Mrs. McVinnie's London Season (19 page)

He clucked his tongue.
“Never been to a play, Mrs. McVinnie?”

Her eyes laughed back
at him, daring him. “Never, sir! Can you imagine a more provincial
dowd?” She looked around for Edward, who clutched Larinda’s gloves
and stared at her. “Come, Edward, we have other things to do, and
we should not intrude upon this man’s valuable time. Please excuse
us, sir, but we have to find ourselves a hackney.”

“
A
hackney, Mrs. McVinnie?” The ribbon spun faster.

“
Yes,
Mr. Brummell. It is a wonderful economy. Good day, sir.”

With another nod in his
general direction, Jeannie turned on her heel and took Edward by
the arm. I will not look back, she told herself, else I turn into a
pillar of salt. She knew without seeing them that many pairs of
eyes bored into her back, but she resisted the urge to gather up
her skirts and run. Damn him, she thought suddenly. I gave that
dreadful man every opportunity to hand me a set-down right here. He
must be reserving it for the theater.

Edward hurried to keep
up with her. She stopped when they turned the corner and he caught
up. “Jeannie, was that Beau Brummell?” he asked, out of breath.
“The Beau Brummell? The man at the menagerie?”

She nodded to all his
questions and allowed misery to wash over her. “Yes, Edward, the
very man I scolded so roundly in the menagerie. Dear me!”

She gathered her
packages close to her again and started walking. Her mind raced
ahead a hundred miles an hour, rehearsing and rehearsing all the
things she should have said, and could have said, but didn’t. I
must be the most foolish woman who ever drew breath, she scolded
herself. When I am home again before my peat fire, I will resolve
never to attempt a joke again, practical or otherwise. I will be
sensible and astute beyond my years and never again will I venture
any farther south than York. No, Carlyle.

Perfect in her misery,
Jeannie scarcely felt the slight tug upon her wrist. She pulled
herself out of her deep reverie in time to watch a ragged boy
running away from her, dodging through the crowds on the
sidewalk.

She whirled around to
Edward, but he dropped his guidebook and took out after the thief,
waving his arms and shouting to attract attention. Jeannie stared
down at her wrist. The thief had neatly cut her reticule handle,
which dangled like an overlarge bracelet on her wrist.

She ran after Edward,
stopping to pick up the guidebook and the gloves he had dropped in
his precipitate pursuit. “Edward?” she called. “Edward? Do have a
care, laddie!” But Edward had vanished down one of the narrow side
streets and the crowd had closed behind him.

Jeannie thought of
Captain Summers and shuddered. He had been so nice about the
elephant yesterday. Whatever would he say when she told him that
the fifth Marquess of Taneystone had been set upon in a dark alley
by a cornered cutpurse, and was probably lying there even now, a
knife up under his ribs? She ran faster, fighting the desire to
fling aside her parcels and really tear out.

The alley she turned
into was narrow and overhung with the upper stories of ancient
buildings that appeared to be standing only by the grace of God and
the fact that a strong wind had not passed that way since the Great
Fire, at least. And there were other folk in the alley, slim,
shrinking figures who hugged the shadows and eyed her parcels,
talking among themselves. Grimly she clung to the purchases and
refused to be cowed.

When she despaired that
this was the right side street, she saw Edward and the young
cutpurse. Edward sat on top of the thief, who lay facedown in the
dirt of the alley, saying dreadful things for one so young.

“
Enough’s enough, laddie,” she said, and hurried
forward.

Edward looked up at her
and grinned. His nankeen breeches were torn at both knees and his
coat was ripped under the arm, but that was nothing to the black
eye that sprouted, even as she watched, horrified. Edward held up
her reticule and gave it a triumphant shake.

“
Thank
the Lord,” she said. “Edward, your eye!”

“
It’ll
be a great shiner,” he said. He tried to keep his voice
matter-of-fact, but the excitement took over. “Jeannie, I have
never had a black eye before. And, Jeannie, I have wanted one,
truly I have!”

The boy pinned
underneath Edward muttered something unintelligible.

Jeannie knelt beside
him. “If Edward gets off you, will you go away?” she asked.

The thief stared at
her. “You mean you won’t sic the watch on me?”

Jeannie shook her head.
“No,” she said simply. “I expect ye are just hungry. Now, do ye
promise? I’m asking in all sincerity, laddie.”

The boy nodded, not
taking his eyes from her face.

Jeannie stood up. “Very
well, Edward. You may let him up.” She took her torn reticule from
Edward and put a handful of small coins on the ground beside the
cutpurse. “We’ll thank you not to trouble us further,” she said.
“Come, Edward.”

They started for the
alley entrance, picking their way more carefully this time through
what looked and smelled like a century’s accumulation of trash.

“
Oh,
laddie, this is not our neighborhood,” Jeannie said. “And so close
it is to Oxford Street and the bazaar? Do ye think fine folk like
the Beau have ever been in such a place as this, I’m
wondering?”

Edward shook his head
and put out his hand to stop Jeannie. “I think we might be in more
trouble,” he said, his voice so low she had to incline her head to
hear him. “Look there.”

The entrance to the
alley was blocked by a crowd of people, each as ragged at the
cutpurse. Edward stopped moving, but Jeannie prodded him
forward.

“
Come
on, Edward,” she said. “We can only go forward under the
guns.”

No one yielded as they
approached. Behind her, Jeannie heard the sounds of coins clinking
together as if someone rolled them over and over in his hand. She
sighed. “Oh, dear.”

Before she could say
anything more, the cutpurse shouldered past them and into the knot
of hard-eyed men. “Give way, you blighters,” he shouted as he
shoved past. “Come on, give way for the gentry mort and cove. They
haven’t all day to lallygag with the likes of you.”

Her heart in her mouth,
Jeannie followed the thief and held tight to Edward, who had no
difficulty keeping up with her. The crowd closed in behind them and
she took a firmer grasp on her reticule.

And then they were in
the street again. The cutpurse tipped his filthy hat to her. “Any
other gentry mort would have screamed and I’d be on me way to
VanDieman’s Land.” He turned to Edward. “Put a piece of beefsteak
on it, governor, if ye have any,” he said, and then blended back
into the alley.

“
Well,
I never ….” Jeannie began. “Edward, let us find a hackney
before our luck runs out entirely.”

Edward was silent for
the better part of the return, resting his chin on his hand and
gazing out the window. “Jeannie, I think Aunt Agatha will be
disturbed by this.”

It was a masterpiece of
understatement, and if she had not been feeling the pangs of guilt,
Jeannie would have laughed.

“
And
the captain,” she said.

The thought reduced
both of them to silence again.

Before either of them
wished it, the hackney set them down in Wendover Square. By the
judicious application of spit to Jeannie’s handkerchief, Edward had
managed to remove some of the worst grime from his hands, but there
was nothing that could be done about his torn breeches or his eye,
which was, by now, swollen entirely shut.

“
I
don’t remember when I ever saw a more impressive black eye,”
Jeannie said, unable to keep the awe out of her voice as he helped
her down from the hackney and paid the driver.

Edward held the
guidebook close to his chest and watched the coach drive away. ‘‘I
did want to go to Astley’s Amphitheater tomorrow,” he said,
speaking mostly to himself. ‘‘They have wild animals there, I am
told.”

Jeannie barely
repressed a shudder. ‘‘And you would be eaten alive, and then where
would we be? Come, laddie, and let us dance to the piper.”

He took her hand. ‘‘Do
you think Uncle Summers will fly into the boughs?”

She nodded. “I think
that is a fair assumption, laddie.”

Edward patted his
guidebook. ‘‘Do you know, Wendover Square was so stuffy and dull
before you came, Jeannie.”

Jeannie groaned, took a
deep breath, and knocked on the door.

Wapping opened the
door, and was bereft of speech. He stood ramrod-straight in the
open doorway, opening and closing his mouth like one of Galen
McVinnie’s Highland trout, his eyes wide and staring.

His amazement lasted
only a moment. He closed his mouth with an almost audible snap,
cleared his throat a few times to remind himself that it was still
there, and announced in booming tones to the hallway behind him,
“Captain Sir William, the lost are found.”

Edward sidled in closer
to Jeannie and tightened his grip.

“
It’s
about time,” Summers said as he and Larinda came quickly into the
entrance hall, closing the door to the sitting room behind him. He
drew up short at the sight of Edward, and Larinda bumped into
him.

Jeannie winced at the
expression in his eyes. Any moment now he will yell, she thought,
and I will disgrace myself forever by bursting into tears. She
waited.

Worse than outrage was
the total silence that reigned in the hall. The captain executed a
remarkable recovery and walked around Edward, stopping in front of
him, his hands clasped behind his back. “At least you are not
blue,” he said, his voice, to the untrained ear, almost affable.
“And you do not smell like an elephant.”

He permitted his gaze
to fall upon Jeannie. “Ah, Mrs. McVinnie! How glad I am that we did
not send Edward out this morning unattended and without any
guidance.” His tone had a decided edge to it. His eyes opened
wider. “If it is not too, too much, may I ask, what has happened to
the tidy fellow who left with you this morning?”

“
There
was a cutpurse, Uncle Summers,” Edward explained, stepping forward.
“And I gave chase.”

“
You
never did,” Larinda declared.

Edward squared his
shoulders. “Don’t be hen-witted, Larry,” he scolded. “I tackled him
and sat upon him and twisted his leg until he gave back Jeannie’s
reticule.” He looked at Jeannie for confirmation. “Didn’t I?”

She placed her hands on
his shoulders. “Indeed you did. Without your help, I would have
lost all my earnings from whist last night.”

Larinda rolled her eyes
and clutched at her throat in remarkable imitation of her aunt,
while Captain Summers set his lips in a tight line. “No need for
die-away airs, Larinda,” he said. “Would to God that you could play
whist.”

The familiar dancing
light was back in his eyes as he shook his head. “Jeannie McVinnie,
what are we going to do with the two of you?” he asked the wall
beyond her shoulder.

“
Actually, sir, the cutpurse recommended some beefsteak,”
Edward offered helpfully.

“
Did
he?” asked the captain.

Edward nodded. “And he
was most helpful in getting us through that rather seedy crowd that
had gathered in the alley.”

“
The
alley?”

“
And
probably because Jeannie was kind to him and gave him a handful of
coins.”

The captain stared at
her. “You gave money to a thief? Why didn’t you summon the
watch?”

“
I
think he was only hungry,” Jeannie said. She raised her chin and
narrowed her eyes. “Captain, I know it was not to your
liking—”

“
Good
God, woman! You could even now be bound for the Barbary Coast in a
slave ship!”

Edward clapped his
hands. “Now that would have been an adventure, Jeannie!”

“
Edward,” said the captain in an awful voice, “you will
surrender that damned guidebook to me. At once!” he roared when
Edward hesitated.

He grabbed the book and
shook it under Jeannie’s nose, speechless with some emotion that
Jeannie couldn’t understand.

But she wouldn’t let it
be. There was something about his fury that lit a spark in her own
mind. “That’s what comes from impressing seamen,” she said quietly.
“You can’t bend everyone to your will, Captain.”

“
Edward, upstairs,” he roared. “I’ll deal with you
later.”

Jeannie stamped her
foot. “Over my dead body!”

“
Don’t
tempt me!”

“
Oh,”
shouted Jeannie. “Don’t you dare carry on like Lord Nelson! We are
not much the worse for wear, and Edward is proud of that black
eye.”

“
How
dare you talk to me like that!” the captain raged.

“
I’ll
talk to you any way I like, sir!” she shouted back.

Larinda gasped and
hurried Edward toward the stairs.

“
We
didn’t plan the things that happened!” Jeannie doubled up her hand
into a fist and started toward the captain.

Captain Summers grabbed
her wrist. He held her in a tight grip until he was breathing
regularly again and the color had come back into his face. In
another moment, he could command his voice.

“
I
suppose next you will be telling me what a fine time you
had.”

“
Well,
Edward did,” Jeannie said calmly. She worked her wrist out of his
grip. She wished he would not stand so close to her. She found
herself resisting a curious urge to cast herself upon his chest and
sob her heart out.