Elizabeth Boyle (83 page)

William had his ship! It must mean that. They’d gone down to the pool to see his new ship and now were back to tell her the good news.

But as she drew closer to the room, she realized the odor overpowering the subtler scent of beeswax was not just the sea but something more odious.

She frowned and looked down at Baxter. Oh, she shouldn’t have fed him those kippers this morning— he’d had another one of his accidents.

Steeling herself against embarrassment, she entered the parlor with her sunniest expression pasted to her face.

“My dear Lord Admiral, what a delight it is to—” Her voice fell to a staggering halt as she discovered the true source of the stench in her home.

With a quick glance she noted William standing sheepishly by the fireplace. At the other end of the mantel stood the Lord Admiral, his posture as straight and sure as it had been thirty years earlier when he and William had been young hot-blooded captains in their sharply pressed and starched uniforms.

But it was the bundle of rags perched on her best chair that stopped her in her tracks.

Though dressed in the rough clothes of a seaman, the ragtag person before her was most definitely a woman, though what age and what she looked like was hard to tell. It was her eyes, like the aquamarine ring Lady Mary’s grandmother had given her, that gave her away. And there were her lashes, too long and full to belong to anyone other than a woman. But the comparison to her fair sex stopped there, for the little baggage appeared to have been dipped in filth and deposited into their parlor without any thought for the carpet or the furnishings—threadbare though they were.

“What is the meaning of this?” Mary demanded, directing her comment at the Lord Admiral, knowing full well this was his doing, for William would never think of bringing such a person anywhere near their home.

“My lady,” he began, clearing his throat and shuffling about much as he had the first time he and William had called at her father’s house all those years ago. He shook his head and continued, “Mary, I need your help with this girl.” Mary’s eyes must have grown wide with alarm as the scandalous implication of his request hit her. All too quickly, he started sputtering, “No, it’s not like you think . . . she’s not . . . it’s just that she’s critical to the Admiralty, and we need her to…”

Baxter let out a small, threatening growl.

The girl ignored the dog. “What this mackerel-mouthed fool is trying to tell ye, milady,” she said with an insolent shrug toward the Lord Admiral, “is that ‘e wants you to make me into a lady.”

Mary’s mouth dropped open, and she looked to her husband for confirmation at this outlandish proposal.

William nodded mutely.

“A lady?” she managed to whisper, before she sank into the closest chair. Her gaze fluttered up to William’s flushed face.

The Lord Admiral knelt before her. “Mary, it’s been a long time since I’ve asked anything of you, but on this we need your help. This woman has the power to identify a heinous criminal who has taken refuge amidst the
ton
. With your help and your sensibility, she could make a brief entrance into society and complete her work. I wouldn’t ask this of you if there wasn’t so much at stake.”

“Certainly you must be joking?” Mary’s gaze returned to their other guest, who sat with one leg propped up on the arm of the chair and her arms crossed over her chest. She turned back to the Lord Admiral. “Why don’t you take her to your house? Priscilla has a much better chance of launching her than I ever would. You know I’ve been out of society for years now.”

“My dear cousin hasn’t your . . . your nerve, Mary. Besides, this venture requires delicate handling,” he said, leaving out what Mary knew to be the truth of the matter—Priscilla would never keep her mouth shut or allow such an obvious piece of baggage into their stately Pall Mall house. There was also the other reason—the Lord Admiral’s daughter and only child, Eustacia, was making her entrance this Season.

The last thing the widowed Lord Admiral would want was to have anything mar his precious daughter’s entrance and acceptance by the
crème de la crème
.

The Lord Admiral rose and cleared his throat. “I think it would be more convincing if you were to present her as a long-lost cousin perhaps or a godchild in need of sponsorship. Few would doubt your kindness or your veracity.”

Mary wasn’t all that convinced. “Surely you aren’t asking us to take her in? To have her live with us?” This she directed at her husband.

William shrugged, obviously still unable to speak.

That wasn’t the case with their other guest.

“This is a cracker idea if ever there was one.” The woman got up, and Mary was loath to even look at the damage done to the needlepoint cushions. “There ain’t no way none of the quality is going to take me for a lady, and I don’t think I cotton to spending time with the likes of those blokes either.” She crossed the room and held out her grimy paw for Mary.

To Mary’s utter shock, manacles hung from the girl’s narrow wrists, bound together with a short chain.

A criminal? This girl was a criminal?

Too stunned to even consider what she was doing, Mary took the proffered hand, her eyes riveted on the sturdy iron links.

Calluses closed around her own manicured fingers, and the woman pumped her arm enthusiastically, while the chains rattled their own grim tune.

“Sorry for bothering you, milady. They thought you could help me and that I could help them in turn. I can see from your face, this is a bleedin’ crazy idea. Me a lady!” The girl laughed, a bitter little sound, as if being a lady was akin to getting to heaven.

Up close Mary could discern the girl’s features, which before had been hidden under an ugly striped stocking cap and mop of dark hair. There was structure there and perhaps even a dash of nobility behind the sunburn and freckles spattered across what might be a fair complexion.

“Take me back to the gallows, milord. I’ll hang for my deeds, as I should.” The girl sighed and braved a smile for Mary’s benefit—and a poor smile it was.

There Mary saw it—hope, resignation, and a sisterhood of suffering. All of it passed between them in those few fractured seconds.

Mary had known all those feelings. Hope that her marriage to William would be successful, resignation at the loss of their only child—stillborn while William had been away at sea—and the slow suffering through the years of poverty.

And something else lurched through her heart, reopening a long withheld instinct. Why, this poor girl was obviously motherless! She could only wonder what indignities and shameful dealings the poor thing had had to endure out there, out in the world of rough and ill-mannered men.

Having dropped the girl’s hand and retrieved her handkerchief to stave off the foul odor that had only grown more intense with her proximity, Mary found she now needed it to dot at the tears coming to her eyes.

“The gallows? Hanging? What is this creature talking about?” She looked accusingly at her husband.

William shuffled his feet. “This here is Captain Maureen Hawthorne, Mary.”

Hawthorne
? Mary’s gaze swung back to the girl before her.

It couldn’t be. She stared into the eyes that had held her attention before and now saw why they looked so familiar. The girl had her father’s eyes and coloring.

William continued, drawing her attention and shock away from the creature before her. “She was convicted of smuggling this afternoon in Porter’s court. His lordship has agreed to grant her a pardon in exchange for the information she can provide. But if you don’t think she’ll make a fitting lady, at least one that you can pass off for a night or two, then she’s scheduled to hang in the morning.”

W
hen Julien D’Artiers entered a London function, every matchmaking mother in the room found herself at sixes and sevens as to what she should do. Their matronly hearts told them to shield their daughters from his roguish attentions. However, the mercenary desire to see their precious darlings married to a rich man nearly always left them pushing their awkward little debutantes into his rakish path.

Tonight at Almack’s it was no different.

He entered the sacred rooms, his cynical gaze roaming the room as if in search of likely sport. The sought after acknowledgment passed over the most eligible young misses, both pretty and rich, as if they were just another lot of overpriced cattle at Tattersall’s.

With haughty disdain he made his entrance, as if he’d just have to make do with tonight’s selection.

How he’d secured vouchers to these hallowed halls was a wonder, but then again, his charm and wealth seemed to open doors wherever he went, despite the sordid tales trailing in his wake.

One of the matrons turned to another and whispered the latest of these
on dits
: Julien’s last mistress had thrown herself into the Thames in despair over his philandering ways!

The other woman nodded. Everyone had heard the story, though it wasn’t quite the Haymarket tragedy some were making it out to be.

The silly chit, an actress of some repute, had been fished out of the filthy water by a passing ferryman, not moments after her ridiculous stunt. And she hadn’t been foolish enough to wear any of the expensive jewels Julien had showered upon her.

But still, the first woman insisted, to drive a woman to such lengths, the man was a monster in the very least.

Albeit a very rich one.

That was the other element of mystery about Julien D’Artiers: Where had he acquired his seemingly unlimited wealth?

And such wealth. He’d been known to stake an entire room of players at White’s. He’d also been known to be generous to the Society for the Betterment of Girls in Need, a sign that he was neither pernicious with his funds nor unfeeling toward those in dire circumstances.

“Of course,” as the well-to-do matron put it, as she shied her daughter out of his path and out of earshot, “he wouldn’t have given so generously to the Society if his conscience didn’t prick him so roundly over all the girls he’s ruined.”

Julien, on the other hand, always found the reshuffling of the room as he entered a party a true testament to his hard-won reputation. It didn’t take him long to spy his latest prey, preening behind her fan, while her straight-backed chaperone looked more than undecided about his attentions.

He didn’t worry about the other woman’s opinion. Her spoiled charge was used to getting what she wanted, and there was no doubt she wanted Julien.

And he wanted her.

Though not for the reasons the coddled little baggage thought.

To his dismay, as he started to make his meandering foray to the chit’s side, his sisters bore down on him, in tandem and with matching expressions of grim determination on their faces.

Only too late, Julien realized it might have been wiser to go to White’s, rather than spend the evening at Almack’s.

But business was business, and Almack’s was where his quarry was, fluttering her fan and glancing at him with hopeful eyes.

He turned to conceal his presence, but it was too late. Lily and Sophia were on either side of him, their arms linked to his and their firm grips confirming something he’d learned long ago.

His sisters were a force to be reckoned with.

“What is this nonsense about some actress?” Lily demanded, referring to his heartbroken and Thames-soaked mistress. Before he could draw a breath to answer and explain that he’d had nothing to do with the bird-witted creature’s theatrics, his eldest sister, Sophia, launched in.

“Julien, why is it that every day I find yet another irate father in my drawing room demanding the family make amends for the disgraceful way you’ve treated his daughter?”

He would have preferred to ignore them both, but he owed some measure of his acceptance in the London
ton
to their high standings. Few dared snub the brother of the enchanting Sophia, Marchioness of Trahern, or the lovely Lily, Viscountess of Weston, and risk losing their much coveted positions within the sisters’ gracious and prestigious social orbit.

Right now, however, Julien wished he were an only child.

Sophia steered him toward the punch bowl, where the crowds were lighter. “I’ll not be put off, Julien. I’ll have the truth from you.”

“The truth?” He laughed heartily “As if either of you knows how to tell the truth.”

They both shot him censorious glances until he broke out laughing at their outrage. “You’ve become quite the pair of virtuous paragons, haven’t you?”

“I quite resent that, Julien,” Lily said. “Sophia and I may not always have been honest in the past, but we have positions now, families and reputations to consider. Things you seem to care little about.”

Julien shook off her words. She was right. He didn’t worry about those things. Yes, he loved his sisters and his nieces and nephews, but a family, a family of his own? That was too far removed from his life to even consider.

No, the ties that bound his sisters’ hearts would never entangle his.

Still, her words rattled around inside him. In the spot, he supposed, where he was rumored to be heartless.

He nodded to the servant behind the bowl and then handed glasses of punch to his sisters. “You are both right. I’m a cad, a reckless scoundrel. The fact that either of you still acknowledges me is a veritable wonder.”

Sophia wrinkled her nose over the lukewarm brew. “Don’t even try your oiled charms on me. I won’t be put off any longer, Julien. Why do you persist in these antics? It’s scandalous. Why can’t you be like most men your age, married and happily settled?”

“
My age
?” Julien shook his head. “You make it sound as if I have one foot in the grave.”

“You may find more than just one foot in a grave if you don’t stop dallying with every miss, mistress, and matron from Edinburgh to Penzance,” Lily told him.

“Penzance?” he said. “I don’t recall ever going to Penzance.”

Both his sisters looked ready to explode, when his unlikely rescue came in the form of Lady Jersey, one of Almack’s illustrious patronesses.