My Lord Winter (16 page)

The box next to theirs on the stageward side remained empty. Not until the house lights dimmed and the curtain rose did a gentleman enter it. He took his seat and leaned forward, his features clearly limned against the bright stage lights.

Jane recognized that profile at once: Lord Wintringham! She clutched Lavinia’s arm.

“Are they not horrid?” Lavinia whispered as the three witches appeared amid thunder and lightning.

“Yes... No... Look, it’s him!” Jane pointed and Lavinia gasped.

“My Lord Winter! What shall we do?”

“Wait. I must think.” She had to escape before the lights went up at the end of the first act. Why had she not guessed that he was likely to attend the theatre? He was no wantwit, like some she could name, but a well-read gentleman of superior understanding.

Her mind raced, searching for an excuse to leave. The witches had vanished now, leaving the stage to King Duncan and his nobles, but the gruesome trio would soon reappear. That was her chance, any moment now.

The scene changed.
A blasted heath. Thunder. Enter the three witches.
A horrid sight indeed, withered crones with their hooked noses, beards, and missing teeth, laying their plot against some unfortunate sailor’s wife. Quick, before Macbeth and Banquo made their entrance—

With a moan, Jane jumped up, knocking over her chair, and rushed out to the corridor. She leaned against the wall—on the far side of the door from Lord Wintringham’s box—and drooped, trying to look as if she were about to faint.

Miss Gracechurch and Lord Ryburgh reached her at the same moment. Gracie looked suspicious, his lordship horrified.

“Jane, what is the matter?”

“My dear Lady Jane, pray take my arm. I had not thought...delicate sensibilities...I would not for the world...”

Jane raised her hand. to her forehead. “Just a little faint,” she said weakly. “The heat...” Her voice trailed off as the other three appeared, Lavinia whispering to her sister and Fitz.

Fitz nodded knowingly, his eyes quizzing Jane. “It’s those devilish hags,” he said. “Dashed if they didn’t make me feel a bit queasy. Deuced queer fish, Shakespeare. You never can tell what he’ll come up with next. Didn’t I warn you, Daphne?”

A trifle bewildered, Daphne agreed, while Lavinia vigorously plied her fan at Jane’s face.

“Nonsense,” said Miss Gracechurch, her lips twitching, “it was nothing but the heat and insufficient nourishment. You must not blame yourself, Lord Ryburgh. Jane was foolish enough to allow her excitement at the prospect of seeing Kean in
Macbeth
to spoil her appetite at dinner. She will be better directly she has eaten.”

Lord Ryburgh heaved a sigh of relief. “I ordered a supper at Grillon’s Hotel,” he said. “Daresay it won’t be ready yet but they’ll give us something.”

He tenderly support Jane down the stairs. His and Fitz’s carriages were sent for and they all repaired to Grillon’s. Having dined well not two hours earlier, Jane failed to appreciate the meal hastily provided by the hotel’s French chef. However, she thanked her suitor with earnest gratitude and apologized for spoiling his party.

“Not at all, not at all, my dear,” he assured her. “Just as well we didn’t wait to see Kean. I’ve heard his acting is overpowering. I never did care for the theatre above half.”

After supper, he took Jane and Miss Gracechurch back to St. James’s Place, promised to call in the morning to see how she did, and took his leave.

As Jane closed the door of her sitting-room behind her. Gracie dropped into a chair and demanded, “Well, now, what was that all about?”

“The earl—Lord Wintringham—in the next box. Oh, it was perfectly dreadful!” Jane clasped her hands, pacing up and down in her agitation. “How I wish I had told him who I am the first time we met in Town! He might have understood why I pretended at the Abbey. Now, after misleading him all this time, I do not dare to confess.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

As Edmund descended from his curricle at the Whitehall Stairs, he wondered what had possessed him to agree to take Jane Brooke on the steamboat. It was hardly the most elegant of excursions.

He handed the reins to his groom and stood gazing at the Thames. A stiff breeze made the water’s surface dance and sparkle in the morning sunshine. The river was dotted with barges and wherries, and the steamboat chugged upstream towards him from the Tower, a plume of smoke streaming backwards from its funnel. Definitely not an elegant way to travel!

Edmund wished he could have taken Jane to Drury Lane the other night. She would have enjoyed the well-staged drama, unlike the silly chit in the next box who had, he gathered, been frightened into fits by the Weird Sisters.

Turning to look back towards Whitehall, he dreaded witnessing her arrival in a hackney. He hated to see her in such shabby circumstances. But there she was, walking towards him with a youthful spring in her step and the cheerful smile that invariably raised his spirits. If she wearied of always wearing the same blue pelisse, she did not let it dampen
her
spirits. And why should she, indeed? Silks and satins could add nothing to the beauty of her face, her figure, or above all her character.

He went to meet her.

“I hope we are not late, sir? I would not miss this for the world.”

“Your timing is perfect. The boat will be here in five minutes or so, at a guess. Miss Gracechurch is not with you?”

“Not today. She sent Ella, her maid, to look after me.”

The girl bobbed a curtsy, her round face vaguely familiar; doubtless he had glimpsed her at the Abbey. As they strolled towards the steps, Miss Gracechurch’s absence disturbed him. She had always accompanied Jane before, though of course she could not be expected to dance attendance on her young friend. It was kind of her to have spared so much time herself, and kinder to send her maid.

No, damn it, it was
odd
of her to spare her maid to chaperon a young woman who was no more to her than a friend.

Before he could follow through this thought, they reached the top of the stone steps down to the water. A number of people were waiting there. He noted with curled lip that they were all solid bourgeois citizens, most with wives and children, probably taking a day off from shops and counting houses to avoid the Sunday crowds.

The boat was close now, its paddle-wheels slowing. The shattering screech of a steam whistle momentarily drowned the regular thud of pistons. An eddy in the breeze brought the acrid smell of coal smoke to Edmund’s nostrils.

“Is it not splendid?” Jane exclaimed in delight. “How pleased Mr. Ramsbottom would be with such evidence of British enterprise. I daresay he could explain how it works, too.” She looked up hopefully at Edmund.

He shook his head with a rueful grin. “Not I. If you wish, I shall ask the engineer,” he offered. Through her eyes he saw the steamboat as a bold invention, battling current and ebbing tide, gay with green and yellow paint and gleaming brass railings.

Edmund was not surprised when the group of people parted to allow his party to board first. Without considering the matter, he knew that his dress and his bearing bespoke what they would probably call Quality. He was aware that several of the men were regarding Jane with open admiration, while their wives eyed her unfashionable clothes askance. He ignored them; their opinion of her was unimportant, unlike that of the Ton.

The boat drifted to a halt and a burly fellow, his bare forearms tattooed with snake-entwined anchors, set out a gangplank.

Edmund went first down the time-worn stair, glancing back often to see if Jane needed his assistance. She held her skirts up with one hand, displaying a neat pair of ankles. Despite this distraction he noticed that the last stone step above the gangplank was damp from the high tide. He avoided it, stepping across onto the boards, and half turned to warn Jane.

Too late. Her foot slid and she stumbled forward into his arms. He staggered backwards, clutching her to him. Somehow he managed to stay on the gangplank, but he would have landed flat on his back on the deck with her on top of him had not the big sailor caught and steadied him.

He let go of Jane. Breathlessly straightening her bonnet, she beamed with perfect impartiality upon him and upon the sailor.

“Thank you both so much for saving me. I’d have hated to land in the river. It does not appear to be particularly clean.”

“That it ain’t, miss,” the man agreed with a rumbling laugh, “though ’tis a sight cleaner nor downstream. Watch out, miss!” he called to Ella, who was halfway down.

“Here’s for your trouble,” said Edmund stiffly, giving him a shilling.

He saluted with two fingers to his shallow-crowned hat. “Ta, guv, I’ll drink the lady’s health,” and he winked at Jane.

Vexed, Edmund led the way to a bench he hoped might be sheltered from the smoke, if not from the breeze. Ella joined them, and Jane invited the maid to sit beside her. He fumed as they giggled together over her misstep. Jane seemed to have no notion of keeping a proper distance from menials—he recalled with a shock that she might yet become a governess, little better than a servant.

As if suddenly aware of his silence, she turned towards him. “Oh dear, you are angry. I am very sorry, sir, that I did not take more care on the steps. We could have come to grief, and how mortifying it would be to make a cake of oneself before all these people!”

“If I frown. Miss Brooke, it is not for that reason. I blame myself for not being quicker to warn you of the damp step.”

“Then why are you on your high ropes—I mean, displeased?” She cocked her head enquiringly, looking ridiculously like a dog hoping for a kind word.

“I feel it is unwise to encourage such fellows.” He gestured at the sailor, now making his way towards the engine-room as the paddles started turning again.

“Encourage? All I did was thank him and smile at him.” Jane laughed. “I’d not call that encouraging him to do anything other than rescue clumsy passengers! But if he misunderstood, I rely upon you to protect me, my lord.”

Disarmed, he smiled wryly and directed her attention to the arches of Westminster Bridge, looming ahead.

He enjoyed the rest of the voyage, despite the constant thump of the engine and the occasional whiffs of smoke as the boat followed the river’s meanders. They disembarked at Richmond Bridge and strolled up the hill through the village, past the remains of the Tudor palace. As always, Jane was interested and appreciative. The view of the winding, islanded river and the woods and fields beyond delighted her.

They stopped at a pastry-cook’s for a light luncheon, and then walked on to Richmond Park. Edmund told himself he should have guessed Jane would not be satisfied with a decorous promenade along the gravel paths. Instead, she set off across the rough, buttercup-bestrewn grass to get a closer look at the herd of fallow deer. He watched, amused, as she and Ella cooed over the skittish fawns.

They wandered on through burgeoning woods carpeted with bluebells. Ella’s presence restrained Edmund from voicing a comparison of the flowers with Jane’s eyes. Just as well, perhaps; everything to be said on the subject probably had been set down already by one poet or another, and he had no wish to appear trite.

The steamboat returned them to Whitehall Stairs beneath a stormy sunset that turned the river to a sheet of flame. Edmund’s curricle was waiting, the matched blacks tossing their heads impatiently, but he knew better by now than to offer to take Jane home.

“I don’t believe I have enjoyed a day so since I came to London,” she assured him, her cheeks rosy from the fresh air and exercise. “We shall meet on Thursday at the Panorama, as we arranged?”

“I shall be there without fail.” He bowed over her hand, then turned to his groom and took the reins as she and Ella walked away, chattering. If she turned south towards the slums of Westminster, he didn’t want to see, though her comment about the nearness of the British Museum had suggested that she lived in Bloomsbury.

She must be ashamed of her lodging, wherever it was, or she would tell him where she lived. He couldn’t bear to think of her in a mean tenement, surrounded by dingy buildings and narrow, squalid streets—she who loved the countryside. With luck she would find a position in the country.

She never talked about her search for employment. In fact, neither she nor Miss Gracechurch, nor even Mr. Selwyn, had ever mentioned her need to earn a living. He had only heard of it from Alfred, now he came to think of it, and that was pure speculation. Perhaps she was actually residing with relatives, which would almost be worse since she would then have no hope of leaving the city.

Yet she had never spoken of relatives, either. For all he knew, Miss Gracechurch was her only connection in the world, and she was not related.

A dreadful suspicion struck him. His shock communicated to his cattle and the curricle raced up Haymarket. Fortunately the theatre crowds were not yet about, but Edmund heard his groom draw a swift breath of alarm as they careened around the corner into Piccadilly.

He succeeded in calming his horses, but not his thoughts. Suppose that Jane and Miss Gracechurch actually were related? The only blood relationship that could not be freely acknowledged was that between an unmarried mother and her illegitimate child.

It would explain so much: why so refined and personable a lady as Miss Gracechurch was unmarried; why she was so solicitous of Jane’s welfare. Their features were not alike, but their hair was the same shade and they were both above middle height, with slender figures. He was shaken by a sudden longing to gather Jane’s slenderness into his arms. That ridiculous episode boarding the boat had been all too brief—not that his mind had been on the pleasure of embracing her at the time!

If it were true that she was Miss Gracechurch’s natural daughter, he would swear she knew nothing of it. She was far too open and unaffected not to show it somehow. He must not let his surmise alter in any way his conduct towards either.

After all, he was only guessing, with no more foundation than Alfred had for saying she was to be a governess. He vowed to put the conjecture out of his mind.