A Disappearance in Drury Lane (6 page)

I swallowed a hard lump in my throat. “I want to see her.”

Donata got to her feet with me. “Let me warn her you’ve arrived. And that you look like a pugilist who’s lost his final match.”

I caught sight of myself in a mirror with a heavily gilded frame. I did look bad—bruises on my face and my cheek puffy.

I did not want to frighten Gabriella, but the need to see my daughter, to hold her hand, erased all worries about my appearance. Donata said nothing more, only walked away from me and out of the room, her green skirts making an agreeable rustling. I followed her, not one who enjoyed waiting tamely in overly ornate reception rooms while others decided whether or not to fetch me.

In the hall I caught sight of Bartholomew, my valet who’d once been Grenville’s footman, and his brother, Matthias. The two were lending their strong frames to helping the Pembroke servants shift furniture. At the moment, the two lads were carrying a heavy table across the large rotunda. They saw me, gave a collective stare to my beaten face, and went back to their task. I knew I’d be relating the tale all over again to Grenville soon.

I went on up the staircase, which wound around the rotunda, watching Donata’s green skirt as it rippled softly around her leather slippers. Her ankles in white stockings were fine and slender.

Donata stepped off the staircase two floors from the bottom of the house and turned down a hall that was a series of rooms rather than a single corridor, one room leading into the next. Each antechamber was small but sumptuously furnished with paintings and ornate furniture, little jewel boxes leading to the main rooms at the end. I imagined Pembrokes of the previous centuries in their silks and powdered wigs rustling through these stately rooms, on their way to meet about important government business or for private assignations.

The fifth room’s double doors were closed. Donata knocked once on them and turned the handle. “At least let me make certain she’s dressed,” she said, then slipped inside the room and closed the door in my face.

I waited in the outer room, which had a window with heavy brocade drapes framing a view of the park. In spite of the snow and the fading afternoon, the manicured gardens held their structured symmetry, evergreen shrubs encircling flowerbeds barren for winter. Beyond the gardens were trees and flowing hills, delightful country for riding. The difference between these elegant grounds and the coal-stained streets of London I’d left early this morning struck me anew.

This was Donata’s home. I was a visitor here, and I always would be. Likewise I would be at the Breckenridge estate and the townhouse on South Audley Street in Mayfair. I ought to be annoyed by that—I would technically be the head of Donata’s household and yet always be an outsider.

But I wasn’t. I had a house of my own in Norfolk, which Donata was alarmingly determined to make something of, though the estate would never bring in any income.

Also, I had witnessed heads of households, including my own father, be utter bastards to their families until it was a relief to all when he finally dropped dead. Donata’s first husband had been such a man, and I did not want to follow in either gentleman’s footsteps. Give me a good friend, a warm woman, and a comfortable place to lay my head, and I was happy. Perhaps the army in me made me enjoy the simple things in life; I had no idea. In any case, I was content to be Donata’s husband and had no interest in trying to seize any power from her and her son.

The door opened behind me, and I turned, my thoughts scattering like the light snowflakes on the winter breeze.

My daughter had grown a little taller since I’d seen her in the summer—at least, I thought she had. She’d also grown more beautiful.

Gabriella had been taken away from me when she’d been a toddler, barely able to say my name. Now she was a young woman, poised to enter the world and make it fall at her feet. Gabriella was a Lacey, all right—her dark brown hair and brown eyes attested to that. I also saw my mother in the tilt of her nose and lift of her chin. Gabriella was garbed in a plain brown and cream striped day gown, the dress of a country girl, and she was regarding me critically, any shyness I feared absent.

I was the one who was awkward. I loved Gabriella with every breath I took and had missed her as hard.

I noticed Donata had stayed behind in the inner room, giving us privacy. I blessed her astuteness and tact.

“Gabriella,” I said. The name stuck a little in my throat.

Gabriella gave me a polite curtsey. “How do you do, sir?”

She wasn’t as demure as the correct words made her out to be. She studied me with frank curiosity, which was an improvement over the shock and confusion with which she’d regarded me when she’d first discovered I was her true father. Today Gabriella’s look said she wanted to know all about me, including how I’d acquired such a spectacular set of bruises.

“I do well,” I said. “Considering. Your journey from France was good?”

“We were a bit tossed on the crossing, but Lord Pembroke’s carriage met us in Dover, and we were as comfortable as could be from there to here.”

“And your mother and . . . Major Auberge? They do well?”

“Mama is fine, as is Papa.” Gabriella said without embarrassment. Major Auberge, who’d stolen my wife and daughter more than fifteen years ago, had been the only father she’d ever known.

I had to stop and take breath. “And you?”

“Very well, sir. My health is good, as usual.”

The Laceys had always been robust. I started to answer with another politeness, but I couldn’t pretend any longer.

“Please don’t call me
sir
, Gabriella. It’s too bloody formal. My father made me call him that.”

Gabriella’s brows rose a little. “You mean . . . my grandfather?”

“Yes, and he was a selfish tyrant. I strive every day not to be like him, so please do not address me so.”

“Then what shall I call you? I have no wish to be impolite, but I cannot call you
Papa
, sir—I mean, Captain. And
Captain
is too formal as well, is it not? I will have to think of something else that would not offend either my papa or you.
Father
, perhaps?”

My heart, which had been banging and drubbing during the little speech, slowed a bit. “Father. Yes, I like that.” I nodded and hoped I wasn’t babbling. “Father will do very nicely.”

“I have thought a lot about it since we talked last summer,” she said. “I must admit that discovering I had two fathers was very confusing at first, but I have decided after much contemplation on the matter to let it be comforting. I rather like knowing I have a father in France and a father in England. To be honest, sir . . .
Father
. . . the most difficult thing for me to face is that I am not French—that both my true parents are English. I’d been so proud of being French, you see.”

Her downcast look made me smile. “Then I will do my best to show you how wonderful it is to be English.”

Gabriella’s obvious doubt made my smile turn to a laugh. I pushed my fears aside, put my hands on her shoulders, and kissed her cheek. “I’ll make you fond of the damp and of boiled food.” I paused. “No, I won’t. I admit I preferred life in Spain and Portugal. I’ve often wanted to return there and sit in the sunshine.”

“Perhaps you will,” Gabriella said. “Perhaps when I come for another visit, we may go. I’d like to see it too.”

Something tight inside me eased. I’d feared Gabriella would want nothing to do with me, that she’d come here for my wedding because her parents had pressed the obligation onto her. But she looked at me in eagerness now, as though determined to explore the possibilities of having a new friend in me.

Lady Breckenridge came out of the bedroom beyond, interrupting any foolish sentimentality I might have uttered at this moment. “If you’ve finished with your greetings, Gabriella, you need to resume your fitting, or they’ll never have the changes made in time. Gabriel, Barnstable is upstairs—he’ll tend to your injuries. At a wedding, guests should be gazing at the bride, not at a groom who looks to have been brawling with pugilists. We’ll have a meal at eight, but we’re in such sixes and sevens, it won’t be much more than a cold repast. And don’t you dare run off with Grenville before you have your face tended to.”

So saying, my beloved fiancée whisked my daughter back inside the room. Gabriella shot me a look of amused sympathy before the door slammed shut, leaving me outside it.

I needn’t have worried. All was well here.

*** *** ***

Lady Breckenridge’s butler, a black-haired man called Barnstable, had doctored my injuries before. His homemade remedies had brought me more relief than had any physician’s potions.

This time Barnstable cleaned my face and applied one of his ointments to my cuts. The mixture stung a bit, but I tolerated it, knowing it would help. He checked the ribs Denis’s physician had wrapped, rubbed more ointment there, and rewrapped them.

“Takes down the swelling beautiful, sir,” Barnstable said. “And how is the knee?”

My torn knee had seen his ministrations before, to its benefit. “It escaped great injury this time,” I said. My abductors had kicked it to render me helpless, but they’d done little more than bruise it.

Barnstable tutted and gave me another ointment to be rubbed into it. He’d found me a spare walking stick and left me to change my clothes and rest. He too was helping with the wedding preparations, he told me, and could not linger. I, the groom, was superfluous.

Not that I minded putting on a clean shirt and breeches and lounging on the soft bed in the large guest room. I’d slept in this chamber before, in its wide, brocade-hung bed under a high ceiling painted a soothing white, with pictures of landscapes and horses hanging on the walls. This room had a different sort of elegance from Denis’s extremely tasteful spare chamber with its one exquisite painting. This chamber was warmer, more homelike, welcoming.

I closed my eyes, hoping for sleep, but what I saw was Hannah Wolff, aging and blind, her head up while she spoke with worry for her friend. I also saw Perry leaning to me out of the darkness, his side-whiskers, nose, and brows outlined by the wavering rush light.

I heard a faint rustle
not
part of the dreams and woke in a hurry. I’d trained myself long ago to come instantly awake and to take hold of whatever intruder had come for me. I closed my hand around a thin wrist and opened my eyes to see Felicity standing next to my bed.

I released her the next instant, thankful I hadn’t undressed for my nap. “Good Lord, how did you get in here?”

“Servants’ corridors run behind the walls,” Felicity said calmly. She left my side to flop into one of the chairs and put her feet up over its arm. “I can’t stay downstairs. They want me to fetch and carry—did as soon as I walked in. The majordomo is a tyrant, and I’m no one’s slavey.”

“Well, you cannot be in my bedchamber,” I said, rising and brushing off my clothes. “Her ladyship’s tolerance is only so great.”

Felicity expression held vast indifference. “I need a place to sit calmly and not be expected to carry about loaded trays and bins that pull my arms out of my sockets. The majordomo never so much as offered me coin for helping. I did my years in service, thank you, and I won’t do it again.”

Those below stairs would of course have put her to work immediately, if she styled herself as a maid. Staff in large houses always needed the extra help, especially with many guests arriving for an event. “I will ask her ladyship to provide you a room,” I said.

“Don’t bestir yourself. I’ll sit right here until it’s time to go back to London. Tomorrow night you’ll be with your lady anyway. You won’t be needing this bed.”

“Felicity . . . ”

“I see you have two choices,” she answered without moving. “Lift me over your shoulder and carry me away elsewhere, or ignore me and let me stay here. Less embarrassing than her ladyship having to explain to the housekeeper that the servant you brought isn’t really a servant and needs a room of her own. What will they all think?”

I had no doubt that Donata would put whomever she pleased into whatever room she pleased, and damn them all, but Felicity was right that I’d want to spare her any awkwardness. The late unlamented Lord Breckenridge had brought his mistresses into his house even when Donata was there, expecting her to look the other way. I did not wish the staff of this house to believe I was cut from the same cloth.

Before I could answer, someone knocked on my door. Instead of jumping up and hiding herself, Felicity remained where she was, yawning and settling deeper into the chair.

I limped to the door, opening it to reveal Lucius Grenville. He was as impeccably dressed as ever—he must have asked his tailor to make him a coat and breeches suitable for a gentleman in the country keeping himself out of the way the day before a wedding.

“Lacey . . .” He began, then saw Felicity.

“Hello, Mr. Grenville.” Felicity gave him a wide and sultry smile. “How nice to see you.”

Grenville stared at her then me, his animated dark gaze assessing. “Lacey, why have you got an impertinent London street girl in your bedchamber on the eve of your nuptials? And why do you look as though you’ve gone back to the wars? Mathias warned me of your appearance, and I knew I had to come and dig out the story.”

Nothing for it that I invited him in, let him seat himself—far from Felicity—and tell my tale again. Felicity punctuated the most dramatic moments and emphasized that I would still be under my captor’s power had she not rescued me.

“A nice problem,” Grenville said when I’d finished. “Trust you to have interesting adventures the moment I turn my back. But no matter. I’m in them now. Where do we begin?”

Chapter Five

We could not begin right away; I needed to get married.

Grenville at last convinced Felicity she could not sleep in my bedchamber and took her off to find better accommodations. Where, I did not know, but I trusted Grenville’s discretion.

Thankfully, I passed an uninterrupted night with much-needed sleep and woke to find that the swelling in my face and the pain in my ribs had gone down a bit.