The Chocolate Debutante (13 page)

Jack surveyed her. He knew she was probably a virgin. He could get a high price for her. But there was something about her beauty and fragility that tugged at a part of his memory. There had been a seamstress once when he was a child who had ended up in the Rookeries under the protection of a brutal man. She had been kind to young Jack. She had had a sweet smile and pretty, fair curls. Her protector had beaten her to death, but she had remained somewhere in Jack’s memory as the only person who had ever shown him any kindness.

But the words that came out of his own mouth surprised him. He found himself saying, “Drink up and I’ll take you home. But we’ll wait until the streets are quiet.”

The Bow Street Runners had been called out to search for Susan, and the parish constabulary and the watch.

Harriet sat by the drawing room window while behind her Lord Dangerfield paced the drawing room. Charles Courtney was crying quietly, but Harriet was beyond crying. She was sick with worry and becoming convinced that she would never see Susan again.

Not once did Lord Dangerfield think that his former mistress might be behind such a plot. He had questioned and questioned Courtney as to who could have known of the engagement so soon, who would wish to stop his marriage. He had visited Sir Thomas Jeynes and threatened him, but the surprise and amazement on that gentleman’s face looked all too genuine. Now he was back with Harriet and wishing desperately he could do or say something to alleviate her misery. He glanced at the clock. Two in the morning! He longed to urge Harriet to go to bed but knew she would not follow any such suggestion.

Harriet was obviously hanging on to the hope that if she stayed awake, if she prayed very hard, then somehow Susan would be found safe and well.

And then from outside came the voice of a female raised in drunken song. The night was warm and so all the windows were open.

“I’ll silence that vulgar jade,” said Lord Dangerfield. He strode through the french windows and out onto the narrow balcony that overlooked the square.

He stared down in amazement. In the flickering lights of the parish lamps he saw Susan, a tipsy, singing Susan, leaning on the arm of a villainous-looking man.

“It’s Susan!” he cried. He ran back through the drawing room and rushed down the stairs with everyone—Harriet, Charles, and the servants—hurtling after him.

Jack saw them coming and took Susan’s hand from his arm and gave her a little push forward. Harriet gave a strangled sob and rushed to gather the girl in her arms. Lord Dangerfield set off after Jack, grabbed him by the shoulder, and swung him around. He was about to punch him in the face, when Susan struggled free of Harriet’s embrace and shouted, “He saved me. You must not hurt him!”

The earl dropped his fists. “Who are you, fellow?”

“None o’ your business, cully.” Jack turned again to walk away. And then he heard Susan say the magic words: “Do… do not let him go. He musht be rewarded.”

He stopped in his tracks.

“I wash taken to the Rookeries,” said Susan, swaying in Harriet’s embrace, “and would have been murdered had Jack not reshcued me.”

Jack surveyed the earl. His eyes fastened on the diamond buried among the snowy folds of the earl’s cravat. “That diamond’ll do very nice,” he said laconically.

The earl pulled out the stick pin and handed the diamond over.

Jack stuck it in his greasy shirt, grinned, winked at Susan, and made his way rapidly out of the square. He guessed the runners were probably looking for the girl, and rescuer or not, they had only to see him to drag him off to the nearest roundhouse.

Susan was tenderly helped indoors and up to the drawing room where, with Charles’s arm about her shoulders, she told them of her adventures. “How could you even think I would keep a mistress when I have you?” he exclaimed. Susan gave him a drunken, doting smile and so missed the odd little look the earl flashed in Harriet’s direction or the way Harriet suddenly looked at the floor.

“Oh, there’sh shomething elsh,” said Susan, looking suddenly weary. “He said
she.
”

“Who?” asked Harriet sharply.

“One of my captors. He wash all for letting me go in Plum Lane but the other said
she
would find out.” Susan giggled and hiccuped. “For one mad moment, Aunt Harriet, I thought he meant you and you’d become too tired of my lazhiness and chocolate eating.” And with that, Susan suddenly closed her eyes, leaned her head against Charles’s shoulder, and fell fast asleep.

Harriet stared at the earl and said in a thin voice, “Could this
she
be a Mrs. Verity Palfrey?”

His face looked stern. “I shall go and find out,” he said quietly. “I bid you good night.”

When Verity was roused by her maid and told that Lord Dangerfield was demanding to see her, she did not fear any recriminations. She could not possibly have been found out. Her agent in the city, who served several other people, had bought the property in Plum Lane recently in his name. This was a precaution Verity took, as she often also bought slum property and was not eager that the ownership should be traced to her. Only her lawyers knew she was the real owner, and they would not talk. And so she merely thought the earl had come to his senses and asked that he be shown upstairs.

The earl strode into the bedroom and stood looking at her as she lay propped up against her lacy pillows. He knew it would be useless to ask her if she had been behind the plot to kill Susan, and so he said, “I am giving you a chance to escape, a chance, madam, you do not deserve.”

Verity turned pale. But she said lightly, “Are you foxed? I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about.”

He came and stood over her. “The runners will soon be here. Your minions were recognized. Miss Colville is safe and well, thanks to a miracle. Now, you can lie there and protest your innocence as time passes, time during which you could be leaving the country, never to return. What you had planned for Miss Colville was terrible. You are a monster. If you are here in the morning, I will send the runners to arrest and interrogate your male servants. And they will talk to save their necks. How I ever became involved with scum like you is beyond me.”

Verity began to tremble and cry. “I was jealous. Cannot you see that?”

“You fool! Had you been jealous of the girl’s aunt, you might have had reason. But to be jealous of a green chit! Get you gone, madam, and never return to this country again.”

He turned and strode out. He would need to allay Harriet’s fears by telling her the name of the culprit and Harriet, the virgin, would despise him from the bottom of her straitlaced heart for having put her niece in deadly peril through his involvement with a harpy.

Sir Thomas Jeynes was strolling home in the dawn light. He found his steps leading him toward Verity’s house. Now that her liaison with Dangerfield was over, perhaps she might be interested in favoring him with some pleasure.

To his surprise, her house was lit from top to bottom and servants were frantically loading up luggage on the roof and in the rumble of a traveling carriage outside.

The street door was standing open. He strolled in and nearly collided with a footman who was struggling under the weight of a large trunk.

“Where is your mistress?” he demanded.

The footman jerked his head in the direction of the upper regions and began to carry the trunk out to the carriage. Sir Thomas ran lightly up the stairs.

He found Verity in traveling clothes, slamming down the lid on another trunk, surrounded by maids.

“What’s amiss?” he asked.

“Get out of here!” Verity shouted at the maids. “Don’t come back until I call you.”

When the maids had scampered from the room, she crashed the door shut behind them and faced him with glittering eyes. “I am leaving the country,” she said. “I am ruined.”

“What has happened?”

In a flat voice she told him of the plan to get rid of Susan and Dangerfield’s threat.

“You fool,” he said.

“Fool and double fool,” said Verity wearily. “It was not the chit he was after all the time, but that frump of an aunt.”

“You jest.”

“No, I had it from his own lips. Oh, Thomas, come with me. I cannot bear to be alone.”

He gave her his wolfish smile. “You should have thought of what you were doing before you got rid of me to take up with Dangerfield. Had you told me of your plan, I would have stopped you. There are other ways. But subtlety was never your strong point. Enjoy your exile.” He began to laugh, and, still laughing, he made his way out.

But when he reached the end of the street, the smile died on his lips. Harriet Tremayne, by all that was holy! So much easier to get his revenge on Dangerfield through a spinster like Harriet than a glowing girl like Susan who was already betrothed.

Lord Dangerfield had returned to Harriet’s in Berkeley Square. He hoped partly that she had gone to bed and so he could put off the moment when he would see the distaste in her eyes, and partly that she would be awake so that he could get the whole sorry business over and done with.

But there were lamps still glowing in the drawing room, and as he approached the house, he saw two runners leaving.

He knocked and was admitted. Miss Tremayne, he learned, was still awake. He went slowly up the stairs to the drawing room, his feet like lead.

Harriet turned around wearily when he was announced. “Oh, it is you, my lord,” she said. “I have just informed the runners that Susan is safe and well. There is now the question of this woman…”

“May I be seated?” She nodded. The earl sat down.

He took a deep breath. “Mrs. Palfrey was behind the outrage.”

How large her eyes were, he thought.

“Your mistress! Your mistress tried to kill my poor Susan. We must tell the authorities.”

“Mrs. Palfrey has been told to leave England and never return. There is no need for scandal. She will not trouble you or Miss Colville again.”

“And so she goes free? She should be hanging outside Newgate.”

“I agree,” he said heavily. “But only think! Were she arrested and brought to trial, there would be the most enormous fuss. Pictures in the print shops, scandal in the newspapers. Endless questioning.”

Harriet’s face hardened. “I suppose she is gone by now?”

“She will be gone before morning.”

“She could be stopped before she reaches the coast.”

“I tricked her into a confession. All she has to do is to deny the whole thing. She probably sent two of her servants. She will have rid herself of them already. It would be her word against mine.”

“What of the house in Plum Lane? Surely she owns that?”

“Mrs. Palfrey probably does, but she would not have used it if the title were under her name. I assure you, this is the best way, and you no longer have anything to fear from her.”

“Indeed! And what if your next mistress is just as villainous?”

“I have no intention of setting up a mistress,” he said stiffly. “I can only apologize for having brought danger to you through my association with Mrs. Palfrey. I did not know what she was really like.”

“No, I do not suppose you did. In the function she performed, gentlemen do not need to interest themselves in either love or character or tenderness or respect. It depends on wealth and rank, you see. Were you of a lower order and less money, then you could pay a shilling to a trull at the opera house for the same service and with just such indifference to character. But I am very tired, my lord, and cannot sit here for the remainder of the night, berating you over your lack of principles. The matter is finished. Much as I would like to see Mrs. Palfrey dragged to court, I think Susan has suffered enough.”

She rose and said with a sort of exhausted dignity, “I am sure you will not be surprised to hear me beg you not to call on us again.”

And for once in his privileged life, the earl could think of nothing to say.

He bowed and made for the door. “Stay!” called Harriet. He turned immediately, a faint gleam of hope in his eye.

“You gave your diamond pin to that villain. Send me the bill.”

The earl felt he had endured enough. “Don’t be silly,” he said harshly. He turned on his heel and was gone.

Despite her misery, Harriet slept late the next day. She then went to Susan’s bedchamber to find that young lady, sitting at the toilet table and clutching her head.

“I feel like the devil, Aunt Harriet,” she moaned. “I shall never touch gin again. You see, Jack said we should wait until the streets were quiet before he took me home and so we drank and drank.”