Sari Robins - [Andersen Hall Orphanage] (8 page)

“Oh, really?” Mrs. Nagel raised a haughty brow. “I can’t imagine how she’d apply her ‘talents.’” The slander hung in the air like a foul odor.

“Yes, tell me of her new vocation, Dr. Winner,” Prescott rushed in. “I am most intrigued.”

The doctor shot him a grateful glance. “She is helping people with their…” He waved a hand, seemingly at a loss. “Presentation. You know, deportment, fashion and the like.”

“How frivolous.” The matron sniffed. “It’s the inside of a person that matters, not the outside.”

“Very true, Mrs. Nagel.” Prescott nodded. “And in that spirit, Headmaster Dunn would no doubt have invited Miss Figbottom to Andersen Hall by now and learned more of her character.”

Dr. Winner tried to hide his pleased grin by coughing into his fist.

“Aren’t the children studying Shakespeare’s
Hamlet
right now?” Prescott enquired, knowing Mrs. Nagel’s soft spot for the children. “Wouldn’t it be grand to have Miss Figbottom give a performance for the children?”

“Miss Figbottom would make a wonderful Ophelia!” Dr. Winner declared. “And I’ll bet she’d love to do it!” Upon seeing the censorious look on Mrs. Nagel’s face, he added, “The children could certainly use a diversion…”

Crossing her arms, Mrs. Nagel lifted a shoulder. “I suppose it’s something to consider. We can talk about it with Catherine once she returns. Just so long as we keep certain
influences
from tainting Andersen Hall.” Turning her glacial gaze on Prescott, she added, “Speaking of which, I was thinking, Prescott…We’re in need of a new Latin tutor. Would you consider…?”

Prescott choked on his own spit.

Dr. Winner stepped over and patted him on the back. “You all right, my boy?”

Nodding to the doctor, Prescott tried to catch his breath. “You’re jesting, right?”

Mrs. Nagel scowled. “Well, we have to find something productive for you to do!”

“I thank you for your concern. But I’m going to be quite occupied as it is.” Stepping over to the closet,
Prescott removed his hat and set it upon his head. “Why don’t you tell her the good news, Doctor? I’m off to visit my fiancée.”

Smiling, Prescott escaped outside and trotted down the stairs. He could almost hear Mrs. Nagel’s jaw as it hit the floor.

P
rescott strolled up the lane heading toward 183 Girard Street, the address Edwina had given him. As he neared the crimson-painted door denoted “183,” he wondered at the second doorway just a few feet away, also painted red and numbered 183A in gold. The two doors were situated along the same building. Interesting. Did Edwina lease out part of her home? Based upon their conversation yesterday, he doubted that she’d have any issue with capitalizing on such a valuable asset as her property.

It was impressive that Edwina didn’t feel compelled to pretend to disdain trade. In fact, when she spoke of her husband’s business a light lit her dark eyes and excitement infused her voice. Passion. The lady definitely had it, albeit well contained.

Again, Prescott’s mind reeled back to that startling kiss. Anticipation swirled in his middle as he considered
the next opportunity to discover more about Edwina’s passion and his own response to it.

Quickly, he trotted up the stairs to the residence and neared the first crimson door. Before he could knock, horses’ hooves clattered and a carriage rolled to a halt behind him.

Thinking it might be Edwina, Prescott turned. Unfortunately, it wasn’t her coach; there wasn’t a hint of marigold or purple in sight.

Instead, a first-rate, black-and-wood carriage populated by two brown-liveried footmen and a driver sat at the curb. One of the footmen set the steps and opened the door as another held out his hand to assist the passenger from inside.

An ivory-gloved hand grasped the man’s offering and a stout matron with graying brown hair and sharp brown eyes descended from the carriage. She wore a dove gray promenade dress, matching cottage mantle and an extravagant gray bonnet with lacy blond ribbons that bobbed with every step to the street. Her ensemble was completed by the sour expression on her face that could have curdled the milk inside a cow’s udder.

“You there!” The matron’s upper lip twisted. “I know who you are and what you are about! You’ll not get away with your evil designs! Of that, I assure you!”

Upstairs in the society’s library, Edwina tried not to be conspicuous when, for the tenth time in an hour, she stepped over to peer out the open window in the hopes of spotting Prescott.

“Oh, no!” she gasped, pressing her hands to her mouth.

“What is it?” Ginny rushed over, with Janelle and Lucy following close at her hem.

“The dowager…Penelope, Lady Ross…
my mother-in-law
!” Panic and dread rushed through her. She hadn’t seen her mother-in-law in over a year and she chose now of all times, when Prescott Devane was at her door, to call! “I’d best get down there!” Turning, she lifted her skirts and raced from the room.

“I never liked that woman,” Ginny commented, watching as Devane bowed to the dowager and the lady wagged a cane at him as if she were having an epileptic fit. None of the woman’s rant could be heard above the street noise, but there was no doubt that she was on a tirade. “She’s never been particularly kind to Edwina.”

“My sense is that Edwina isn’t necessarily so fond of her mother-in-law, either,” Janelle muttered, stepping to stand beside Ginny and peer down at the street four stories below. “Perhaps she’s the one who started it? A mother being disregarded when a child marries isn’t unheard of.”

Leaning forward for a better view, Ginny shook her head. “Edwina wanted to embrace her mother-in-law, but that woman was…well, I hate to say it but she seemed very small-minded to me.”

“I’m sure having Edwina as a daughter-in-law was no picnic in the park,” Janelle countered, tilting her head and leaning so that her ear was out the window. “She can be such a crosspatch. And that habit of always wanting attention can be quite trying.” She scowled. “I wish I could hear what they’re saying, but those wretched carriages traveling down the street are making too much noise.”

Janelle looked over Ginny’s head and met Lucy’s gaze. “I read somewhere that people who lose the use of one of their senses may have another sense enhanced. Can you hear what’s being said?”

Lucy rolled her eyes, and then stuck her face out the window for a better view.

Glaring at Janelle, Ginny scolded, “If Lucy could have heard, she would have told us.”

“How?” Janelle retorted. “By writing a note?”

Ginny straightened. “You can be so infuriating sometimes.”

Shrugging, Janelle peered down at the street.

“Lord. I didn’t think you could see spittle flying from so high up,” Janelle commented. “And the dowager’s screeching reminds me of a cat whose tail got slammed in a door.”

“This is bad, isn’t it?” Ginny bit her lip. “What do you think is troubling her?”

“Oh, probably the fact that Devane is a gold-digging, covetous snake. Although she should save the scolding for her unruly daughter-in-law, who started this whole mess.”

“But how could she know about the engagement? No one knows…” Ginny’s eyes widened. “Janelle, you didn’t!”

“She was bound to learn of it sooner or later. At least this way she heard it before anyone else.”

“That note you sent! It was to the dowager, Edwina’s mother-in-law, telling her about the engagement! Edwina’s going to kill you.”

Grasping Ginny’s sleeve, Lucy pointed out the window.

Ginny turned.

Edwina raced down the stairs of the society, bonnetless, gloveless and without even so much as a shawl.

Janelle smirked. “Edwina can hardly kill me if she’s slaughtered first.”

Boldly, Edwina stepped between the dowager and Devane.

“As if to protect him,” Janelle commented. “How droll.”

Ginny wrung her hands, uncertain of what to do. She’d heard stories about the dowager that were enough to make one set sail for France. Still, it was Edwina. “Should we go lend our support?”

“Nay,” Janelle squinted down at the scene. “It’s a family squabble, and I think Edwina’s doing well enough handling it on her…Ouch!” Janelle winced. “That had to hurt.”

Ginny gasped. “I can’t believe she struck Edwina! The dragon! I’m going down there!” Turning, Ginny hurried from the room as fast as her arthritic hip would take her.

Tapping Janelle’s arm, Lucy pointed out a footman’s carrot-topped head poking out from an under-stair entry, and farther down the street an elderly couple who stood blatantly staring at the scene.

Janelle made a face. “Leave it to Edwina to cause a scene.”

Lucy motioned that they should go down to the street.

“Fine. Fine. She makes a mess and we’re left to clean it up. Very well, if we must.”

Prescott wrapped his arm around Edwina’s shoulders and stepped between her and the dowager. Turning to
the dowager’s footmen, he ordered, “Gather your mistress and leave. Now!”

“I’m not finished with you!” the dowager hissed, brandishing her cane.

“But we’re finished with you.” Ignoring the ranting harpy, Prescott herded Edwina up the stairs to the red door marked 183 just as the butler opened the entry and stepped aside.

Edwina was shaking, her body clenched tightly. She hadn’t said a word since the slap, reasonable since she was probably shocked that her mother-in-law could do such a thing. Prescott, on the other hand, wasn’t surprised. The dowager was one of those people who would do anything under the rationalization that she was the one who’d been wronged first.

“Close and lock the door,” Prescott ordered the grim-faced butler dressed in a purple uniform with marigold lapels. The man immediately complied, slipping the bolt with a firm hand. The butler quickly stepped through an inner door into an adjacent vestibule and locked that door as well.

Two vestibules side by side with a connecting door in between? Distantly Prescott wondered at it, but he had more pressing matters to attend to.

“How…?” Edwina bit out. “How can you manage to remain so calm when someone is so…
vile
to you?”

“I use my mask.”

“Mask?”

“The world only sees the façade that I choose to show them.”

“And behind it?”

“Is my own business.”

A gray-haired, rosy-cheeked matron limped into the
foyer. “Are you all right, dear? I saw the whole thing! I hate that wretched woman, Edwina! I swear I hate her!”

Edwina blinked, and her face softened. “Ginny.”

Ginny’s pale blue eyes were filled with anxiety and her face lined with worry. She rushed to Edwina’s side. “I’ll set the dogs on her,” she jested, her voice pitched with anxiety. “Have her tarred and feathered.”

Edwina clenched the other woman’s hand. “She’s going to write to my father. Insist that he make haste to London.”

“You’re the one always telling me that we’ll figure out a way to deal with obstacles,” Ginny urged. “We’ll get through this.”

A storklike matron with graying blond curls and greenish blue eyes glided into the room. “What are you complaining about now?”

Edwina stiffened and her lips pinched.

From behind the tall lady came a sable-haired, ivory-faced young woman. If the black bombazine wasn’t indicator enough of her widowhood, there was an aged sadness in her doelike eyes, reminiscent of a Renaissance Madonna.

“You’re the one who wanted the Earl of Wootton-Barrett to find out.” The storklike matron’s tone was smug. “Only you were foolish to believe that he would simply learn of your engagement after the fact.”

“Let us save this discussion for upstairs, Janelle,” Edwina bit out.

“Why?” Smiling, the lady named Janelle opened her hands wide. “You usually love making an exhibit of yourself.”

Edwina’s hands curled into fists.

Hoping to lower the heat on this boiling confrontation, Prescott bowed to the ladies. “I don’t know that we’ve had the pleasure of an introduction—”

Lifting her chin in the air, Janelle turned aside. “I do not condescend to recognize your acquaintance.”

“Janelle!” Ginny’s eyes widened.

The sable-haired widow silently rested a gloved hand on Janelle’s arm but the matron shook her off. “I will have my say and do what’s right, Lucy. Edwina has no sense of reason about this matter, but I, thank the heavens, do.”

“You promised, Janelle!” Ginny exclaimed.

“And I had grave reservations about doing so. I’m sorry, but I cannot keep my word and sit by while Edwina brings wrack and ruin upon us all.”

“She’s doing nothing of the sort!” Ginny wrung her hands. “Just the opposite in fact—”

“You’re too generous when it comes to Edwina and can’t see that she’s too immature to make sensible decisions.”

“Watch what you say, Janelle,” Edwina warned, her tone almost as taut as the muscles in her back. “I may be younger than you but that doesn’t mean I am any less rational. Nor does it mean that you can treat me with disregard.”

“Please don’t argue, you two,” Ginny cried, clasping her hands before her in entreaty. “Why don’t we all go upstairs to the library and have a nice cup of tea?”

“I’ll not have that man inside our society!” Janelle shook her fist. “It’s unacceptable! And if Edwina was any kind of president, she would feel the same!”

President? Society? So the dowager’s rant outside wasn’t completely senseless.

Edwina eyed her meaningfully. “You are aware of Mr. Devane’s role and why his presence here is—”

“Simply unacceptable!” Janelle raised a finger. “Your entire plan is a debacle! It was only my benevolent nature that kept me from challenging you more stridently.”

“Benevolent nature!” Edwina sputtered.

“But haven’t you learned anything from your little tête-à-tête with your mother-in-law outside?”

“All I learned was that someone blabbed the news,” Edwina bit out, her dark eyes flashing. “And not in the way we’d planned for or intended.”

Stepping forward, Janelle loomed over Edwina and glared down with a self-satisfied glint in her catlike greenish blue eyes. “Your oh-so-marvelous plan called for people to know. Now they do. Don’t grouse about it now.”

Slowly, Edwina lifted her chin. “That aside, you cannot stop me from welcoming Mr. Devane into my home.”

Janelle’s eyes narrowed. “I always considered it ill conceived to house the society in your residence. Now I know why.”

Ignoring the woman, Edwina turned to Prescott and quickly grasped his arm. “If you would please join me upstairs, Mr. Devane?”

For a moment, Prescott wondered how to proceed. The sable-haired doe named Lucy bit her lip and unhappiness filled her gaze. Ginny was wringing her hands before her as anxiety lined her brow. The poor lady seemed to be on the brink of tears.

Janelle looked ready to spit sixpence and Edwina was wound tighter than whipcord. Yet, somehow, de
spite the acrimony, or perhaps because of it and the great familiarity it evidenced, Prescott had no doubt that these ladies cared deeply for each other.

Still, he didn’t know them and this was not his problem.

Accepting Edwina’s hand on his arm, he nodded.

“I will have you removed as the society’s president!” Janelle shrieked. “I will see the society itself moved from this residence! Your little scheme will bring ruin down upon us.” Squaring her shoulders, the matron blocked their way. “And I will die before letting that happen!”