The Viscount's Revenge (The Royal Ambition Series Book 4) (11 page)

“And so,” he went on, “I shall see that an allowance is paid to you and we will furnish you with a dowry.”

Amanda’s eyes filled with tears. She remembered the jewels. She remembered his ruby ring and how it had blazed on his finger and how it was now under the stable floor.

She felt so miserable and guilt-ridden that she said, “You were not thus at the assembly! You seemed so hard… and… and I heard you tell the earl that you had never spent a more boring evening, and I heard you, and I wanted to sink through the floor with humiliation!”

“Oh, my wretched tongue,” he said. “I am as bad as Susan. I did not mean you, my fairy. I meant the earl and his terrible food and his dreadful guests.”

“But you looked so grim!”

He smiled at her anguished expression. “Indigestion, Miss Amanda. It was the first time I had ever suffered from it and I hope it may be the last. I had never had such filthy food as I was forced to eat at Hardforshire’s.”

“I cannot accept your generosity,” wailed Amanda. “I will not
take
, you know.”

“During the Season? Why on earth not?”

“Well, I am not exactly… well, Richard and Aunt Matilda are very kind about it but they do know that I am very plain.…”

“My dear child, you are the most enchanting creature I have seen in a long while. You have a very rare, elfin sort of beauty which is very captivating. I shall be beating your suitors from the door by the beginning of May.”

“You are too kind,” said Amanda in a stifled voice.

“I mean it. Did no one tell you you were beautiful before?”

Amanda dumbly shook her head.

“Then you are. I can see you do not believe me, but there will soon be plenty of other men to tell you so.”

She looked at him, her whole face illuminated with happiness. He felt a strange pain in his chest and wondered if he was about to be cursed with a recurrence of indigestion.

“Thank you,” breathed Amanda. “You have just given me a wonderful present.” She darted from her chair and kissed him impulsively on the cheek.

“Oh,” she said, blushing with confusion and subsiding back in her own chair again. “How very forward of me.”

“Not at all,” he said, his eyes enigmatic. “I am not averse to being kissed by pretty girls.” His silver eyes lit up with a wicked glint. “Like to try again?”

“Oh, my lord, I really do not think Lady Mary—”

“No, of course not,” he said quickly, wondering what there was about Miss Colby that gave him this overwhelming desire to flirt.

“Talking about Lady Mary,” he went on, “she is to go into the country tomorrow and this is the last time I shall see her for a few weeks. I must make my way back and enjoy as much of her company as I can.”

He rose to his feet.

“Could… do I have to go back?” asked Amanda.

“No, I will make your excuses for you.” He walked to the doorway and then hesitated. “I do not have any commitments tomorrow. After you say good-bye to your brother, I will show you a little of London if you would like.”

With all my heart and soul, Amanda was about to say, but she managed to bite it back and say demurely, “I should like that above all things.”

“Very well,” he said. “Good night, Miss Colby.”

After he had gone, Amanda pirouetted around the room, overwhelmed with joy about having a protector against the stern Mrs. Fitzgerald and the awkward Susan. But then she remembered those wretched jewels and wished it had all never happened. If only she could move the clock back to the night of the assembly.

She walked from the library and up to the second floor, trying to remember where her bedroom was.

As she passed a door, she heard noisy sounds of crying.

Susan!

Her hand went to the knob and then dropped. Whatever ailed Susan, Amanda was sure she would not tell a stranger like herself. She wandered along one corridor and then another until she found a servant trimming the lamps and asked him to show her the way.

With the optimism of youth, Amanda decided to forget about the jewels for the moment and simply enjoy the fact that although Richard was going away, she had already found another brother to replace him.

The brother being Lord Hawksborough.

Amanda was still hurt by Richard’s callous unconcern and made a very formal good-bye to him the next morning. To her irritation, Richard was so excited, he did not even seem to notice.

Lord Hawksborough told Amanda to put on her warmest clothes because they would be riding in an open carriage. Mathers, the maid, was miraculously on hand to help her into a blue velvet carriage costume and a Cardinal mantle of black cloth lined and trimmed with white fur. A capote was placed on her head, that bonnet with the soft crown and a stiff brim framing the face. And wonder of wonders, she found herself the proud possessor of a new pair of York tan gloves, those buff-colored suede gloves which were fashionable wear for men and women alike.

Lord Hawksborough was waiting for her in the hall in a many-caped driving coat and with a curly-brimmed beaver set to a nicety on his black curls.

“Where are you going?” demanded Susan’s voice from the first landing.

“I am taking Miss Colby for a drive,” answered Lord Hawksborough.

“Then I am coming too. Wait for me!” shouted Susan.

Amanda looked like a child who has found its birthday has been forgotten.

“Would you rather she did not come?” asked Lord Hawksborough.

“No,” lied Amanda. “I should like it above all things.”

Susan was soon back wearing a lumpy pelisse over a high-ruffed morning gown. Her bonnet had such a huge poke that her face was invisible.

Amanda felt piqued and cross. She had imagined herself cutting a bit of a dash being escorted by the handsome viscount. Now the company of sulky Susan reduced the whole glory of the outing to a schoolgirl expedition.

Amanda had not slept well, which had soured her temper. Used to the quiet of the countryside, she found herself tossing and turning during the night as her ears were assaulted with the sounds of sleepless London.

The watchman, whose business was not merely to guard the streets and take charge of the public security, informed Berkeley Square every half-hour of the weather and the time. For the first three hours, Amanda was informed it was a moonlight night and all was well, at half-past three that it was a cloudy morning, and so on until six, when the stentorian voice of the watchman informed her that the sun was up. The rumble of the night coaches had scarcely ceased before the rattle of the morning carts began. Then came the dustman with his bell and his chant of “Dust-ho!”; then came the watchman again; then the porterhouse boy clattering pewter pots; then the milkman, and, among other cries, a shrill piercing voice selling fresh green peas.

Amanda was further annoyed to find that Susan had every intention of sitting bodkin between herself and Lord Hawksborough.

“Where are we going?” demanded Susan.

“All around the town,” replied his lordship cheerfully with a flourish of his whip.

The light curricle moved off. Amanda tried to steal a look at Lord Hawksborough but found her view obstructed by Susan’s enormous poke bonnet, which hung like a penthouse over her sulky face.

She decided to enjoy the view and pretend that Susan did not exist.

The morning’s brief sun had disappeared and the winter’s day was dark.

Amanda was bewildered by the amount of goods displayed in the shops and by the roar of the town.

The lower floors of the shops seemed to be made entirely of glass, with many thousands of candles lighting up silverware, engravings, books, clocks, glass, pewter, paintings, gold, precious stones, steelwork, and women’s finery. There were endless coffee rooms and lottery shops. The apothecaries’ windows glowed with giant bottles shining with purple, yellow, verdigris-green, or amber light. The confectioners’ dazzled the eye with their candelabra shining over hanging festoons of Spanish grapes. Pretty shop girls in silk caps and little silk trains moved about among pyramids of cakes and oranges, tarts and pineapples.

The traffic was immense, the streets crowded with chaises, carriages, and drays. Above the hubbub of thousands of voices sounded chimes from the church towers, postmen’s bells, organs, fiddles, hurdy-gurdies, tambourines, and the cries of the vendors selling hot and cold food at the street corners.

The very noise made conversation impossible, a fact Amanda would have regretted had not the taciturn Susan been present.

The viscount then threaded his way around and down to the shabby little ancient streets of Westminster, where they alighted and walked around the Abbey, looking at the sooty walls and crumbling monuments. From there they went to the Tower to see the King’s jewels and the menagerie of wild animals; then to the British Museum beside Bloomsbury Fields to view the Parthenon marbles, recently brought from Athens. Back to the City, and the Royal Exchange with its piazza where foreigners in strange and wonderful costumes haggled with top-hatted Englishmen; and so to the Bank of England, where a private company of financiers was raising a handsome building behind high walls.

Lord Hawksborough seemed to know everyone everywhere he went. Amanda felt her head would burst trying to retain all the information she heard.

The only thing to mar the outing was the fact that everyone seemed to treat herself and Susan as schoolgirls his lordship was being gracious enough to entertain.

Lord Hawksborough treated them both to ices at Gunter’s and then drove them back to Berkeley Square. Susan had hardly said a word during the whole tour.

When his lordship left the girls in the hall, Amanda followed Susan upstairs.

“Well, thank goodness that’s over,” said Susan, untying the strings of her poke bonnet.

“I wonder you bothered to come,” remarked Amanda crossly.

Susan turned on the half-landing and gave Amanda a bright stare out of her black eyes. “I wanted to make sure Lady Mary’s property was being guarded,” she said with that quick toss of her black hair.

Amanda went scarlet, thinking of the jewels, thinking that Susan was calling her a thief.

“I am not in the habit of stealing!” said Amanda hotly.

“Then make sure you do not steal another woman’s fiancé,” retorted Susan, and stumped off down the corridor before Amanda had time to reply.

Amanda was furious, and then, as she went into her bedroom, her fury was replaced with a sort of comfortable glow. It was pleasant in a way to be regarded as dangerous where Lord Hawksborough was concerned, if only by his eccentric sister.

Amanda spent the next few minutes exploring the contents of her room more fully. She found a pristine diary in a drawer in the writing table, and after a moment’s hesitation, sat down, and taking up a brassnibbed pen, began to write about her tour around the sights of London, and then of all her worries about the robbery, and her hopes that Richard would find a way to restore the jewels.

When she had finished, she looked about for some place to hide the diary where it would not be found by the servants.

Finally she stood on a chair and put it on the top of the tallboy at the back where it could not be seen by anyone standing at floor level.

She dusted her hands and climbed down. The house was very silent—silent now that her ears had become accustomed to the noises of the town outside.

Amanda decided to make her way to the library to see if she could find something to read.

She had a faint hope she might find Lord Hawksborough there so that perhaps they might talk without the company of angry Susan.

She was disappointed to find that although Lord Hawksborough was in the library, he was not alone.

“Come in, Miss Amanda,” called the viscount as she hesitated in the doorway. “I would like you to meet the famous Bow Street Runner, Mr. Townsend. I feel sure he will catch those highwaymen for me.”

Was it a trick of the light or had Miss Colby gone extremely pale? wondered Lord Hawksborough. But she came forward and dropped a curtsy, sending the Bow Street Runner a green sidelong look from under her lashes.

Mr. Townsend was a very smart, portly man, “clean as paint,” to use his own expression. He wore a most peculiar costume. He was encased in a light and loud suit, knee breeches and short gaiters, and a white hat of great breadth of brim. In his hand he carried a tiny baton with a gilt crown on the top.

He acknowledged Amanda’s curtsy with a clumsy bow and then turned to Lord Hawksborough to continue his conversation.

“So, as I was saying, my lord, I’ll snaffle ’em for you. Wearing wigs, you think? And masks? I’ll snaffle them coves and then get ’em to doff their sham phizzes, and we’ll see who we’ve got for Jack Ketch. Drawing and quartering’s too good for the likes o’ them.”

“Have… have you any idea who these villains might be?” asked Amanda in a sort of dry whisper.