.

He looked to the sign. “That’s what it says. Why do you ask?”

“I know my way home from here. This district is safe.” She put her hand on the door to open it.

“When I take a woman for a drive, I like to deliver her home safely.”

“I suggest you expand that policy to include
ladies,
Mr. Mandeville,” she said coolly. “If you ever succeed again in conning a lady to drive out with you, that is. But really it would be better if you stick to your
women.”

The muscle in his jaw quivered, and he picked up the reins. “If you don’t want this team jobbed again, I suggest you let me down,” she said. For a moment their eyes met in a battle of wills. When Trudie reached for the reins, he let them drop.

“Thank you,” she said, and hopped down. She walked briskly without looking over her shoulder, but she listened for the sound of the carriage following. When she’d gone a half block, she knew Mandeville had given up, and was relieved.

What an ordeal! Her heart was still hammering from the fright of it. Whoever would have thought Mr. Mandeville would be so coarse, so vulgar, and rude as that? She trembled inside to remember the way he’d attacked her. If they had been alone
...
But she’d never be alone with him again. And she wouldn’t let on to Aunt Gertrude what had happened either. It wasn’t till she reached her own door that she remembered she hadn’t got the crown for the Latin lesson.

Luten sat, watching her slender form as it hastened to the corner and disappeared around it. The girl was an enigma. A Cyprian who was afraid of men. But not of boys, apparently. Despite his lavish boasting of money, she hadn’t accepted his invitation. And what was his next move? He was reluctant to consider it. His instinct was to go after her and apologize, and his duty was to report to his sister. He sat frowning for a long while, then drove to the park, to think some more.

Some days, a person is further ahead to stay in bed. This proved to be one of those days for Trudie Barten. As though being accosted by two fops, molested by a libertine, and having to walk home alone were not enough, worse was in store. When she reached Conduit Street, she saw her aunt standing alone and bewildered on the curb with their trunks around her. Trudie hastened forward, speechless with shock.

Mrs. Harrington had had time to recover her speech. “We have been evicted,” she announced in a hollow voice. Beneath the offense and astonishment, Trudie heard a tinge of fear. Really it was enough to frighten two lone women, loose in London for the first time in their lives. “Our belongings put into the street.”

London was proving a dreadful disappointment. Failing to crack society was bad enough, but to find the city full of so much vice and ill will was almost beyond their comprehension. “Evicted? How is it possible? We paid our rent.”

“It is the doings of that old quiz Mrs. Rolfe,” Aunt Harrington confided behind her fingers. “She’s been smirking at me through the curtains the past five minutes. Evans came the instant you left and asked that we leave. Naturally I refused—I was never so embarrassed in my life. He showed me a petition signed by all the other tenants in the building—even that nice Miss Blythe, and the civil servant on the third floor too. They all want us out, Trudie. I made sure it was Nicolson’s banging on the pianoforte that accounted for it, and promised Evans it wouldn’t happen again. I even told him he could take the piano away, for it is wretchedly out of tune in any case, but he said ...” She came to an indignant pause, her thin bosom swelling. “He said females
of our sort
were not welcome.”

Trudie was as bewildered as her aunt. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

A word was whispered in her ear. Her first response was to laugh, but before long, she was remembering her morning’s experiences. Mr. Mandeville had thought the same thing. Who was responsible for this heinous rumor?

“It’s your having young gentlemen in for tutoring that accounts for it,” Aunt Gertrude said. “I knew some harm would come of it. Your innocent diversion has been misread as nights of unbridled lust.”

Trudie started to hear such unfamiliar phrases fall from her aunt’s lips. “This is nonsense,” she scoffed. “I have my key. I’m going back into our apartment, and we shall see whether we are evicted. It is illegal, as well as a slander against our characters. In fact, I have half a mind to hire a solicitor and sue Mr. Evans.” Her brave words gave her courage, but Mrs. Harrington soon returned her to gloom.

“It was not Evans’s decision. The building is owned by a Mr. Patterson, you recall. He is a great man in the city. There’s no point thinking we could win a case against him. Neither would it be at all comfortable to go on living here, when everyone—even Miss Blythe and that nice civil servant—thinks we are ... like that,” she said decorously but with a very significant nod of her head.

“That’s true,” her niece agreed reluctantly. “We cannot stand on the curb to discuss it. Let us go into our apartment to make plans at least.”

“We cannot. That is, we could go in, perhaps, but the door has been taken off its hinges. Mr. Evans calls it a Kent Street Ejection, which must be the most degrading kind, by the sly way he said it. He says it is practiced in Kent Street in Southwark, when tenants fall into arrears on their rent. Anyone passing by would be free to look in at us and laugh or to come in off the street and pester us for that mailer.”