Miss Westlake's Windfall (17 page)

“For being such a Trojan with the children. For not throwing spasms. For being the most beautiful woman I know.”

Ada sighed. He was right. To hell with the money.

Chapter Eighteen

“Don’t expect my maid to share a room with any flea-ridden foundling,” Jane predictably squawked. “Hapgood will give her notice and I will he alone in this lunatic asylum, right when I need to look my best.” She waved the invitation to Lady Ashmead’s masquerade under Ada’s nose, as if Ada did not recognize her own handwriting. “Who knows who might be attending?”

Ada and Chas both had a fairly good idea of the guest list, but neither bothered answering, trying to reassure the children that, yes, they were welcome here and, no, the mean lady could not turn them into toads.

Tess and Leo returned from her studio then, and Ada could not convince herself that Tess’s reddened lips must have paint on them. The sooner she established little Sarah as Tess’s watchdog the better. When she explained about the conditions at the orphanage, and her plans to train these children for respectable careers in service, Tess was thrilled, especially with Sarah and her brother Robin and their bright red hair. “Sea sprites! That’s just what the illustrations have been missing! Can any of you darlings sing?”

All four of the children hesitantly raised their hands, and Tess clapped hers. “This is the best, the very best birthday present you could have brought me, Ada.” She kissed Ada and Chas, then Leo, then all four of the children in turn, then Leo again.

Chas cleared his throat, but it was Ada who said, “Your birthday is not until April, Tess.”

Tess fluttered a paint-smeared cloth. “You really must endeavor to nurture your spirit of creativity, dearest. We’ll work on that another time. For now, let us get these cherubs settled. Sarah can have the pallet in my dressing room, where she won’t have to put up with hoity-toity Hapgood.”

The children were smiling again, already adoring the whimsical Miss Westlake. Miss Tess could not compare in their estimation to Miss Ada, of course, but she seemed a right ‘un, putting the shrill-voiced lady in her place.

Robin and one of the other boys were to have a room together below stairs near the kitchen, where Cobble and his wife could keep an eye on them. The room was not very large, but the boys considered it a stroke of good fortune that only two of them had to share the bed.

The third boy wanted to share the unused groom’s quarters above the stables with George, if he could henceforth be known as Garden Martin, since he’d never had two names before. Martin liked horses, he liked yard work, mostly he liked Garden George’s stories and his prowess with an ax.

“That’s settled then,” Ada was happy to note as the children followed Mrs. Cobble to the kitchens for a tour and a snack. Jane was already resigned to the new additions, since she would not have to deal with them, and they were not taking money out of the Westlake coffers. She did wonder aloud if pageboys were still in fashion, and if she could get nip-farthing Ada to purchase livery for them. “No,” Ada told her. “and no to you too, Algernon.” She could not like the way Algie had been eyeing young Sarah, licking his thin lips. “If you so much as look at her sideways, I will have you gelded like a bull calf, see if I don’t.”

His eyes widened, but he instantly took them off Sarah. “You cannot do that, Ada. Tell her she can’t, Cousin Jane. Pater?”

His father harumphed. Filbert wouldn’t put anything past the farouche female. “Nonsense, my boy. Come along, I promised you a game of billiards, didn’t I? Care to join us, Ashmead?”

Chas noted that Johnstone hadn’t invited Leo Tobin to play. “No, I still have much to do this day, between the foundling home and the house party and the usual estate business.” And the scheduled smuggling run. If Prelieu was ever going to make it to England, tonight was the night. “I’ll be taking my leave, then. Did you still want me to take that parcel for you, Ada?”

Chas directed the hint toward Jane, who would have the whereabouts of Ada’s windfall broadcast throughout the neighborhood by morning. No one would be battening on her after that, no one but her own usual dirty dish connections.

Ada, however, made sure she passed the money pouch over to Chas while Filbert Johnstone and his son were still in the room. She did not trust those two as far as she could throw them. Since she could not throw them out of Westlake Hall, the money was safer in the vault at the Meadows.

It was Filbert’s turn to lick his lips while he watched the fortune change hands, and Jane pounded at the pillow on the sofa in her disappointment, dislodging the all-important invitation and some other papers in her lap.

“Oh, by the way, something came for you in the post this morning, Ada. I didn’t recognize the hand. Likely another dunning letter.”

Ada supposed she should be pleased Jane hadn’t tossed her correspondence away. As she took the folded sheet and noted the quality of the paper, the unknown handwriting, the unfamiliar seal, she agreed it could only have come from another gambling associate of Rodney’s, demanding payment on her brother’s vowels. Ada almost wished Jane had thrown the infernal thing out.

“It’s from Lieutenant Brookstone, Emery’s friend. Oh, dear Lord, no!”

Chas was at her side in an instant, guiding her to a chair. “It cannot be that bad, Ada, for the letter would have come from his commanding officer, by messenger.”

“No, you are right,” Ada said, reading on. “Emery was wounded, the lieutenant writes. He is in the field hospital, and he may lose his arm.” She was only vaguely aware that Tess had gasped and leaned into Leo’s embrace for comfort, or that Chas had his arm around her own shoulders. With streaming eyes, she turned to him and cried, “Good heavens, those Army surgeons are butchers! And the conditions are so bad, an injured soldier is more likely to die of fever than of the wound.”

“If Emery dies and we have to go into mourning again, I will never, ever forgive him,” Jane declared, waving Lady Ashmead’s invitation in the air. Everyone ignored her.

Chas took the letter out of Ada’s hands and continued reading. “See here, the lieutenant says that Emery has not developed any undue fevers or swellings, so he remains hopeful. In fact, he writes, they are putting Emery on a troop ship for home.”

“Thank God.” Ada found a handkerchief in her hands, a beautifully embroidered one. “And thank you, Chas. I don’t think I could have borne it if...”

Chas was reading the closing paragraph. “Unless there is a change in plans, he will be aboard the
Speculation,
arriving at Portsmouth in”—he checked the date at the top of the lieutenant’s letter—“in less than a week from tomorrow.”

“Portsmouth? That’s at the opposite end of the kingdom!”

“Yes, but it is the naval station. Likely they are using a damaged ship to transport the wounded troops, so they put in at Portsmouth for repairs.”

“But it is so far away.” Ada was thinking of the carriages she would have to hire, all the nights at inns, the days before she reached her brother’s side and could bring him home. The expense. She took the leather purse back from the viscount.

“Not so far,” he said, calculating. “I will have Emery home before my mother’s masquerade.”

“You?”

“Of course. I can ride cross country, much faster than you could manage, even traveling post. I can hire coaches when I get there, and bring him back in comfort, in company of a physician, if needed.”

“But ... but your guests. You cannot leave when you are expected to play host to your mother’s house party. Lady Esther ...”

“Might be the reason he is so eager to leave.” Tess took the letter from Chas to see if she could read more about Emery’s condition from his friend’s wording.

Ada nearly blushed for her sister’s outspokenness, although secretly agreeing. “Your mother will have conniptions. Besides, you are needed here to set up the trust for the orphanage we discussed, and to deal with the Kirkendals if they are found.”

“Gammon. Mother will fuss no matter what, and my solicitor can handle everything else
—
”

“No need,” Leo interrupted. “I’ll go.”

All eyes turned to the usually untalkative smuggler, who was no member of the family, no old friend, not even a fellow gentleman. Jane’s uncle made a rude noise, but he did not offer to go fetch Emery instead.

Leo straightened his waistcoat, a white one today, with gold threads through it. “I can make better time than any of you, sailing around. My new sloop can outrun any—That is, I’ll be back in jig time. If I miss the masquerade, Lady Ashmead won’t be brokenhearted, not by half.”

“It might answer,” Chas conceded. “With the autumn rains, making fast time on the roads might be difficult.”

“What about the seas and bad weather, though?” Ada asked, picturing poor Emery wet and cold, tossed from side to side.

“Don’t be a goose,” Tess told her. “It’s a ship, not a rowboat.”

“Aye, and a sturdy one. And my first mate knows more about doctoring than any Army sawbones, if your brother takes a turn for the worse.”

Tess nodded. “The worst thing for Emery would be a long ride in a drafty carriage over bumpy roads, with stays at indifferent inns at night, and who knows what for meals. I have seen the appointments of Leo’s Challenger, and Emery will be comfortable, however long it takes. Besides, I will be along to nurse him.”

Jane gasped and Ada shook her head. “I’m sorry, dear, for I would like to go along too, but you must see it wouldn’t be at all the thing. Not even if you took young Sarah with you. Not aboard a smuggler’s—that is, a shipper’s—private boat.”

“I do not see that at all. My brother needs me, so I am going.”

“The devil you will, miss,” Leo said.

Chas more gently added, “The last thing a sick man wants is a female fussing over him. Emery is a soldier, used to rough conditions. You are not.”

Trying to make Tess see reason, however, was like asking the eyes of a potato to read a book. She raised her chin. “Emery does not know Leo. Our brother will want a familiar face near him.”

“I always said she was beyond hope,” Jane told the room at large, starting to blubber. “But this is beyond the pale. She’ll bring scandal down on all of us this time, I just know it.”

Algernon snickered.

Ada stood up for her sister, as always, frowning at both of them. “What you know, Jane, would not fill a thimble.”

“Here now, no call to be talking to m’niece that way, Ada. Lady Westlake, and all that. Old enough to know what’s best, what?”

Everyone glared at him, especially Jane, for the reference to her age.

Leo’d had enough of words. He was a man of action, used to making decisions, used to being obeyed. He was not used to pitched battles in drawing rooms, so he took Tess’s hand and dragged her out of the room, down the hall to the breakfast parlor, where he slammed the door behind them.

“Well!” Jane said in a huff. “I see his manners are just as execrable as Tess’s. They deserve each other.”

Ada looked at Chas and smiled, despite her anxiety over Emery and Tess’s reputation. “Yes, I think they just might.”

* * * *

“You are not going aboard my ship, lass, and that is final. I will not have you destroying your good name.”

Tess was pacing the length of the room, her skirts swirling around her legs. “My good name? Hah! I will never be anything but the mad Miss Westlake. I may as well enjoy the notoriety.”

Leo grabbed her arm and stopped her, making Tess face him. “Do you know what you are saying? Do you have any idea what will happen on that ship?”

“Do you? I am asking to be your mistress, you great gossoon.”

“No.”

“What, I am not good enough for the position?” Tess tried to pull away. “You’d rather have a tavern wench? You did not seem so reluctant in my studio earlier.”

“No.”

“No, you aren’t reluctant, or no, I am not good enough?”

“No, I will not take you to bed without taking you to wife.”

“Now who is being daft?” Tess pulled back again, but Leo held her in an iron grip. “You can have my company without donning leg shackles.”

“No, I cannot. I would not dishonor you, or my sons, by letting them be born as bastards the way I was.”

“There are ways of preventing children, I have read all about them. You do not want to marry me.”

“No?”

“Of course not. The notion is ridiculous.”

“I have wanted nothing else since I set eyes on you, lass.”

“Spanish coin if ever I heard it. You can have any woman you want. Oh, not some high in the instep belle like Jane, but you wouldn’t want her anyway. Just look at you though, so tall and handsome, such a success by your own efforts.” Against her will, it seemed, Tess’s hand stroked the gold threads of his waistcoat. “What have I got? A half-finished, half-baked opera. I have nothing to offer a man like you.”

“No? You have your beautiful self, your talent, your imagination. If I could soar half as high as you I would be content. I think I can, in your arms and in your affection.”

“What a lovely thing to say. If I had my pad and pencil, I would write it into the second act.”

“You see, you’ve turned this old salt into a poet already. That’s what I need from you, Miss Westlake, your hand and your heart.”

‘Truly? You really want to marry me? I cannot think of anything I would like more, not even seeing Sebastian published, for I do love you, Mr. Tobin.”

Once again, Leo’d had a surfeit of words. He took Tess in his arms and proved how precious she was to him.

Some time later, Tess suggested they get a special license, so she could go along with him to Portsmouth.

“There’s no time, lass. I intend to be off at dawn, for I wouldn’t leave a dog in an Army hospital longer than I had to. I want to do the thing right, too, so we have nothing to be ashamed about later. I will fetch your brother home and ask his blessing. If he cannot accept a common man, a base-born sailor, as fitting husband for you, then I will sail you away to Scotland.”

“Is that a promise?”

“Aye.”

“You won’t change your mind?”