A Reformed Rake (24 page)

“So far as I know those pages are the original and only copy.”

Rather warily Lady Munson eyed her guest, while thinking deeply. “I will read them, of course.” She chuckled. “I do not believe I could
resist
reading them, but I cannot think the author particularly vicious—and from these examples don’t understand your assurance that she is. Nor do I perceive where you see the venom.”

“You are amused reading about yourself here in the privacy of your salon and with the knowledge that you hold the only manuscript. But would you care to see her words in print in a small leather bound volume with gold lettering? Perhaps launched with the publicity given Lady Caro’s
roman a clef, Glenarvon?
Or, since the author may not have access to a good publisher, she may decide to write a weekly column in one of the less discerning periodicals, a scandal sheet which
enjoys
stirring the pot now and again.”

“Have you reason to believe she’ll publish?”

“The creature in question has lived most of her life abroad. I cannot say what she’s done in the past—but if you had such talent, could you bear to have it hidden away where no one would ever read your words?”

Lady Munson flushed hotly. It was well known she was a mediocre writer. True, she’d had an occasional essay published, but always it was through the influence of some particular friend who had taken a hand in editing it. Her own talent was small, and she knew it.

In a related arena, however, she’d succeeded. Her expertise as a literary hostess was without limits, and invitations to her salon were coveted. In the last few years, she’d concentrated her special powers on discovering new talent and giving it a boost by introducing it to the old. However that might be, Cressy’s gibe hit home. It was very true that she could not have borne to hide away a gift such as the unknown authoress enjoyed.

“I’m sorry,” apologized, Cressy—not sorry at all. “I should not have said such a thing.”

Lady Munson gathered her dignity around her. “I will read what you’ve given me, and I’ll decide what is to be done with it. If I think best, I will burn it. You can accept that?”

“I can because I don’t believe you will. You, too, will see the danger and will wish to ostracize the perpetrator of such malicious nonsense.”

“Malicious perhaps. That remains to be seen. But what I have read so far is not nonsense. I repeat. My decision may very well be to burn the lot.” She narrowed her eyes and studied the woman sitting across from her and was obviously surprised when Cressy merely nodded. “I must know the name of the authoress—in case,” she added reluctantly, “I conclude I agree with you.”

Lady Munson’s obvious distaste for the notion they might think alike on any subject whatsoever was another insult Cressy forced herself to swallow. “Have I not said?” Cressy gathered up her belongings, preparatory to leaving. “It is my granddaughter’s companion, Miss Cole. Miss Harriet Cole.”

Cressy kept her satisfaction well hidden. Lady Munson had taken the bait and, whatever was threatened about burning it, the woman would not. She could never bear to destroy anything so well written. She would be driven by the need to share the pages with one or another particular friend, a friend who would pass the vignettes on to another. The pages would circulate slowly, but
they would circulate.

The business would take far longer than Cressy liked—in fact, she might have left London before Harriet found herself a pariah among her own kind. It might take weeks, but, at some point, Miss Cole’s satire would find its way to someone who would
not
read merely for amusement, someone who would find the writing biting and vicious and would act! Oh yes. And then the uppity Miss Cole would find herself ostracized...

Poor Fred,
thought Cressy, a smile hovering around her lips. “Poor dear man—how he’ll dislike it all,” she muttered aloud. The smile faltered, disappeared, as Cressy regretted her absence from the scene of Miss Cole’s downfall. Second thoughts, however, recalled her husband’s dislike of such pettiness.
Perhaps,
she decided,
it is better that we’ll be gone.

Harriet stood in the entrance hall and once again perused the note Elizabeth’s butler had brought to her moments earlier. It had been delivered by an oddly-dressed footman in a mismatched and ill-fitting uniform. “Mr. Markem wishes me to come today?” she asked him after reading the bluntly worded note for the third time. “Now?”

“Yes, miss,” said the footman, his eyes twinkling. “I’m to escort you and, later, return you home.”

“It is very short notice.”

The footman’s ears reddened, but he grinned roguishly. “My master has spent many years in the East. Too many perhaps? One wonders if he has forgotten one does not order up visitors as one does one’s tea, for instance?” The footman, after a look at Marks’ outraged features, took care to repress a chuckle.

“Yes,” said Harriet, “I think perhaps he has. On the other hand, I would enjoy a visit with my relative. Marks, give this young man an ale while I prepare myself for going out.”

Quite obviously Marks would much rather have thrown the impertinent servant out on his ear, but Miss Cole did not often give orders which it was beneath one’s dignity to obey. He nodded agreement in a regal manner and, with an equally appropriate but far more snooty expression, ordered the messenger to follow him.

The Nabob lived somewhat out of the way in an area of town which had been pretty much deserted by the aristocracy. The growth of the new Squares and Terraces between Oxford and Piccadilly had led to the
ton’s
removal westward, leaving many old-fashioned mansions to be converted into tenements. Markem’s house was very nearly Elizabethan, the ceilings low and the rooms dark; the entry hall was stuffed with oddities acquired in his travels. The footman opened a door onto the dimmest room Harriet had entered for some years. An odd odor wafted toward her, and she sneezed. Then she peered into the gloom.

“I have been too long in the East and have forgotten the British climate does not give one an aversion to the sun,” said a soft apologetic voice from deep within the room. “Hopstead, open the drapes. We will have light.”

“You forget, sir,” responded Harriet, “that I too have lived where the sun can be one’s enemy. Hopstead, we will have just a very little light, and it please you, my cousin.”

The old man chuckled. “I knew I’d like you. Tim and Trillium’s girl. Couldn’t help but like you, could I? Come in. Come in. Don’t dawdle about. I’m too ancient to wish to waste time on fiddle-faddle.”

Harriet wended a careful way toward the voice between low tables, both carved teak and heavy brass, the large cushions strewn seemingly at random and, in odd contrast, very comfortable-looking leather-covered chairs. As she maneuvered around a particularly awkward combination of furniture, the footman—who must have had cat eyes, she thought—reached the drapes and opened them a few inches. Harriet stopped short, her heart thumping.

Straight before her, looming over her and startling her, was a more than life-size statue of a woman. It had been carved from an artist’s lewd nightmare—or so she assumed. The undraped figure had a waist of unbelievable smallness combined with large hips and pear-shaped breasts, which Harriet was certain could nowhere be found duplicated in living flesh. The figure’s stance was contorted into what must have been an exceedingly uncomfortable position. The half squat with the statue balanced on the ball of one bare foot, was, she decided a dance position.

That, however, was not what appalled Harriet. It was the necklace of human skulls around the goddess’ neck and her eyes, which seemed to glow, and the six or eight arms, forming a spider work frame around the body, each holding some attribute of the goddess’ powers, and, not least, the incense burning in a holder before her which had a shocked Harriet wondering if her relative had become a pagan during his years abroad...

“Don’t like my Kali, hmm? I’ve Hindu servants who would be very unhappy were I to be rid of her, you know. They visit her early each morning—as you can see.”

Harriet understood from this that Markem had
not
become a pagan.

“Well, well, sit yourself with your back to the lady, if you will. We’ll be cozy enough and get to know one another.”

“If you’ve no objections, I’ll sit sideways to her. I don’t quite trust her not to spring at me and would prefer to keep an eye on her! Tell me about her,” Harriet suggested.

The old man did so with gusto and, finishing with Kali, he handed Harriet small carvings, some ivory and some gold, from the table beside him. Each was another Hindu god or goddess and, for each, he had a story.

“It is a rich and complex culture, my dear,” he said at last, “and one an incomer may never truly fathom. As soon as one thinks one has a handle on some aspect of it, one learns something new which contravenes the theory one has constructed. It was a fascinating study, which I never ceased to wonder at, during all my years out there.”

Silent, Mr. Markem pondered those complexities until, with a start, he returned to the present. He smiled a smile which, in some subtle way, reminded Harriet of her mother. For the first time she saw a family resemblance. Perhaps she wasn’t quite alone after all?

“Now,” he said, “you must tell me something of
your
life, my child. Begin with Trillium and Timothy’s marriage. I encouraged them, you know, but I’d left England before they actually got up the nerve to go against their respective family’s wishes. We wrote for a while, but we rather quickly lost track of each other,” said the old man sadly.

“They were disinherited.”

“Oh, of course. It was to be expected, and I did warn them.”

“I don’t think either cared a straw. We were a happy family. I’m glad I was allowed to grow up on the continent with my mother to teach me and my father to guide me. It was an unusual life, but far more enjoyable than that which girls my age here in England were forced to endure.”

“I’m sure it was. When did they die, your parents?”

Harriet spoke briefly of the carriage accident, describing the sudden storm which had led to it. She said no more.

Mr. Markem smiled. “I like that. You do not whine that you were left alone or that your relatives did not come to your rescue.”

“I am not such a paragon. I have resented that my uncles ignored me. I am not so perfect, you see, that I didn’t wish for the opportunity to throw back in their faces any offer of help they might make me!”

He chuckled. “Oh yes. I do like you. Then you found means of supporting yourself with no difficulty?”

“I was excessively lucky that Madame la Comtesse needed me just when I needed a position.”

“She has treated you well?”

“Very well.”

The door opened and an odd spicy odor wafted in from the platters held by servants Harriet’s cousin had brought with him from the East. The dark men padded on slippered feet to where a table sat to one side, and they began unloading a meal onto it.

“Is it so late as all that?” asked Markem. “My dear, I would invite you to dine with me, but I think you would find my food difficult. Me, I am used to it and find English food excessively bland.” Harriet gathered up her reticule and gloves. “Cousin, before you go, I will inform you that I’ve made a new will. You need have no fear for your future.” He reached for the hand she held out to him and held it between both his own. “Nor need you fear fortune hunters will be after your money, child. The man you marry will only have charge of the interest, and that
after
you’ve been paid a considerable allowance. Of course there are also dress allowances and living allowances. You will have any bills of that order sent to the trustees. No, no, do not pucker up. And you need feel no obligation to visit an old man. I’ll not be changing my mind since I do it for Tim and Trillium.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said pertly, “for relieving me of what might have been a terrible burden—assuming I’d felt a need to toady to you! As it is I’ve enjoyed our visit very much. When I return it will not be because I fear for my future but because I wish to. I
will
return—if you do not forbid it.”

“Whenever you’ve a free hour or two and happen to think of me, feel free to come. I’m very much at home these days.”

Even as dark as the room was, Harriet thought she detected a faint ruddiness in his cheeks.

“I’m writing my memoirs,” he added as if it were a dark secret. “Nothing important, you know. Just a little something to keep me occupied when I’ve no business dealings. Even retired, one must watch one’s investments, so I am not bored or without occupation. Still, I like a pretty woman as much as anyone so you must come when you will.”

Since the two Indian servants seemed a trifle edgy and kept stirring this or looking under the cover of that, Harriet decided she must take her leave or spoil her cousin’s dinner. She was bowed out by the oddly-dressed footman who followed her. She decided that her cousin could not be nearly so wealthy as was suggested by the title Nabob. If he were, surely he could afford a new uniform for his footman! Once home, she spent half an hour describing the visit to Françoise and Elizabeth—both of whom begged her to take them with her the next time she visited.

“For where else could one see a six-armed woman and now you have described her I am longing to see her. Tell us, what other treasures did you see?” asked Elizabeth.