Lady Meets Her Match (30 page)

If there's delight in love, 'tis when I see

That heart, which others bleed for, bleed for me.

William Congreve,
The Way of the World

The gentleman's club was of lesser quality, a place Cyrus chose just for that distinction. He read a broadsheet in an upholstered chair smelling of old smoke. Across from him, the empty chair boasted a thin cushion, sparse enough to feel the furniture's wooden frame when one sat down.

He saved that chair for the Duke of Marlborough.

Cyrus folded the paper in half in time to see the duke's approach. He didn't rise to welcome His Grace.

“Your Grace,” he said, motioning to the old chair.

The duke examined the seat and removed his handkerchief. He held the white cloth to his nose.

“It's free of vermin, Your Grace,” Cyrus assured him.

The duke sat down and stretched a leg like any country squire at rest. “Not sure the purpose of asking that we meet here. But I can humor you.” The duke leaned his walking stick beside the chair.

“There seems to be ample doses of humor running rampant around Town.” Cyrus tapped the broadsheet he'd folded in half. “Imagine my surprise at this gossip that I've been secretly engaged to Lady Elizabeth Churchill.”

“My duchess is anxious to set plans in motion.” He looked at the thin folio on the table in between them. His gloved hand picked it up. “The marriage contract, I presume?”

“It is.” Cyrus nodded. “You'll find everything you need in there.”

The duke's pallid eyes lit up. He flipped open the slender leather folio and perused the first few sheets.

Cyrus took joy in waiting, like a hunter watching over his trap. He waited and watched. A few younger men entered the salon, pouring their own drinks. Their jocular voices overlapped, regaling each other with their exploits in one of the local taverns. But Cyrus waited. And he knew the exact moment when his denial hit the duke.

Marlborough's thin brows pressed in a narrow line a split second before he glared at Cyrus.

“It's not signed.”

“Nor will it ever be. I will not marry your daughter.”

His Grace snapped the folio shut. “Then prepare yourself, Mr. Ryland, because I will do everything I said I'd do and much more.” The duke's voice shook. “Much, much more.”

Cyrus nodded at the documents half spilling from the folder. “Before you make any plans, you might want to take a look at some of the other fine reading material I've organized for you.”

The folio opened and the Duke of Marlborough riffled through the papers. He scanned one, then another, his lips moving though no sound came.

“What is this, Ryland?” He dropped the messy folio on the table, papers scattering. “All I see is the unsigned marriage contract and ledgers with columns of numbers.”

“I gave you those numbers because I'm of the firm belief numbers say a lot about a man…who he is and what he values.”

“I don't need a lesson in simple sums.”

“But I think you do.” Cyrus leaned forward and his fingertips pushed a page across the table. “These numbers represent your debts, Your Grace…debts that I now hold.”

The duke jerked in his seat, his face going pale.

“You hold my notes,” he echoed, his breath coming in labored huffs. “And what do you plan to do with them?”

“Nothing.” Cyrus grabbed his hat and stood up. “Provided you leave me and my family alone. You will burn your petition and leave the good merchants of Cornhill alone.”

“Is that all you want?” His Grace's laugh was weak, but the corners of his mouth drooped. He was a defeated man and he knew it.

“There is one more thing. Feel free to turn the other way should our paths ever cross again, Your Grace.” Cyrus set his hat on his head and bowed his leave.

The old man leaned hard on his stick. He cast an eye to the mess of papers. “A bit hard since we both live in Town.”

“Not for me. I plan to quit Piccadilly soon.”

* * *

“Aren't you going to open it?” Annie grabbed a pair of mugs from the shelf behind the counter.

It
was a modest leather folio wrapped with twine. Nothing eye-catching about this package. Claire glanced at the brown rectangle, a bothersome thing she had been tempted more than once to feed to the coals. She was quite done with gifts from Mr. Ryland.

Her cleaning cloth made rapid circles on the slate. “No.”

The plan today and every day was to forget Cyrus Ryland, not resurrect him.

She went back to swiping the message board free of every inch of chalk dust. The cold, hard pursuit of perfection was a good way to ignore pain. Keep busy doing a job over and over again. But heart-wrenching thoughts intruded:

For
some
men…everything is about the conquest.

I
find
your
forbidden
fruit
most
desirable
of
all.

And her mind-rattling, cheek-burning favorite…

I
know
how
I
want
to
touch
you.

Her hand paused mid-swirl. Parts of her fluttered mutinously on that last echo of Cyrus in her head. The man wouldn't leave her in peace.

Annie cradled her coffee pitcher, having filled mugs around the shop. Claire rubbed a stubborn corner of the slate, aware of the weight of Annie's stare on her.

She turned around.

“Is something wrong?” Claire asked.

The cook set her pitcher on an empty table and wiped her hands on her apron. “Miss Mayhew, have you given any thought that there may be more going on? With Mr. Ryland, I mean.”

“No.”

She wanted to stay busy and stay numb. Being numb didn't hurt. The sensation wrapped her in a blanket of blessed emptiness where no man could invade.

She removed the new cargo list from her apron and proceeded to write: Corn. Saltpeter. Lumber, Swedish Spruce variety. Rum…

The chalk clacked letters on the board, the sound as reassuring as the voices of her regular patrons.

“I saw my sister, Abigail, again last night.” Annie wedged herself into Claire's side vision.

With chalk in hand, she kept up a rapid succession of words…an Irish schooner,
The
Selkie
, docked on Billingsgate Wharf.

“Remember that maid who'd been at Ryland House around the time of your lunch meeting?” A white mobcap and carrot-red hair pressed against the chalkboard. “One of the men from Bow Street found her yesterday. Abigail says that was all the news around Ryland House. That and whispers about the Duke of Marlborough being behind the troubles.”

The chalk slowed over that piece of news.

Annie must've been heartened to go on. “And you know what else? Mr. Ryland told the man to let her go.”

Claire's shoes scraped the floor when she moved away from the board. “That might absolve me of oversalting the pastries, but it does nothing to explain why Mr. Ryland drove off the way he did…like I was some—”

Laughter burst from a pair of tables pushed together. She clamped her lips together but opened them again.

“If not for that man in the red waistcoat coming to my rescue, I might've been crushed.”

“Because you were distracted,” Annie said. “Upset and you didn't think right from the shock.”

“Exactly.”

“Abigail says the same thing of Mr. Ryland. She says he sleeps in his study and has messages and such comin' and goin' at all hours of the day and night.”

“I don't know how that matters to me.” She swallowed the lump in her throat, her voice shaky and bitter. “I don't know about Mr. Ryland's poor sleep, but I do know he got what he wanted from me.”

“Are you sure of that?” Annie smiled, wisdom beyond her years glimmering from patient eyes. “Could be he misses you the way you miss him.”

She stared out the shop's window, lost in thought. Did he miss her?

“And there's one more thing, miss. Abigail says they're closing down Ryland House for good.”

She flinched, that piece of news like an ice-cold dousing.

Cyrus leaving…

That hurt most of all.

But
why
another
package?

“Very well, Annie. You win. Please get the package and I'll open it.”

Claire took a seat at the empty table closest to the counter. Annie set the plain leather before Claire, and folded herself into the opposite chair.

“I know this isn't my concern, Miss Mayhew, but I'd like to see.” The young cook folded her arms on the tabletop. “The shoes and all were so pretty.”

“This is too flat to be anything like a shoe.” Claire's shoulders moved, listless and sore. “But, stay. If it weren't for you, I'd feed this to my stove.”

A flap folded over the open end of the folio, the weight light in her hands. She turned the folio upside down, shaking free a piece of paper and a key tied with red silk ribbon. Claire pulled her key from her pocket to compare the two.

“This is a deed to the shop,” Annie cried. “The New Union Coffeehouse belongs to you.”

“Let me see that.” Claire read the deed, a simple contract giving the shop over to her, sealed by a signature she remembered well.

Her jaw dropped. She read and reread the words
Quit
Claim
Deed
boldly scrawled on top. The contract's date was Monday, the day Cyrus gave her the cut.

Why would he pass this property to her free and clear?

“But I didn't earn this,” she murmured.

And there was no note to explain the sudden generosity.

“Well, you did something.” Annie grinned from ear to ear.

Did something? Her mind came up with some painful ideas as to what that meant. She read and read the documents, trying to decipher meaning but finding none.

“Imagine not having to pay rent, miss. You'll be a rich woman before you know it.”

Lady Foster came to mind, with her fine gown and fine words about independence and sleeping alone. Claire shook her head. She pushed back her mobcap, and a pin sprang free, dropping to her lap.

Annie stood up. “I've got to tell Nate. He'll be so happy for you.”

She picked up the key, letting the iron roll across her palm. The last person to use the key was Cyrus.

This key. Hot sparks tingled over her skin. Her eyes closed, and she rested her head on the bench behind her. With the key in hand, Cyrus's whispered words about a key unlocking a woman's door flooded her mind. She squirmed on her seat, plain cambric drawers reminding where silk once was.

And there was laughter too. His hands folding her laundry, kneeling with her on the kitchen floor to look inside her stove, and all that morning talking and kissing. Why would he play the romantic and then…nothing?

Beside her, men jested, talking about the broadsheet's gossip pages—Mr. Cogsworth and another trader, Mr. Branham, and the merchant, Mr. Bolks.

“Wouldn't've thought he'd be leg shackled,” said Mr. Branham.

“Ah, most men want a steady hand at home. Mrs. Cogsworth needed some convincing…”

She opened her eyes, the key still in her grip and the deed on the table. Best she put this document in a safe place.

“But Cyrus Ryland?” Mr. Bolks asked.

What was that about Cyrus? She stalled in her seat, her lashes dropping low.

“To the Duke of Marlborough's daughter.” Mr. Cogsworth laid the broadsheet over the table, pointing to a section. “Says ‘…talk in Piccadilly is the joining of one Mr. Cyrus Ryland with Lady Elizabeth Churchill' and then it says here ‘Their Graces expect the banns to be read soon.'”

She shot to her feet. The key banged the tabletop. Claire set a protective hand over her heart, the organ beating twice as fast. This had to be a mistake. Had she heard the names wrong?

“Mr. Cogsworth, would you be so kind as to read again the last announcement?” she asked.

He was going to leave Town and marry a woman of fine position. The flat of her other hand rested on the tabletop, holding her up.

“Certainly,” Mr. Cogsworth said, offering quick, emphatic agreement. His finger pointed to the section. “Says here ‘The talk in Piccadilly is the joining of one Mr. Cyrus Ryland and Lady Elizabeth Churchill. No official announcement has been made, nor has a date been set, but Their Graces expect the banns to be read soon.'”

She looked away, a dizzy spell threatening. She hadn't eaten much lately. The key. The deed. Like a mosaic, the parts alone made no sense, but together they formed a fair image.

Her shoulders drooped. This was worse than having her name dragged through the mud in her home village. Everyone gossiped about what happened in Greenwich Village, but in midtown, few knew about her foolish choices. The shame of feeling used was no less stinging.

“Thank you, Mr. Cogsworth.” She smiled sweetly and the trader's ears turned red.

Claire collected the key and the deed. She knew exactly what she'd do with them.

* * *

The butler swung the indigo door wide open. “Miss Mayhew, you're here.”

“Belker?”

“We've been expecting you.”

“
We?
” she repeated, not moving from the stone step.

“The upper staff and I to be precise.” He motioned to her cloak. “May I?”

Her free hand clamped the open folds of her cloak. “No, I won't be long.”

Belker clasped his hands behind his back, his posture erect. “Of course, miss. That seems to be the mode of the day.”

She shifted the folio, clutching it like a shield to her chest under her cloak. “You're inviting me in?”

He bowed, extending a hand in the general direction of the study. “I'm confident you know where to find him, Miss Mayhew.”