Sherri Cobb South (7 page)

“Wait!”

Waverly turned back, his eyebrows arched in mild surprise. “Yes, Mr. Fairchild?”

The clergyman swallowed convulsively. “It just occurred to me—if Miss Colling has been under your protection—” He broke off, flushing, at the unfortunate implication of his words. “—That is, if you have been responsible for Miss Ceiling’s well-being since her departure from France—what I am trying to say is, one might conceivably argue that
you
are her guardian, might they not?”

“I have certainly considered myself so.”

“That being the case, my lord, it would be ludicrous to think that you would withhold your consent to her marriage to yourself—”

“Utterly ludicrous,” agreed the earl.

“Yes, well, given the unusual circumstances, perhaps—”

Lord Waverly left Doctors’ Commons within the quarter-hour, bearing a special license in his pocket.

* * * *

While Lord Waverly practiced blackmail upon the clergy, Sir Ethan was left to his own devices. For this circumstance he could only be thankful, as he had certain affairs of his own to attend to, the delicate nature of which made it desirable that they be settled before his wife’s arrival in Town.

To this end, he set out from his town residence in Grosvenor Square, and hailed a hackney. He was set down a short time later in front of a neat but unpretentious dwelling in Green Street. He had never been here before, but he had heard a great deal about the house and its principal occupant.  He looked up at the first-floor windows, their curtains pulled tightly closed, and ran a finger underneath a cravat that suddenly felt too tight. Then, taking a deep breath, he mounted the stairs, raised the brass knocker mounted in the center of the paneled door, and allowed it to fall.

A moment later the door opened to reveal a shutter-faced butler in dignified black. “Yes?” intoned this well-trained individual in disinterested accents.

“I—I’d like to see Mrs. ‘utchins, if you please.”

“And whom may I say is calling?”

Sir Ethan reached for his card case, then decided it was probably wisest not to leave evidence of his visit. “Ethan Brundy—
Sir
Ethan Brundy,” he added a bit more confidently.   He was not entirely comfortable with that “Sir Ethan” nonsense, but it had not taken him long to discover that a title had its uses.

Sure enough, the butler stepped back to allow him entrance, then led him to a morning room adjoining the hall. While he waited for his hostess’s arrival, Sir Ethan studied his surroundings. The room, while not large, was tastefully decorated in airy blue and white. So far there was nothing to suggest that this house had seen even half of the goings-on with which rumor credited it.

“Well, well, so
you
are Sir Ethan Brundy,” drawled a low-pitched feminine voice.

Sir Ethan turned toward the sound and blinked in surprise. He had not known quite what to expect of one of London’s most expensive courtesans, but the woman standing before him might have been any one of a dozen Society matrons. She was a handsome woman, a bit closer to forty than to thirty. Skillfully applied rouge and kohl did an admirable job of preserving what remained of what must have once been a stunning beauty. Her well-endowed figure was fashionably clad in an elegant morning gown not unlike those currently hanging in his own wife’s clothes-press. The discovery was somehow reassuring. Sir Ethan let out his breath, instantly more at ease.

“Mrs. ‘utchins,” he said, bowing over her hand. “Forgive me for calling without ‘aving been introduced—”

“Not at all,” she assured him, gesturing toward one end of a camel-backed sofa as she sank gracefully down onto the other end. “Do sit down! I have heard all about you, and read of your recent heroics in the
Times.
No further introduction is needed. Now, what may I do for you?”

The question itself was innocent enough, but Sir Ethan flushed scarlet nonetheless, his newfound confidence utterly deserting him. He sat down beside her and launched into explanation. “You see, Mrs. ‘utchins, I’ve a problem—”

“There is no need for embarrassment, Sir Ethan,” she assured him. “Many of the gentlemen who come to me have problems. I do my best to help them,” she added with a provocative smile.

If it were possible, Sir Ethan’s countenance grew even redder. “It’s not—that sort of problem. I want—information.”

Mrs. Hutchins arched one sculpted eyebrow. It was not the first time a gentleman had come to her for educational purposes, but these seekers after enlightenment were generally quite a bit younger. “‘Information,’ sir?” she prompted.

“Aye. ‘Tis about me wife.”

“I see,” said Mrs. Hutchins, nodding in sympathy. “She doesn’t understand you, I daresay.”

“Oh, she understands me well enough. But we’ve ‘ad four children in as many years—”

“I congratulate you,” purred Mrs. Hutchins, her carmined lips curving as she looked her visitor up and down admiringly. “You really
don‘t
have ‘that sort of problem,’ do you?”

Sir Ethan elected to ignore this interruption. “The last one—six months ago, that was—was long and difficult. The baby was ‘ealthy, but I almost lost me wife.”

“And what does this have to do with me?”

Sir Ethan took a deep breath. “I thought there must be a way—it stands to reason—if there weren’t, you’d ‘ave at least two or three—”

At this point Sir Ethan’s speech became so disjointed as to render it incomprehensible. Mrs. Hutchins, however, was as compassionate as she was astute, and decided to take pity on her stammering guest.

“Come now, Sir Ethan, we are business people, you and I,” she said bracingly. “You want me to tell you if there is a way for you to bed your wife without risking a potentially fatal pregnancy. In fact, you want to eat your cake and have it, too.”

Sir Ethan winced at her blunt speaking, but answered with equal candor. “Aye, that I do.”

“Furthermore, you suspect that there
is
such a way, and that I must know of it—else, as you so eloquently observed, women in my profession would have a house full of children.”

His expectant silence gave Mrs. Hutchins to understand that her assumptions were correct.

“Your best bet, Sir Ethan, would be to take your pleasure elsewhere. I am free this afternoon, if you would like to come upstairs.” She rose and held out one hand invitingly.

Sir Ethan shook his head. “No, that won’t do.”

“Pray, why not?”

“Because I love me wife,” he said simply. “No offense, madam, but I don’t want any other woman. If there’s no other way, I’ll—”

“Yes?” she prompted. “What
will
you do?”

Sir Ethan gave a rueful smile. “I’ll take plenty of cold baths.”

Mrs. Hutchins had been seventeen years in her profession, and in that time she thought she had seen it all. She had been wrong. This married father of four somehow seemed as innocent as the greenest youth bedding his first woman. She would gladly have foregone her usual exorbitant fee and taken him upstairs for free, just for the novelty. But he would not have gone with her if she had offered, and somehow she would have been disappointed in him if he had.

“Very well, Sir Ethan. Your assumptions are correct. There is such a way as you supposed. But I am in business to earn a living, you know. How much are you prepared to pay for the information you seek?”

The sum he proposed made her blink. “My dear sir, if all men valued their wives so highly, I should soon be forced to seek another profession.”

She rang for tea and cakes, and instructed her butler to deny her to callers. Then she and Sir Ethan spent a very informative half-hour, at the end of which time he took his leave. His hostess did not ring for the butler, but instead walked him to the door herself.

“Remember, Sir Ethan, if your wife objects, you may always be sure of a welcome here.”

“Thank you, madam,” he answered in a tone which, while respectfully polite, clearly communicated to her the unlikelihood of his ever appearing on her doorstep again.

“Oh, and Sir Ethan—”

He had already started for the stair, but upon hearing her call his name, he turned back, and found himself seized by the lapels and kissed squarely on the mouth with a ferocity which knocked the curly-brimmed beaver from his head.

“Forgive me, ducky,” she said with a wink, when at last she released him, “but I do have a certain reputation to uphold.”

* * * *

Lady Helen shifted to the edge of her seat as the carriage clattered down the familiar London streets. Very soon now she would be reunited with her husband and (she devoutly hoped) all her fears would be put to rest. For there was no denying that, in his absence, her doubts about her marriage had fed upon themselves until she no longer knew what to believe. At times, such as when a hastily scrawled letter had been delivered assuring her of his safe arrival in the Metropolis, she chided herself for her own foolishness; at others, primarily when she lay alone in her bed at night, it was all too easy to believe that he had never truly loved her at all, that winning her hand had been nothing more than a challenge to him, another rung on the ladder from workhouse orphan to knight of the realm.

In the light of day, she knew these fears to be exaggerated to the point of absurdity. Still, nothing less than the sight of his face and the feel of his arms about her would put the problem (for problem there undeniably was) in its proper perspective. Consequently, her heart leaped every time she sighted a carelessly dressed, dark-haired man of medium height—no very rare breed in London, and hence the source of considerable agitation of spirits. The nearer they came to her Grosvenor Square town house, the more impatient Lady Helen became. The excited chatter of Miss Colling, so infectious at the beginning of the journey, had begun to pall. Lady Helen could only be thankful that the twins, at least, had long since fallen asleep, and that the younger children were riding with Nurse in a separate carriage some distance behind.

“Voyons!”
cried Lisette. “Why do we go so slowly?”

“I don’t know,” Lady Helen confessed. “Have we indeed slowed down? I thought as much, but supposed it must be my imagination.”

As if in confirmation, the carriage rolled slowly to a stop. Lady Helen rapped on the panel overhead. It opened on the instant, and the coachman peered down at his passengers.

“Yes, my lady?”

“What is the matter, Dixon?”

“Looks like a farm cart’s met with an accident up ahead. There’s turnips all over the road.”

Lady Helen made an impatient noise, to which the coachman was quick to respond. “Shall I make a detour, ma’am?”

“Yes, please.”

The overhead panel closed, and the carriage inched forward until it reached the intersecting street. The coachman swung the carriage off the main thoroughfare and onto a narrower residential lane. Progress along this street was of necessity slower, but it was still progress of a sort. Lady Helen sank back in her seat and strove to bear with patience the little bit that remained of the long journey. As the carriage turned onto Green Street, however, she sat up abruptly. The door of a pleasant house had swung open, and on the threshold there appeared a carelessly dressed, dark-haired man of medium height, bidding farewell to a stunning titian-haired woman.   Lady Helen silently chided herself for her own foolishness. What would her husband be doing in Green Street, of all places, where resided some of the most notorious courtesans in England, including the Duke of York’s mistress, Mary Ann Clarke, and Lord Waverly’s erstwhile paramour, Sophia Hutchins?

Even as she dismissed the notion, the pair embraced shamelessly upon the front stoop. Lady Helen’s first thought was for Lisette, to make sure her young guest was not subjected to a scene of such gross impropriety. Then the hat fell from the man’s head, and all other considerations fled from her mind but one: the curly-haired man kissing Sophia Hutchins so passionately was unquestionably, undeniably, her own husband.

For Lady Helen, the remainder of the trip passed in a blur. A strange buzzing noise filled her head, almost drowning out the lilt of Lisette’s French accent as she chattered cheerfully, unaware that her hostess’s world had just come to an end. After what seemed to Lady Helen like an eternity, the carriage drew to a halt in front of 23 Grosvenor Square and the door was opened. At the sight of the footman waiting to hand her down, however, twenty-five years of training came to the fore. Smiling serenely, she placed her hand on his proffered arm and inquired into the health of his widowed mother as she stepped lightly down.

Once inside, Lady Helen flung herself with a passion into the details of housewifery, seeing her children settled in the nursery and the best guest chamber prepared for Lisette, conferring with the housekeeper and the cook, and seeing to the bestowal of her muslins and silks in the clothes-press. In this manner she contrived to keep herself busy for some time until Sir Ethan, returning home late after dining at his club, was informed by the butler that Lady Helen was now in residence, having arrived that very afternoon, a full three days earlier than anticipated.

“ ‘as she, now?” he asked with every appearance of pleasure, surrendering his hat and gloves to Evers’s care. “I wish you’d sent a message to me at Brooks’s. I’d’ve been ‘ome sooner.”

“I’m very sorry, sir. I should not have wished to bother you.”

“No bother at all,” his master assured him. “But never mind. I’ll go up at once.”

As if in proof of this statement, he took the stairs two at a time. He found his wife in her bedchamber, wearing a lace-trimmed dressing gown and arranging her combs and brushes on an elegantly carved rosewood dressing table.   These had already been put to good use, for Lady Helen’s honey-blond hair was unpinned and tied with a ribbon at the nape of her neck.

“ ‘elen, me love!” he said, gazing at her in a manner evocative of a starving man invited to a Carlton House banquet.

A silver-backed brush slipped from Lady Helen’s hand and clattered to the table. She was not ready. She had not yet decided what she would say to this man she had thought she knew so well. When he had not come home for dinner, she had assumed she would not see him until morning, and she found it grossly unfair that she should have to face him now, undressed and with her hair hanging down her back.