Susan Carroll (20 page)

She drew in a deep breath and tried again. "I
have heard something of your misfortunes, and I regret that my
grandfather should have been the cause of them. I cannot do much,
but I would like to help you-if you will let me."

Perhaps the humbleness of her tone inspired
Eliza Wilkins to look up at Phaedra for the first time. "Thank
you," she said. "But the other gentleman has already been more than
kind."

"Other gentleman?"

"Aye, he was a guest at your dinner party
last night when my husband tried to-" Eliza's voice faltered. She
concluded, "The French gentleman called upon me only this
morning."

"You cannot mean Armande de LeCroix," Phaedra
cried, incredulous.

"How odd." Eliza's eyes became almost
luminous with wonder. "I never realized until just now he never
told me his name."

"Then describe him."

Eliza Wilkins regarded her for a moment, no
doubt surprised by the anxiousness of Phaedra's command. But the
woman sketched for Phaedra an exact picture of Armando de LeCroix
as Phaedra had last seen him except for her description of the
marquis's expression.

"He had the most gentle blue eyes of any man
I'd ever met," Eliza mused aloud. "Yet so sad. I hope he finds
whatever he is seeking."

Phaedra stared at the woman. "What makes you
think he is looking for something?"

"I don't know. He simply gave me the
impression of a man who is not at peace with himself." The woman
gave a brittle laugh. "And God knows, I have met enough men like
that. My Tom ..." She let the thought trail off.

Phaedra gaped at her. She tried to imagine
the haughty Armande, coming to such a place, seeking out Mrs.
Wilkins. It was not so difficult. She was aided by the memory of
how gentle his fingers had been only that morning when examining
her injured hand. Phaedra recalled how Armande had slipped from the
dining room last night, after Wilkins had been taken away. Had it
been to find out where the man lived?

But it made no sense. What reason would
Armande have to help these people? Phaedra turned to Eliza Wilkins.
She wanted to know everything he had done and said. Fortunately
Eliza Wilkins was not at all loath to talk about the marquis.

"Why did he come here?" Eliza repeated
Phaedra's question, a furrow creasing her brow. "I wondered that
myself. All that he said was that he knew what it was like to be at
the mercy of the powerful and ruthless."

Armande? Phaedra could not picture the
indomitable marquis ever being at anyone's mercy. But she did not
interrupt Eliza as she continued, "He was very generous with his
money and oh, so much more. He even promised me that he would see
my babe had a proper burial and was not thrust into the poor hole.
And for my husband-" Eliza brightened, her eyes wistful with hope.
"He swears that I will be with my Tom again. The marquis intends to
see that Tom is not hanged, but only transported."

"Only transported!" Phaedra could not refrain
from blurting out. "But you would still likely never see him
again.” She stumbled over her words, trying to amend the error of
her clumsy tongue. But it seemed wrong of Armande to give Eliza
Wilkins any false hope of ever being reunited with her husband.

"I would follow him, wherever he was sent,"
Eliza said.

Phaedra glanced dubiously at the frail woman,
considering it unlikely the woman had the strength to follow Tom
Wilkins to the other side of London let alone across the ocean.

"I love him, you see," Eliza said simply, as
though that accounted for everything. Perhaps for her it did,
Phaedra thought, staring with envy at the woman's rapt expression.
She felt as though it were Eliza Wilkins who was garbed in silk,
and she the one deprived, lacking.

She drew toward the door, preparing to
depart. "I am relieved to hear you are being so well taken care
of," she said. "I will not intrude upon you any longer."

Eliza surprised her by seizing hold of her
hand. She gave Phaedra's fingers a gentle squeeze. “Don't you go
away from here distressing yourself. You are not to blame for
anything."

Phaedra could not meet the woman’s earnest
gaze. She did not blame herself for anything her grandfather had
done. The guilt Eliza was obviously reading upon Phaedra's
countenance stemmed from a far different cause.

Eliza was filled with hope, believing that
Armande was wielding his influence to-save Tom Wilkins from the
jaws of Newgate. Only Phaedra knew that at that moment, thanks to
her, those prison gates were slamming tight upon Armande
himself.

"Where the deuce is de LeCroix?" her
grandfather asked for the third time. Pacing the green salon, he
consulted his watch, occasionally stopping to wince. His gout was
acting up again, no matter how he might pretend to the contrary. He
grumbled, "Frenchies. Got no notion of being on time for
dinner."

With only Phaedra and Jonathan Burnell for an
audience, Weylin appeared to have forgotten all his quips about not
keeping city hours. Phaedra was grateful that only Jonathan had
been invited to dinner. There was no way she could have managed
even one commonplace to entertain a guest this evening.

She sat poised on the Queen Anne's chair by
the hearth and started to thrust the poker into the grate when she
remembered there was no fire to stir. There was something
depressing about a empty fireplace. With the grate swept clean, the
andirons slicked with grease and stored away until autumn, the
soot-blackened opening yawned before her, like a condemned man's
cell the day after-

Phaedra nearly dropped the poker, then
silently cursed herself for allowing her mind to keep running on
such things. Yet why on earth had word of Armande's arrest not
reached Blackheath Hall? Surely the gossip must be circulating
through London by now, and her grandfather and Jonathan had spent
the entire afternoon haunting their regular coffeehouse.

"My dear Phaedra." Jonathan's voice bit
through her like the crack of a whip. She hoped her grandfather did
not notice how she jumped, how tense she was.

"Are you well?" Jonathan asked anxiously.
"You look so pale."

Phaedra forced a smile and shook her head.
Jonathan was one of the kindest men living, but must he forever
plague her with questions about her health? She started to reassure
him, when her grandfather answered for her.

"Of course the wench looks pale. That is all
the more good it did, sending her off to Bath to drink the cursed
waters." He leveled upon her the irritation he was feeling toward
the absent marquis. "Why can't you paint yourself up a bit like the
other fashionable gels I see, and powder that carrot-top hair?
Small wonder the marquis is not here. That dour look of yours is
enough to drive any man from our door."

Phaedra had heard this refrain too often to
bother defending herself. Jonathan's face rarely ever registered
anger, but he glared at Sawyer Weylin. "If the marquis can find any
flaw in Phaedra, why, the man must be blind."

The intended compliment came out twisted, an
awkward attempt at gallantry from a plain man not accustomed to
making such gestures. Phaedra could not even offer him a smile of
gratitude. She felt miserable enough without being made more so by
the undeserved admiration of an old friend.

Weylin continued ranting at Phaedra as though
Jonathan was not even in the room. "More than likely you've caught
something, likely spotted fever or a pox, sneaking off to Canty Row
with my best horses, paying social calls at the house of my
assassin."

"Canty Row! My dearest Phaedra!" Jonathan
cried.

His distress was ignored as her grandfather
shook his thick finger at Phaedra. "Did you think Ridley would not
report the whole of your doings to me, missy?"

"It wasn't a house, only a room," she said,
thinking of the Wilkinses' bleak abode. "And as to assassins, you
still seem very much alive to me, Grandpapa."

"No thanks to that villain Wilkins."

Jonathan's gaze darted between Phaedra and
her grandfather. "But Phaedra! Whatever induced you to go
there?"

"I only thought to help Mrs. Wilkins."

"Meddling" Weylin's jowls puffed with
indignation. "You silly chit. I expect you were taken in by
Wilkins's whining tale. Set out to right the wrongs of your wicked
old grandfather, did you? I'm an ogre because I expect able-bodied
men and women to do an honest day's work, and keep their debts paid
without looking for handouts. I never in my life asked for charity,
and I don't intend to have my granddaughter running round behind my
back dispensing it, either."

"I would scarce describe Mrs. Wilkins as
able-bodied, Grandfather. Wilkins's tale was perfectly true. She
has been very ill since the death of their child."

"It was kindhearted of you to help the woman,
my dear," Jonathan said. "I only wish you had come to me first. I
could have used my patronage to have the poor woman taken into a
hospital."

"If you aren't another pretty fool." Her
grandfather poked the tip of his cane at Jonathan. "Taking the
money you've worked so hard for all your life and flinging it into
patronage. Foundling homes, charity schools, and your hospitals,
bah! More like shelters for a pack of sluggards feigning
sickness."

Weylin flung up his arms in a frustrated
gesture. "Stap me, you might as well lock me up in Bedlam. I
suppose I must be mad, since I seem to be the only one not inclined
to empty my pockets for a lot of undeserving rascals." He scowled.
"Mind you, if I had known about the Wilkens child-"

He hesitated and then shrugged his shoulders,
stumping impatiently to the door, looking at his watch again.

What would her grandfather say, Phaedra
wondered, if he knew it really had been Armande who had helped the
woman? It would vastly change his impression of the marquis, even
as it had done her own. It was no coldhearted villain who had
called upon Mrs. Wilkins today. Phaedra still marveled at what
Armande had done. It went beyond a gesture of noblesse oblige,
beyond flinging a handful of coins to the peasants. He had
obviously put himself to no little trouble, seeking out Eliza
Wilkins, arranging for the funeral of her child. It showed a great
depth of feeling she would have never thought Armande
possessed.

And what of his reason for behaving in a
manner that seemed so out of character? Eliza Wilkins's explanation
echoed through Phaedra's mind. He said he knew what it was like to
be at the mercy of the powerful and ruthless. Men like her
grandfather, men like Armande de LeCroix himself. So Phaedra had
once thought. Now she was no longer sure. Armande's sympathy for
Wilkins, that haunted expression she had on occasion glimpsed in
his cold blue eyes. What was there in his past that inspired such
things, the past that he was at such pains to conceal?

If only instead of threatening her, Armande
had chosen to confide. But perhaps she had seemed to him like
another Muriel Porterfield, a selfish lady of the haut ton. Perhaps
he thought she would never have understood. There was little use in
speculating. It was too late now, far too late.

Phaedra stared back into the fireplace grate,
the stones so cold. Despite the warm evening, she could almost
fancy the chill from it creeping into her bones. What was it like
to spend a night in Newgate Prison? She shuddered.

As if her nerves were not stretched taut
enough, some imp of perversity had taken possession of her
grandfather this evening. Perhaps her own guilty reflections made
it seem so, but her grandfather appeared able to talk of nothing
but the very subjects Phaedra most wished to avoid.

"I declare," he huffed. "London is naught but
a city of rogues these days. I was coming up High Street and what
did I see, but a footpad as bold as you please, leaping atop a
sedan chair. The rogue cut a hole in the roof and snatched a wig
from a man's head. In full light of day! A twenty-farthing wig! The
villain will swing for that if he is ever caught."

Phaedra, who had been trying to blot out the
sound of her grandfather's haranguing, stiffened at his last words.
"Hang for twenty farthings?" she faltered. "Most surely not."

"Most surely could." Her grandfather rocked
back on his heels, his lips pursed in evident satisfaction at the
thought. "A man may hang for any theft over five shillings, and so
he should. Lazy 'rogues fleecing honest, hard-working men!"

Five shillings. Phaedra's hand crept to the
lacy shawl knotted round her shoulders and she tugged uncomfortably
at the fringe. The ring she had planted upon Armande was well above
five shillings in value. But they don't hang noblemen, she reminded
herself. All the same, she hadn't known men could die for so little
cause. What if she was wrong about the immunity of noblemen, as
well?

Of a sudden, she remembered Muriel's gossip
about Tony Ackerly being flung into Newgate. Only fancy! That some
shabby shopkeeper could have a gentleman treated thus! Of course,
Tony was not a lord. But so many of the English had a strong
antipathy toward foreigners, especially the French. What if
Armande's rank as Marquis de Varnais counted for nothing?

Jonathan sighed. "I have always thought the
law too harsh. The gallows at Tyburn are put to far too great a
use."

Weylin eyed him contemptuously. "Fortunately
we are all saved a great deal of trouble by gaol fever. It carries
off most of the rascals."

"Gaol fever?" Phaedra asked weakly.

Aye, girl. What d'you think Newgate is? Some
charming country manor house? The fever runs rampant through that
pest hole so that few who take it ever recover." Weylin grinned. "I
heard old magistrate Harbottle goes in such fear of the fever, he
came to court with a nosegay pressed to his face the other day. He
kept the prisoners at such a distance from him, he could hardly
hear their pleas."