Otherwise Engaged (4 page)

I
do not think that my reputation can withstand any more gossip,” Amity announced. She set aside the copy of the
Flying Intelligencer
and reached for her coffee cup. “Three weeks have passed since I was attacked and I still find myself in the newspapers every morning. It was bad enough knowing that silly people in Polite Society were amusing themselves with speculation about my association with Mr. Stanbridge.”

“Stanbridge is a very wealthy gentleman from an old, distinguished family,” Penny said. “He is also unmarried. In addition, he was involved in a great scandal several years ago when his fiancée stood him up at the altar. That combination makes his private life a matter of considerable interest in certain circles.”

Amity blinked. “He was left at the altar? You never mentioned that.”

“The young lady ran off with her lover. It’s been a few years now but there was a great deal of speculation about the event at the time.
Everyone wondered why the woman would abandon a gentleman of Stanbridge’s rank and wealth.”

“I see.” Amity gave that information some thought. “Perhaps she got tired of having him disappear on her the way he did on me.”

“Indeed.”

“Yes, well, I knew him as Mr. Stanbridge, an engineer who happened to be traveling in the Caribbean,” Amity said. “He never bothered to mention his finances or his social connections. As I was saying, the gossip about our so-called affair on board the
Northern Star
was certainly annoying, but I had hoped it would dissipate before my book was published. Unfortunately, the lurid reports of my escape from the Bridegroom don’t show any sign of diminishing. They may prove to be the ruin of my career as a travel guide writer.”

“For heaven’s sake, Amity, you were very nearly murdered,” Penny said. She put down her fork, anxiety and alarm shadowing her eyes. “According to the press, you are the only intended victim of that dreadful monster known to have escaped his clutches. You must expect to find your name in the papers. We can only be grateful that you are alive.”

“I am grateful—exceedingly grateful. But I do not enjoy seeing myself pictured on the front covers of the
Illustrated Police News
and the
Graphic
. Both of those magazines portrayed me fleeing from the killer’s carriage dressed only in my nightgown.”

Penny sighed. “Everyone knows those periodicals are prone to exaggerated, melodramatic illustrations.”

“When will it stop?” A sense of foreboding settled on Amity. “I fear that my career as an author of guidebooks for ladies is doomed before my first guidebook even appears. I expect it is only a matter of time before Mr. Galbraith sends word that he has decided not to publish
A Lady’s Guide to Globetrotting
.”

Penny smiled reassuringly from the other side of the breakfast table. “Perhaps Mr. Galbraith will look upon the uproar in the press as good publicity for your travel guide.”

That was Penny for you, Amity thought. Her sister was always a model of grace and serenity, regardless of the disaster at hand. But, then, Penny was a paragon of feminine perfection in all things, including widowhood. Six months ago she had lost her husband after not quite a year of marriage. Amity knew that her sister had been devastated. Nigel had been the love of her life. But Penny concealed her grief behind an air of stoic fortitude.

Fortunately, Penny was riveting in black. But, then, she looked spectacular in virtually any color, Amity thought. Nevertheless, there was no denying that the deep hues of mourning set off Penny’s silver-blond hair, porcelain skin and sky-blue eyes, bestowing upon her an ethereal quality. She could have stepped out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting.

Penny was one of those women who drew every eye in the room—male and female—when she entered. She was not only lovely, she possessed a natural charm and a kind heart that endeared her to all she met. What most people failed to realize, Amity thought, was that beneath all the beauty and fine qualities, Penny was also endowed with a decided talent for investing. The ability had stood her in good stead after Nigel had broken his neck in a riding accident. He had left a fortune to his wife.

Unlike Penny, who took after their mother, Amity was well aware that she owed her own dark hair, hazel eyes and decidedly assertive nose to their father’s side of the family. Unfortunately, the women of the Doncaster bloodline who had the misfortune to be endowed with those particular characteristics had acquired a certain reputation over the years. Tales were still told of the many-times
great-grandmother who had barely escaped hanging as a witch during the 1600s. A century later a spirited aunt had managed to disgrace the family by running off with a highwayman. Then there was the aunt who had vanished on a hot-air balloon ride only to reappear as the mistress of a married earl.

There were other women who had tarnished the Doncaster name over the centuries—and every single one of those who had succeeded in making herself something of a legend had possessed the same witchy coloring and the same nose.

Amity had heard the whispers behind her back from the time she was a young girl. Everyone who knew the Doncaster family history was of the opinion that there was a streak of wild blood in the female line. And while a bit of wildness was often viewed as a positive attribute in males—it certainly tended to make them more interesting to women—it was considered a decided negative in females. At nineteen Amity had learned the hard way not to trust the sort of gentleman who was attracted to her because of her family history.

No one, least of all Amity, understood quite how her disreputable female ancestors had managed to land themselves in so many outrageous situations. Their looks were hardly remarkable—except for the nose, of course. As for their figures, there were limits to what even Penny’s talented dressmaker could do with a shape so lacking in feminine curves that when dressed in masculine attire Amity had been able to pass as a young man on more than one occasion while traveling abroad.

She took a long, fortifying swallow of Mrs. Houston’s strong coffee and put down the cup with some force.

“I don’t think that Mr. Galbraith will consider the kind of publicity I have attracted to be useful when it comes to selling my book,”
she said. “It’s difficult to imagine that people will be induced to purchase a travel guide written for ladies if they discover that the author is in the habit of stumbling into the clutches of terrible killers like the Bridegroom. That incident certainly doesn’t make me look like an expert on how a lady may travel the globe in perfect safety.”

The stack of newspapers and lurid magazines had been waiting for her on the breakfast table when she had walked into the morning room a short time ago, just as they had been every other morning since her escape from the killer’s carriage. Usually there was only one paper on the breakfast table, the
Flying Intelligencer
. But lately Mrs. Houston—a great fan of the lurid penny dreadfuls—had gone out early to collect a wide assortment of morning reading material. As far as Amity had been able to determine, each new report of her encounter with the Bridegroom was more replete with descriptions of blood-curdling thrills and shuddering horror than the previous one.

It was quite astonishing, she thought, that however shocking the newspapers portrayed the kidnapping and her narrow escape, none of them managed to capture the very real, nerve-icing terror she had experienced. In spite of two stout doses of brandy before bed every night since the near disaster, she had not been sleeping well. Her mind was filled with nightmarish images, not only of her own panic and desperate struggles but of horrid imaginings of what the last moments of the other victims must have been like.

This morning—as with every morning for the past three weeks—most of the fear was replaced by a quiet, seething rage. This morning—like the other mornings—she had come down to breakfast, hoping to discover that the newspapers would be filled with assurances that the police had found the body of the Bridegroom. But once again she had been disappointed. Instead, there was a great deal of speculation about his possible fate. Surely the loss of so much
blood would prove deadly, the press insisted. It was only a matter of time before the killer’s corpse was discovered.

Amity was not so certain. In the course of her travels abroad with her father she had sewn up the wounds of a number of people who had been injured by a variety of sharp objects, including shears, razor blades, hunting knives and broken glass. Even a small amount of blood could look like a great quantity if it was splashed around in a spectacular manner. It was true her new walking gown had been ruined by the blood of the Bridegroom, but she did not think that she had struck a death blow.

“You must take a positive attitude toward this situation,” Penny said. “There is nothing the public loves more than a great sensation involving murder and an interesting lady. Your encounter with the Bridegroom certainly meets both requirements. I’m sure that when all is said and done it will inspire sales of your book. Mr. Galbraith is nothing if not pragmatic when it comes to publishing.”

“I can only hope you are correct,” Amity said. “There is no denying that you are far more versed in the ways of Society than I am. You have a knack for navigating awkward situations. I am in your hands.”

Penny surprised her with a knowing look. “You have hiked in the wilderness of the American West and the jungles of the South Seas. You survived a shipwreck and confronted a would-be thief in a San Francisco hotel room. You have ridden a camel and an elephant. To top it off you are now the only woman in London known to have survived an attack by a criminal who has killed three women thus far. Yet you quail at the very thought of having to deal with the social world.”

Amity sighed. “I did not fare well the last time I went into Polite Society, if you will recall.”

“That was a long time ago. You were only nineteen and Mama did not protect you properly. You are much older now and, I’m sure, a good deal wiser.”

Amity winced at the “much older” and felt the heat rise in her cheeks. She knew she was flushing an unbecoming shade of red, but there was no avoiding the fact that at twenty-five she had crossed the boundary that separated marriageable young ladies from the doomed-to-spinsterhood crowd.

The memories of the Nash Debacle, as she privately termed it, always made her cringe. Her broken heart had healed quite nicely but the dent in her pride was permanent. It pained her to acknowledge how naïve she had been. In the wake of the discovery that Humphrey Nash’s intentions were less than honorable, Amity had concluded there was nothing for her in London. The last letter from her father had come from Japan. She had packed her bags and purchased a ticket on a steamship bound for the Far East.

“I am most certainly older now,” she conceded. “But I’m starting to wonder if I am cursed when it comes to London. I have been back for only a month and my name is on everyone’s lips. What are the odds that I would feature in not one but two scandalous situations. Speaking of which, I fear that it is only a matter of time before Mr. Stanbridge learns that his name is being dragged through the gutter press.”

“If and when Mr. Stanbridge discovers that his name has been brought up in connection with an illicit shipboard affair, I’m sure he will understand that it was not your fault,” Penny said.

“I’m not at all certain of that,” Amity said.

Secretly she hoped that he might at least discover that hers was not the only name featured in the newspapers lately. It might even impel him to send a letter or a telegram informing her that he was less than
pleased. A message of any kind would offer her assurance that he was alive and well.

She had heard nothing from Benedict since the
Northern Star
had docked in New York. The following day he had boarded a train to California. To all intents and purposes he had vanished. True, he had said something vague about calling on her when he returned to London, and for a time she had been hopeful that she would someday find him on the doorstep. But a month had passed and there had been no word from him. She did not know whether to be hurt because he had so easily forgotten her or worried that whoever had shot him on St. Clare had tracked him down and made a second—successful—attempt to kill him.

It was Penny who had assured her that if a gentleman of Stanbridge’s rank and wealth had been murdered abroad the papers would be filled with the news. Unfortunately, Amity thought, that bit of logic left her with the depressing realization that while Benedict might feel some degree of gratitude toward her—she had saved his life, after all—he had certainly not developed any feelings of a romantic nature toward her.

In spite of that searing kiss on the promenade deck the night before they had docked in New York.

Night after night she told herself that she must put her foolish dreams back on the shelf. But night after night she found herself thinking of that magical time on board the
Northern Star
. As Benedict recovered from his wound, they had walked together on the promenade deck and played cards in the lounge. In the evenings they sat across from each other at the long table where the first-class passengers dined. They had talked of many things long into the night. She had found Benedict to be a man of wide-ranging interests, but it was when the conversation turned to the newest developments in
engineering and science that his eyes heated with an enthusiasm that bordered on true passion.