The Solitary Envoy (30 page)
“Lies!” The banker retreated a half step. “You dare to insult my good name?”
“Forgive me,” Mr. Richmond shot back. “Precisely what good name would you be referring to?”
“Pay no mind to this little man’s rantings,” the narrowfaced solicitor ordered. “He seeks to make a scene because he has no case. And even if he did, he is well aware of what happens to those who cross swords with the Crown’s allies.” His thin lips drew back into a sneer. “That is, he
should
know.”
Erica observed a crimson flush rise from Mr. Richmond’s shirt collar. “We are also not without friends, as you shall soon see.”
The banker quailed, but his solicitor was made of sterner stuff. “You dare to bluff me?”
“This is no bluff. In eight days, a motion of censure will be tabled in the Houses of Parliament.”
“What?” Banker and solicitor cried as one.
“A motion of censure and a demand for recompense. And a query as to whether the Crown either knew or condoned such actions as shall be described in this highly public document.”
“A sham,” the solicitor declared but with less certainty now.
“Eight days,” Mr. Richmond repeated. “Unless, of course, your client chooses to reach an agreement and pay my client in full.”
“Who will present the motion?”
“You and your minions will discover that name quite soon, and quite publicly,” Mr. Richmond replied grimly. “No doubt your royal connections will be most distressed to learn they will soon be publicly sullied by these matters. Certainly you are aware of the distresses they currently face because of other accusations. I am positive they will be most displeased to learn you have embroiled them in yet another act of fraud and deceit.”
“Lies,” the solicitor snapped. “Unsubstantiated, unprovable.”
“Are they indeed,” Mr. Richmond said, turning toward the exit. “Come along, Miss Langston.”
Erica did not dare trust her voice until they were back inside the carriage. “Mr. Wilberforce is going to speak on my behalf ?”
“Wilberforce, is it? I should have known.” Mr. Richmond called to the driver, “Back to the embassy, and take your time about it.”
“Gareth did not say it was Mr. Wilberforce?”
“He chose not to, and wisely so, I might add. It is far better for no one to know who your champion is before the battle is waged. Thus the opposition is unable to array its forces against you.”
“What precisely did he say?”
“Only enough for me to make this final appeal, to grant Bartholomew’s one last opportunity to see you right before their affair is brought into the public light.” Mr. Richmond held to a trace of the grimness he had shown within, but there was a gleam of satisfaction in his gaze. “I must say, my dear, this is turning out much better than I had anticipated. The minister and I wracked our brains as to whom we might approach on your behalf. Neither of us considered circumventing the royal household entirely.”
“Do you think this will work?”
“I dislike predictions. But yes, I must say I have hope for the first time since learning of this matter.” He fiddled with the rim of his hat. “How ever did you manage to attract Wilberforce to your cause?”
“It was all Gareth’s doing. Could we perhaps go by his establishment? I would like to thank him.”
“I am not certain that would be wise, given his current state.”
Erica turned in her seat. “What do you mean?”
“He is gravely ill.”
Erica looked stricken.
“It was the only reason he did not call upon me in person, or so he wrote. He has been unable to rise from his bed for several days.”
Erica gripped the solicitor’s arm. “Please, Mr. Richmond. May we go to him?”
Erica hurried to Gareth’s small apartment in the former stables across the rear cobblestone courtyard from his printing shop. The two arms flanking the shop itself bore thatched roofs over stout stone walls. It might well have been a medieval coaching inn at one point, particularly since the courtyard’s entrance was large enough to permit a full-size carriage to pass beneath the portal. The place would have been charming, save for the clutter of disused equipment.
Erica could not believe how ghastly he looked. Gareth’s face had aged ten years—no, twenty. His complexion looked like gray candle wax, his eyes sunken deep into his head. “Why did you not let me know you were ill?”
“We don’t know each other that well,” he protested. “I didn’t wish to trouble you.” He wore a white shirt undone at the collar and stained with his perspiration. His dark pants were tucked hastily into the tops of his boots, clearly donned as he heard their arrival.
She was tempted to scold him further, but at that moment he began a coughing fit that left him gripping the doorjamb for support while perspiration beaded upon his forehead. He gasped for breath and wheezed, “Forgive me.”
“Gareth, what has the doctor said?”
His expression told her that he had not consulted a physician.
Erica turned toward the hulking presence approaching the doorway behind Gareth. “You are Daniel, is that correct?”
The man nodded. “That’s right, my lady.”
For once Erica did not correct his form of address. “How could you possibly have left him alone and untended in such a state?”
“You don’t know the major, my lady. I’ve been after him to let me bring in the doctor. He won’t hear of it.”
“Well, he most certainly will now.” She turned to Gareth in exasperation. “Gareth, are you not the man who just a week ago lectured me about even the strongest individual needing friends?”
Gareth avoided answering by bending into another coughing spell.
“I am sending for a physician. He will attend you. I trust you will heed his words and do as he says.” She did not wait for a response but turned to Daniel.
“Where does the doctor live?”
“Not half a league from here, miss.”
“Hurry and fetch him, please.”
Daniel did not need to be told twice. His hobnailed boots clattered across the courtyard as he raced for the portal.
Gareth’s energy just drained away then. Had Erica not been there to catch him, he would have collapsed on the stones. She staggered back under his weight, for he seemed unable to offer any support at all.
In a flash Mr. Richmond and the carriage driver were there to assist her. Between the three of them they managed to cart the tall man back inside and settle him into the chair by the fire. The driver went back to the carriage, and the solicitor nodded toward the doorway to indicate that he would wait there.
Erica set a kettle on to boil and did her best to ignore the mess that almost smothered the parlor. If there were a clean cup and saucer in the place, she could not find them. Nor did she see any fresh-cooked food. She washed a cup and sliced a bit of bread and made Gareth a cup of tea.
Feverish eyes examined her. “You are so kind.”
“I am a friend.” She could not understand why such simple words might bring a sting to the back of her own eyes. It must be the state she had found him in, suffering there alone.
“Erica, you are right. I need help.”
His voice was so hoarse that hearing him say the words hurt her own throat. “Drink your tea.” As he took a dutiful sip she went on, “We will bring round some good hot food. I am certain that your church members will want to be of help. You will start building up your strength and be your old self in no time.”
“You are also right to scold me.” His voice sounded stronger now with the tea.
She saw the way he tried to stifle a shiver and rose from her place by his chair. “Where can I find you a blanket?” Then she spotted a wrap, brought it over, and tucked it in around him. “May I get you anything else?”
He looked up at her. “Erica, I need your help. There is to be a protest, a march, in Manchester, three days from now. There have been quite a few. But even those in London we normally hear of only after they are over. The broadsheets never report on them. So the populace is fed rumors and bits of tales. There has been very little that I could reliably print.” He fortified himself with more tea. “But I have received word in advance this time.”
“Manchester is quite far north of here, is it not?”
“Two days’ hard ride.” This came from the solicitor hovering in the doorway.
“I have tried and tried to find someone to go for me. But Parliament is in session, and there are many other urgent matters at hand.” His eyes glittered both from passion and illness. “I was wondering …”
“Yes?”
“That is, if you could possibly …” The hand that raised the teacup was shaking now. “Might you know of someone at the embassy who could help me? Someone who would make a reliable source from which I could write my report?”
At the sound of footsteps racing across the courtyard, Erica rose from her crouch by the chair and gave him a reassuring smile. “Of course I do.”
“Upon my word,” Mr. Richmond said. “That is a most remarkable young man.”
“Indeed.”
“I have read his pamphlets on any number of occasions. So many of his competitors write the most utter tripe; I don’t mind telling you that his have a strong basis in fact. So I have often said.”
Erica’s mind was so busy she scarcely heard what the solicitor was saying. She had never used the word
providential
before. But nothing else could describe the meeting earlier that same day with her great-aunt.
“Have you heard a single word I have uttered?” he continued. When she did not respond, he gave her a shrewd glance. “You will need a proper escort if you are traveling to Manchester.”
Erica looked startled. “How did you know I was intent upon going myself?”
Mr. Richmond harrumphed a cough. “Miss Langston, where else might he find such a reliable witness?”
Erica blushed. “Would you mind terribly if we stopped by a house near St. James’s Palace?”
“Not at all.”
“I have a great-aunt who has recently lost her husband. She is down visiting from Manchester, you see, and plans to return there tomorrow.”
“Sounds a perfect fit, if you ask me.” He rapped the side of the rig with his cane. “I say there, Harry. Run us by St. James next, will you?”
“Right you are, sir.”
Mr. Richmond gave her a shrewd gaze. “If you don’t mind my saying, Miss Langston, our Mr. Powers is fortunate to have you on his side. Oh my, yes. Most fortunate indeed.”
They set out the next day for Manchester in Gareth’s fine carriage with the top up, the hulking Daniel at Gareth’s driver’s side, but they were jostled about like peas in a leather-lined pod. Beyond London’s outskirts the roads were in miserable condition. Long stretches had not been repaired for fifteen years, since before the outbreak of war with the French.
Yet Erica felt somehow exhilarated by the unexpected journey. She had prepared herself for the sort of objections her mother would have raised, but the Aldridges had been eager to help her out. Even Abbie had aided in the frantic packing of cases and the preparation of meals for the road.
Erica’s great-aunt, Mrs. Crowley, was dressed all in black, right down to the black knit traveling gloves fastened about her wrists with black pearls and the black pins used to hold her stiff black hat and half veil in place. She was not particularly stern or forbidding, just quiet. She knitted her way over the easier portions of the road and stared silently out the window when the ruts grew too harsh.
Erica did not mind the quiet. There was so much to think about. Mr. Richmond had been rushing about, full of tense expectancy that Bartholomew’s bank might indeed be convinced to make good upon Erica’s claims. Mr. Aldridge was delighted both with the connection to Wilberforce and with Erica’s journey. He too had heard the swirl of rumors about marches and was anxious to receive a trustworthy account. His job, as he put it to Erica in a hurried last-minute conversation, was to report upon both sides of the nation, both what the Crown wanted him to see and what the Crown wished to keep hidden.
Then of course there was the chance to do something for Gareth. Erica did not even try to pretend she was merely repaying the favor he had done for her. She did, however, attempt to keep a damper upon her occasional upsurge of desire to have remained in London where she could see after his needs.
Over dinner the first evening, at an inn on Oxford’s outskirts, Erica told Mrs. Crowley about Gareth’s illness and asked, “Do you think he will be all right?”
The woman inspected her across the shining waxed table. “London is a dreadful place for humors of the chest. Even in the summer, all it takes is a few days of wet weather for the air to fill with soot. You must have noticed.”
“Yes, ma’am.” It was impossible to go anywhere without noticing the soot. On the worst of days the rain was gray with its burden and ran in black rivulets over the cobblestone lanes.
“By all accounts your gentleman friend is young and strong. He was a former officer, did I hear that correctly?”
“A major.”
“I should imagine he will be up and about by the time we return.” She took a thoughtful bite. The inn’s specialty was venison, and their meal was a bowl of savory stew, fresh-baked bread, and butter churned that very morning. Thick golden candles flickered and hissed merrily from every table. The light eased the strain upon Mrs. Crowley’s features. “How old are you, my dear?”