Amy Lake (21 page)

“Goat,” said the viscount.  “Dabbs, I’ll need—”

“A bath,” said the twins.

“Immediately,” said the valet, and left.

“Talfryn—”

“Yes, I’ll explain everything, but—”

“Please explain now.  The bath water won’t be—”  Carys stopped.  “Goat?”

Lord Davies sighed.  “I don’t suppose I could get tea?” he asked.

“Of course.  But you’ll have to drink it here.  Mrs Perth will be most distressed if you sit on one of the sofas.”

* * * *

The viscount’s return journey from Cumbria had been a comedy of errors, and both his sisters were having difficulty repressing their laughter.

Lord Davies’ travels were unremarkable the first day, as he left Belvoir Manor shortly after Mrs Riddpathe’s excellent breakfast, and arrived in Manchester in time to catch the evening’s mail coach to Nottingham.  From there events turned from bad to worse.

“The rear axletree of the coach cracked after a particularly hard bounce on the Ashbourne road, and we overturned,” he told Carys and Isolde.  They were momentarily horrified by this—an accident that could have killed anyone on board—until Talfryn assured them that no-one was seriously injured, although the guard was knocked unconscious and remained too lightheaded to stand for some time.  The coachman rode for assistance, and the viscount organized the few other passengers to collect the mail, which was in danger of being scattered to the four winds.

Eventually another coach arrived, but most of the night had been lost.  When they arrived in Nottingham it was obvious that, although the guard was slowly recovering he was in no condition to go further that day, and Lord Davies used some of his remaining money—much less than he had planned, due to the thirty pounds now with the Riddpathes—to ensure that he was taken care of for a night or two at the inn. 

Lord Davies was just able to hire a mount in Nottingham, and eventually—

“We should like to hear about the goat,” said Isolde.

 “I am getting to that,” said her brother.

—having run out of all but his last shillings a day and a half later, was forced to beg a ride on a passing vegetable cart, pulled by an ancient dray and driven by its equally ancient master, and he could have walked to London nearly as fast, of course, but he could not sleep while walking.

“The goat?”

“Several of them, actually.  They were bedded down in the hay.  Next to the turnips.”

Carys and Isolde lost the fight, and both of them collapsed in laughter.

“We do have news for you,” said Carys, finally, just as Dabbs returned to tell Lord Davies that his bath was—thank the gods—now ready.

“Umm?” said Talfryn.  His mind was already on his plans for once he was again clean and decently dressed.  He would ride to Roselay immediately, and
insist
on seeing Lady Regina.  ’Twas late in the evening, but even so—

Perhaps he would simply claim to be the young woman’s fiancé, which was true, was it not?

Except that she had not accepted him, whatever the claims of the Earl of Aveline.

“Lady Regina is in Bath,” said Isolde.

For a moment—such is the mind of a man who has slept poorly for most of a week—Lord Davies confused Bath with bath, and had the momentary and invigorating image of that young lady waiting for him upstairs.

“Wh—
what
?”

“Lady Regina is in Bath,” said Carys.  “At the home of her aunt.”

Talfryn made an abrupt return to earth. 

“I see,” he said slowly.  This actually made some sense.  Many individuals of the
ton
swore by the reviving character of the pump room waters.  But why did Lord Knowles not simply say so?

 “Her aunt?” he asked the twins. 

“Lady Sophie Knowles,” said Isolde.  “The earl’s older sister.”

The viscount had never heard Lady Regina mention such an individual.

“And you say she is in Bath to take the waters?” 

“Lady Regina is not ill,” said Carys.

“She never was,” added Isolde.

Chapter 42: An Unexpected Visitor

A sennight passed with my hardly knowing it.  Letters continued to arrive frequently from my aunt, although not from the earl, who had taken a hiatus, it appeared, from warnings and threats.  Aunt Sophie was now traveling through Italy, and one day she included, finally, her return address in Florence, where she was to be staying for an indefinite period of time.

Mrs Sophie Fletcher

Via Sant’ Agostino, 17

Fiorenza

You are a bit tardy, my dear aunt, I thought, staring at the name which, in writing, made her marriage quite real.  Two weeks past I would have had no idea of the identity of this person.  

Perhaps Aunt Sophie assumed that the earl had told me of Benjamin Fletcher.

The household was as fascinated with the descriptions of Italian peninsula as they had ever been of Paris, and readings—and re-readings—of these letters became the evening’s entertainment. 

“Imagine!” said Alice.  “Our Sophie can talk to them just as if they was speaking English!”

Which was true, my aunt having achieved some fluency in Italian after all those trips with her husband.

I was engaged in one such reading—even William and Stephen had remained for my aunt’s description of the
Palazzo Pitti
—when we all heard a heavy knock upon the front door.

William jumped up to answer it, while Janie and Mrs Baxter started an argument over my aunt’s situation in Florence, Janie maintaining that Aunt Sophie really should have brought the entire Bath household with her.

“Don’t be daft, child,” said Mrs Baxter.  “All those days in a carriage with the likes of us?”

“What’s wrong with us?”

“Nothing at all,” was the rejoinder, “but that doesn’t mean you want to spend a week cooped up in a little room with me, any more than I do with you.”

“Little room?  What little room?”

Mrs Baxter sighed.  “The carriage—”

“The carriage ain’t a room!”

I was listening with half an ear to this conversation, and wondering who was at the door.  We did not receive visitors of an evening, usually.  I heard male voices coming from the front hallway, first William’s raised in a question, and then—

Oh, no.  

“Where is she?” I heard.  A deeper voice.

It couldn’t be.

There were quick steps approaching, and William burst into the room.  “Miss Reggie!  There’s some nob here, says what he knows you—”

Stephen stood up, and Janie and Mrs Baxter stopped arguing.  They both looked at me.  Even Mr Elliot, who had been sleeping on the far sofa for hours, stirred slightly.

“Where
is
she?” demanded the voice.

Stephen went to stand with William—it must be a signal that men send to each other—fight impending!—and the two of them looked mulishly out at someone who was just now arriving at the door.

I knew who this person was.  And it sounds, now that I describe it, as if twenty things were happening, and all of them taking time, but in fact it was only a few seconds from “Miss Reggie!” to the Viscount of Cardingham pushing his way into Aunt Sophie’s salon.

Looking for me.

* * * *

I did not curtsey.  The viscount did not bow.  We stared at each other—sparks flew! Janie said later—and then he strode a few steps closer until I, now somehow on my feet, felt the need to back up.

“Hey!” said William.

“Lord Davies!” I said.

“So my sisters are correct and you are not in the least bit ill!” said the viscount.  “Why are you in Bath?  How long have you been here?  And—your aunt—”

He looked around suddenly, as if just remembering that there might be an older lady in the room.

“My aunt is currently residing in Florence,” I told the viscount.  I was utterly amazed at how calm I sounded.  In truth, my heart was beating so hard I thought everyone in the room must be listening to it.

“Florence?  Florence!”

He said no more for several moments, and I had lost the ability to form a coherent thought, much less express it. 

Lord Davies was in Bath.  Lord Davies was in—

Mrs Baxter stood up.  “Come Janie, Alice,” she said.  “Let us go fetch his lordship a spot of tea.”

“But—” said Alice.

“William, Stephen, you are needed as well.  Mr Elliott can remain to attend Regina.”

Mr Elliott turned over on the sofa and began snoring softly.  The rest of the household trooped out of the room—I believe Janie winked at me—and the door swung gently closed.

* * * *

Throughout the remainder of this interview the viscount and I remained standing, facing each other as if to begin a fight. 

“I have ridden,” said Lord Davies, “
all
over Bath, looking for the house of a Lady Sophie Knowles.  Only to discover that this person does not exist!”

He was clearly annoyed, and I found myself returning that favour.  A month or more since we had last met, and this was his choice of complaint?

“My aunt is Mrs Benjamin Fletcher,” I said, adding, “as I only learned myself within the past sennight.” 

He frowned at this.  “That seems a very havey-cavey business.  Where is she?  And where is this Mr Fletcher?”  He glanced down at Mr Elliott.

“Mr Fletcher has passed on.  My aunt, as I said, is in Florence.”

A long pause.  I took in—drank in, one might even say—the look of him, the tall man standing in front of me dressed in a fine charcoal-grey coat, a cravat merely knotted at his throat, his hair disarranged from the journey, and his beautiful, strong hands clenched at his side.

He is exhausted, I realized.  Lord Davies looked thinner than at our last meeting, in London, and his eyes had the deep bruises of someone who has gone without sleep.  Or someone who is quite ill. 

“Are you well?” I asked, unable to stop myself.  I had the sudden thought that he might be sick, that he had come to Bath searching for me, to tell me that our—supposed!—engagement would not occur because he was suffering from . . . something awful, and might be at death’s doorstep before long.

It sounds quite ridiculous now.  But those were my thoughts, and I stepped forward to close the distance between us. 

I put my hand on his arm.  “You are not ill?”  I said, and looked up at him.  I’m sure anyone could read my feelings, they were plain on my face.

I love you.

But the viscount was still irritated.  I discovered later that he had not thought to get an accurate address before he left London—Cassandra knew my aunt’s direction, of course, but not Carys or Isolde—and had been riding around Bath for hours at that point, searching for Lady Sophie Knowles, with whom no-one was familiar.  Lord Davies had begun to think he had gone on another wild goose chase, and ’twas only when he happened across a Mrs Beadle on High Street, who remembered that dear Sophie had a niece living with her—although ’tis Sophie Fletcher, dearie, not Knowles—that he had any idea of my whereabouts.

“Why have you done this?” he exclaimed, and stepped away.  My hand fell to my side.  “Is marriage to me so . . . so unthinkable?”

I was stung into a hasty reply, despite past evidence that I should remain quiet in these circumstances. 

“Unthinkable!” I burst out.  Mr Elliott’s snoring stopped for a second, and started up again.  “Oh, indeed, why should it be unthinkable to marry a gentleman whose only interest is in my status as the daughter of an earl!”

Gods.  I could almost hear Cassie shrieking in my ear—
Reggie, stop talking!

“My only interest—”  He narrowed his eyes.  “
That
is what you think of me?  That I am some preening toadie to the
haut ton
?”

Well, no.  But now, when it was too late, I found myself unable to speak. I took a deep breath, opened my mouth—  Nothing.

“We are not through with this,” said Lord Davies, a statement which confused me.  Through with what?

He turned on his heel and walked out, nearly bowling over Janie and Alice, who attempted an innocent look but who had been, without doubt, listening at the door.  I heard the front door slam a few moments later.

“Tea?” said Alice.

Chapter 43: The High Phaeton

I learned what Lord Davies had meant by ‘not through with this’ only the next day.  After a sleepless night I had finally fallen asleep near dawn, and awoke to Janie shaking my arm.

“Miss Reggie!  He’s here!”

‘He’ was, of course, the viscount, who had arrived at 5, Sydney Place at ten of the morning, an hour which was not unheard of here in Bath.  I would normally have been downstairs for hours.  I sat up and tried to think through a fog of exhaustion. 

He is here. 
Why
is he here?

“Mmm.  Janie, would you tell Lord Davies that it will be a few minutes before I can receive him?”

“I will inform ’is lordship of that circumstance,” said Janie, in her best lady-of-the-manor style.  I would have laughed if I’d had the energy.

* * * *

Lord Davies was making polite conversation with Mrs Baxter when I arrived in the morning room.  She was the only member of the household—with the possible exception of Mr Elliott, one never knew—who seemed entirely unperturbed by the viscount, and was asking him if he found Bath to his liking, chatting amiably as she dusted.

Dusted!  I wondered if anyone had ever done so before, in that gentleman’s presence.  Lord Davies was taking it in stride.

“I’ve not had time to form much of an opinion,” he told Mrs Baxter, “but it seems to be laid out in a pleasant manner.”

“You have not been to the town before, then?”

“No,” he said, “which is odd, really, as our estate is in Cornwall, and I might have taken the chance to visit on any number of occasions.”

“Ah.  I suppose you are more accustomed to traveling by way of Taunton?”

“Indeed.”

I smoothed the skirt of my day-gown for the tenth time and hoped that the pins I had managed to find scattered around my bedroom were adequate to keep my hair in order.  During the past weeks in Bath I had become accustomed to wearing it down and pulled back in a mare’s tail, and I was thinking, now, of how uncomfortable I was, with the pins digging and pulling at my scalp.  At least my gown was presentable, being one of the very few I was able to bring from London, and not even pink.