The Solitary Envoy (26 page)

The next morning she was busy with her ledgers when there came a knock on the door. Lavinia had taken the baby out for a walk. Abbie was upstairs in the family’s private sitting room, where she was allowed to leave her dolls out and form her imaginary mansions and make the cheerful messes of a happy eight-year-old.

Jacob Harwell stood at the doorway. “Mr. Aldridge’s compliments, Miss Langston,” he said stiffly. “He wishes to have a word.”

“What about?”

“I’m sure it wasn’t my place to ask.”

Suddenly the man’s punishing reserve was too much to bear. “Jacob, are we to be friends?”

He was clearly taken aback by her bluntness. “Miss?”

“I am not the lady of the house, and you know full well you need not address me as such. I asked you a simple question. Are we to be friends?”

“You were the one—”

“Who said I was too crushed by pressures from all sides to permit you to court me. As it would be dishonest to us both, and I cared too much for you to do otherwise.”

“As a friend,” Jacob added unhappily.

“Precisely. But I find that you are treating me as though I have wronged you, and it hurts me very much. So I must know. Do you intend to act thus forever? If so, I must learn to be less open with you and adopt a stern and cold resolve myself. So please tell me. Are you refusing my offer of friendship?”

“I had wished that it would be something more.”

“But it can’t be, as I tried my very best to explain. Yes or no, Jacob. You owe me an honest response.”

“Very well.” His chilly fa
ade gone now, all his face pulled down with gloom. “If that is all I am to have, I suppose I must accept this small boon.”

He looked so endearing at that moment, Erica was hardpressed not to relent. Instead she gave a great sigh, as in relief. “I am so glad. For you see, I am quite certain you would make a very fine friend. And I am in such dire need of friends just now.”

“Were that it would be more.”

“But it can’t be and never will,” she replied firmly. “And so as friends I must ask that you do not consider this a possibility or ever speak of it again.”

“But—”

“Of course I am able to make such a request of you. One friend to another. Now please excuse me while I go and prepare myself.”

“You look lovely as you are.”

She chose to ignore that comment. “I’ll be just one moment.”

Erica was not yet ready to appear in such formal surroundings with her hair down. So she brushed out her tresses and pinned them up, and because she did so with too much haste she had to unpin one side and do it all over again. She powdered the freckles across her nose and straightened her dress, then rushed back down the hall for the two ledgers she had been working on. “All right, I am ready.”

“Might a friend be permitted to carry these tomes for you?”

“Thank you, Jacob,” she said and meant it sincerely.

When she arrived downstairs, Erica found to her surprise that Samuel was joined in his private office by the stout solicitor from Lincoln’s Inn.

“Mr. Richmond, I hope I made no error in my payments.”

It was Mr. Aldridge who responded. “On the contrary, my dear. Mr. Richmond is here at my request. Sit down here, why don’t you. Jacob, we will not be requiring those ledgers.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Will you take tea, Miss Langston?”

“No sir, thank you.”

“Very well. To business, then.” The two gentlemen resumed their chairs when Erica had seated herself. “I made a number of inquiries yesterday. The word I have received was unequivocal. In the matter of overdue accounts and reluctant payers, there is no better man to have in your corner than Mr. Richmond.”

“The minister is too kind.” The portly gentleman wore the same stained waistcoat as when Erica had visited his chambers. “Although I must tell you, it is a far finer position I find myself in today than at this time last week.”

“Yes, well, thanks to the efforts of Miss Langston here, I trust the threat has been averted.”

“More than that, sir. Far more. Throughout London they are now speaking of the lovely young lady who travels about in the American Embassy’s carriage dispensing gold and fair words.” He cast an approving eye upon Erica. “Anyone would be hard-pressed to find fault with your actions, Miss Langston. Or your accounts.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Samuel told her, “I have taken the liberty of asking Mr. Richmond here to aid in your family’s cause. I wanted him to understand that I consider this a matter of utmost importance, and all the powers of my office, such as they are, remain at his disposal.”

Gratitude swamped her such that she felt unshed tears sting at her eyes. “You are too kind, sir.”

He waved that aside. “Pray take a moment and explain to Mr. Richmond the situation.”

Erica had seen the press of dark-suited men waiting for Mr. Aldridge or one of his aides. The air of the outer chambers and the front portico was thick with talk and smoke from their cigars. “You have far more urgent matters—”

“How am I to know what is required of me if I do not hear Mr. Richmond’s response? Do go on.”

So she told her tale once more. Long before she had concluded with the confrontation with the banker the previous week, Mr. Richmond’s plump features had folded themselves down into a somber mask.

“I fear the situation is rather more serious than I expected,” he said.

“On the contrary,” Mr. Aldridge replied. “The evidence seems to stand all on the side of Miss Langston. Did you not hear her remark that she has documents substantiating all her claims?”

“I did indeed, sir. But I must also tell you I have numerous other claimants, all with such excellent documentation, who have endured losses because of the wars.”

“But her claim is not war-based!”

“That is the case that they will develop, sir. The court is swamped with supplicants who have suffered during the war years. It will be very easy for these bankers to find a sympathetic judge, one who resents the American colonies calling themselves a nation at all. And Miss Langston would find no joy in an appeal, sir. None at all.”

Samuel studied the smaller man. “The Crown?”

“Bartholomew is merchant banker to the regent and his clan, as you well know,” Mr. Richmond confirmed. “They will protect their own.”

Erica looked from one man to the other. “What are you saying?”

The solicitor glanced at the minister. When Samuel remained silent, the solicitor replied, “I would be honored to take your case, Miss Langston. But I must tell you that in order to win, we must have more than evidence on our side. More than right.”

“What about the famous British justice?”

Mr. Richmond blew out hard, causing his pasty cheeks to ruffle like sails. “Yes, well. I fear the war—”

“The war, the war! Every flaw I find in the system, every failing of right versus wrong, all of it is blamed upon the war.” Mr. Aldridge thumped the arm of his chair. “Do you know, I was well into a meeting last week when I realized he was referring not to the war with my good nation at all but rather with the French! It was as though our own conflict never existed!”

“And to many it did not,” Mr. Richmond confirmed. “They heard of it in passing but paid it little or no mind. Most found it hard to worry about the sting of an American bee while the French knife remained at their throats.”

“I don’t understand,” Erica interjected, trying to return the conversation to her own family’s cause. “You say I need more than right and evidence on my side. What more could there possibly be?”

The solicitor’s gaze was wearied by all that he saw, all that he was forced to work against. “I am saying, Miss Langston, that you need an ally.”

“The deputy minister plenipotentiary is not enough?”

“Not insofar as the courts are concerned. Not when your opponents will be able to call upon the Crown to pressure the judge and quash this case.”

“Impossible,” Samuel muttered, no longer able to meet Erica’s gaze. “The situation is utterly impossible.”

It felt as though her will, her energy, the very air of her lungs had been sucked away. She asked weakly, “But what am I to do?”

The men’s silence was the worst response imaginable.

Erica carried the gloom with her through the rest of the day and into the evening. Her dinner was a subdued and solitary affair. Samuel was held downstairs by business, and Erica had to prepare for the evening event with Gareth Powers. She did not want to go. She wished for nothing more than to remain in her room and weep. But Mr. Aldridge was counting on her. She repeated that to herself a number of times. Lavinia and Abbie both asked what the matter was, but she said nothing. She could not lie but had no wish to burden them with more of her own personal dilemma. When the carriage driver knocked on the rear door and said he awaited Erica, she was almost glad to go, for it meant not being there when Samuel recounted the matter to his wife.

The night was balmy and Erica was quite comfortable with just a light shawl about her head and shoulders. It was very rare for a single woman to ride alone, particularly in the evening, and she should have been relishing this escapade. The thrill of setting off on such an adventure, particularly one to which Mr. Aldridge attached such vital importance, should have heightened all her senses. But she saw nothing. They passed through Berkeley Square, where the air was suddenly filled with birdsong. Yet the music was unable to pierce the cloud that Erica carried with her.

The carriage turned away from the fashionable West End and meandered into a region she did not know. The streets turned rough in places, and the buildings were clustered together in no real order. This area obviously marked the city’s edge of growth—here a farmhouse, there a stone structure in the grandiose new style called regency, after the current monarch. The carriage halted before an older house of wattle and split timbers, with a roof of thatch. Before the driver could come down to hold open the door, Gareth Powers had sprung from the house entrance.

“Right on time, Miss Erica. A genuine pleasure to see you.” He offered his hand. “Is this not a lovely evening?”

“I suppose it is.”

The driver asked, “When will the lady be requiring me to return?”

“If you like,” Gareth offered, “I could take you back in my carriage.”

“I don’t wish to inconvenience you.”

“No bother at all. I am returning with a family that lives quite close to the church; the embassy is right on our way.”

“Very well.” To the driver she said, “Mr. Powers will see to my return.”

“Right you are, my lady.” He clicked to the horses, and the carriage rolled away.

“A moment,” Gareth said, blocking her entry into the house. “I sense that you are sorely troubled.”

“Do you know me so well?”

He hesitated, then spoke very deliberately. “I know you hardly at all. But I treasure the gift of honesty you offered me almost as much as I do your words. So I shall respond in kind. Though I do not know you, Erica, I somehow feel a very deep bond.”

Erica found herself unable to reply. For to do so would have meant agreeing with him, something she was not prepared to do even to herself.

But her silence was enough of a response for him to take a step closer and speak in a soft and intimate matter. “What is the matter?”

“I feel wretched!”

“You are unwell?”

“In spirit and mind, not in body.” She motioned toward the door. “Should we not go inside?”

“They can wait a moment longer. Mr. Wilberforce has not yet arrived. Tell me what is troubling you, Erica. Please.”

She had no reason to do so. If Mr. Aldridge could not help her, what could a mere pamphleteer do? But the words came of their own accord, all the hurt and the wounded frustration. She concluded miserably, “I have failed.”

“You have done nothing of the sort.”

“But how am I to find an ally within the royal court?”

“You cannot. They are opposed to anything and anyone attached to the American cause. But there is one other possible avenue.”

This was a different Gareth Powers, one she had not seen before. Decisive and quick. “Not according to Mr. Richmond,” she replied.