TheCharmer (11 page)
Authors: The Charmer
"Well then, I'll leave you to it." He frowned at the new waistcoat Collis had come up with. "That's hideous."
"Yes. It's exactly what I need." He held it up over his loose linen shirt. "Do I look rich and useless?"
Collis shrugged. "I shan't insist on it."
Hesitation wasn't in
"Me and Briar Rose?" Collis snorted. "Don't worry,
"As long as you are prepared against it, then."
"Not bloody likely," Collis murmured to his uncle's back. He firmly extinguished memories of a strong, supple creature writhing beneath him.
No
.
Once he was dressed, he headed out. At the door, he took his hat and coat from Denny with a quick nod. "Ho there, old man." Keep walking, or he'll twist your ear—
"Sir, if I may have a moment?"
Collis turned with exaggerated patience. But of course, Denny would never choose to see such subtle signals. One had to dunk the fellow in ice water to get him to see past the end of his haughty little nose. "Denny, I'm on my way to—"
"Yes, sir. That's what I wish to talk to you about."
Collis braced himself. If Denny thought he could complain about Rose, he was sadly mistaken. Rose might be disagreeable and, well, unbearable, but she was a good spy. She deserved to be in training. Collis wouldn't hear another word from Denny about it. "Well, what is it?"
"If you would tell me where you're off to, sir? I might need to reach you."
Collis snorted. "Hardly. Anyway, I'm not going anywhere important. Simply trying out a new gentlemen's club."
"What club would that be, sir?"
Denny had a tendency to mind business other than his own. "Nothing special about it. Simply a lark."
"Will anyone be accompanying you, sir?"
"No." Collis was abruptly tired of Denny's questions. "I must go. Thank you, Denny."
Denny nodded, clearly not satisfied that he had given gossip his best, Collis rolled his eyes as he left. Denny needed something more to do, that was obvious. To be frank, Collis didn't know what had possessed him to take the little man on.
Oh, he performed his duties well enough. Collis simply didn't need a valet. He'd been dressing himself for years and didn't need anyone holding his drawers for him.
It had been pity, he supposed. When James Cunnington had confessed that his betrothed had an aversion to Denny, Collis had felt sorry for the little man without a place in the world.
Collis ordered his uncle's most anonymous unmarked carriage, the one he'd used to pose as Sir Thorogood, to take him to the club mentioned in the dossier. Yes, he was definitely feeling sorry for Denny. Being a servant was a difficult life in itself. Collis was sure he could never bear the constant insecurity of needing to find a good master and get himself hired on—
Servant. Hired.
Rose.
Collis let his head fall back onto the carriage cushions in dismay. Here he'd been thinking himself ahead in the race. He'd completely forgotten that all Rose had to do to get into the house was get herself hired by the target!
He pounded one fist on the ceiling of the carriage. "Hawkins! Hurry!"
He was late for a one-sided appointment with a certain Louis Wadsworth, proprietor of Wadsworth & Son, Munitions.
Louis Wadsworth's pale blue eyes gazed at Rose from the life-size portrait like an arrow shot from the past. She stood there in the gallery, frozen in her memories with the dust rag dangling from her limp fingers and her heart beating in her ears.
Louis Wadsworth
. She was in Louis Wadsworth's house.
In an instant Rose was back in the past. A girl again, proud of her first position in service to a fine household. She'd tried so hard to do well and the housekeeper seemed mostly inclined to approve of her.
Rose had been determined to succeed in Mr. Wadsworth's house, no matter how strange and lonely it all was. The master seemed a cold man, and the mistress spent her days locked quietly away in her luxurious rooms with what Rose suspected was a barrel of laudanum.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Pool, kept things running smartly nonetheless and Rose was beginning to feel comfortable with the routine. She ran the dust rag around the spindles of the banister once again, just in case she had missed some. Dust was very hard to see, although Mrs. Pool didn't seem to have any trouble spotting it.
Rose had just finished up the railing when she heard a smooth voice behind her.
"It shines like a new penny, but not as brightly as do you, my girl."
Surprised, she turned to see a handsome young man smiling at her. Louis Wadsworth, the master's son, was twenty years old, with white teeth and eyes that twinkled with what she originally believed was kindness.
All too soon, of course, she had discovered that Louis Wadsworth, scion of the
Collis Tremayne was having a nice glass of brandy by a toasty fire. From his comfortable chair he could see the front hall and any new arrivals. The surroundings were reassuringly masculine and expensive. Not a single female presence penetrated the smoky atmosphere of this particular club.
Unlike the public portion of the Liar's Club, this establishment was a place of quiet masculine escape, a place of genial business and low-voiced toadying, if one aimed to climb higher. Of course, this was a few steps below the level of Collis's own usual membership, which his target could never aspire to.
As he waited for Louis Wadsworth to arrive, Collis ran over what he knew of the man. The owner of several very profitable factories, the man was married, with no children. His wealth made him a valid player in the industrialist party of the government, although his role seemed more of quiet contributor than campaigner for the conservatives.
How utterly boring.
Trust
Hadn't there been a
If so, the file said nothing about it. There was nothing about Louis Wadsworth's parentage at all, now that Collis thought on it. That alone was curious.
A somberly liveried footman passed Collis by and gave him the prearranged signal with one gloved hand. Ah, the quarry had arrived. Looking casually to the door, Collis spotted a slender dapper fellow handing his hat and—oh, for pity's sake—a
walking stick
to a servant. The man couldn't be more than thirty years old!
Lovely. Boring
and
pretentious.
Collis waited. When he'd arrived, he'd lubricated relations with the staff with a bit of pocket change— very well, rather a lot of pocket change—but Rose had said by any means necessary.
Now to await the result. He casually raised the news sheet he wasn't reading to see the doorman pointing out the attractive prospect of the heir to a title in the club—himself. Rather like shooting hares in a cage, putting himself out to bait the slavering social ambitions of a man like that one. God only knew why everyone wanted a title. Collis would give his away if he could.
From his paper hunting blind, he watched the hare hop hesitantly forward. He could almost hear the thoughts in the man's head.
Cannot introduce myself, too forward. But if I wait, someone else will grab him. How can I induce him to speak to me first?
Collis decided to put him out of his misery. He closed his paper with a snap and folded it neatly. "I've finished with this. Have you read it yet?"
"No, I have not." The fish took the worm carefully, with a nod of thanks. "May I repay the favor with another brandy…" His voice trailed off, obviously hoping for further introduction.
Collis rose to extend his hand. "Collis Tremayne, sir, of Etheridge. And you?"
Something flashed in the hare's pale blue eyes, probably pure social greed. He clasped Collis's hand in an enthusiastic grip. "I am Louis W. Wadsworth, sir, of Wadsworth Munitions."
Rose couldn't breathe. She was in Louis Wadsworth's house. Worse yet, she was a servant, a maid, in his house. Old fears, old nightmares, seemed to tingle across her vision like a mist. Out of ancient habit, she backed away from the portrait until she stood in shadow.
She'd lived in shadow before. She'd been like a mouse, keeping always to the edges, peering carefully around corners, starting at a footfall in the hall. Yet Louis had found her, again and again, in that month before he'd moved to his own establishment in what was probably a more interesting part of town.
For Louis had simply been bored. She was convinced of that. A bored young man trapped in a dull house, who had made up a little game to pass the time.
"It's called 'Hunt the Maid,' " he'd whispered to her once when he had her pinned against the bookcases in his father's study. "I am the hunter and you are the doe." He'd slipped his hand beneath her apron bodice to fondle her breast. She'd cringed but not cried out, for who would come to her aid against the master's son? She'd escaped eventually, her stomach roiling but her body twanging discordantly in response to his liberties.
The game went on, a pursuit combined of dark seduction and blatant intimidation that kept her mightily confused in her innocence. She did not imagine herself in love with him, yet he filled her days and worried her nights until she thought of nothing else but when he would next appear.
Until the day he'd shown her the man he truly was.
Mrs. Pool had gone to the master in a rage after finding Rose hiding in a cupboard in the kitchens, her uniform torn and her face and body bruised, and had accused the master's son of rape. Mr. Wadsworth had fired the housekeeper on the spot, simply turning her out without references. He probably would have done the same to Rose had not something more urgent caught at his attention. Days went by before she realized that he had apparently forgotten the entire matter.
There was something wrong in the house after that. Up until that day, every servant had received a day off, even the scullery. But the butler seemed to have his own way of running things, one that didn't seem to agree with the higher quality of servants in the house. One by one, the better ones left. The worst of it was they had Rose to blame.
What bit of friendship she'd managed to win from the other servants was lost from that day. She was ignored to despair even while she was discussed to shreds.
"She orta kept them knees locked," the cook opined with a sniff.
"Weren't so bad here afore
that one
got the young master worked up," the butler agreed.
As much as Rose tried to remind herself that she'd done nothing so wrong, time and disdain wore her down. With no one to bolster her against the blame, she came close to believing in it herself. Perhaps she
was
shameless, for hadn't Louis made her feel things?
She would have fled from it all, if she could have.
Yet where would she go? No other house would have her now, once they heard about her and the master's son.
So she stayed and kept to the darkest shadows, and out-waited Louis and the butler and all the other servants who came, only to leave again when the abominable conditions continued.
Finally, there were only the crooked and the desperate left who would work for the Wadsworths. The new butler who was skimming from the top of the housekeeping budget, the cook who sold half the food she bought and served little but gruel belowstairs, and Rose, the desperate, who had nowhere else to go.