CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Fury filled Verity. That was why Lieutenant Neville had been so persistent. He was after her legacy. Her fists bunched. Why was it not permissible for ladies to knock down unwelcome suitors in other people’s drawing rooms?
Looking up, she saw a similar murderous rage in Charles’s eyes. The shock of that brought her back to her senses. If Charles took action it would have far worse consequences than if she did. She could always return to Newmarket to avoid a scandal. He would have his livelihood affected if he started a brawl here.
“It seems to me Lieutenant Crisp should apply for a transfer as fast as possible,” she said, with as much boredom as she could summon to her tone. “His fellow officers seem appallingly vulgar.” When Charles didn’t move, she shook his arm. “May we leave?”
Inside the hackney carriage, she leaned back against the squabs, infinitely more at ease than she had been in the house. “Oh, this is better,” she said in relief. “I could barely think with all those people pressing around me. Julia will be sadly disappointed in me, but I do not believe I am cut out for such a vigorous social whirl. I wonder she never tires of the constant round herself.”
Charles remained silent.
He is hurt and angry, and no wonder. “Do you object if I rest against you?” she asked. “Irritation is very fatiguing.”
“Are you sure you trust me?” he said bitterly.
“Dearest Charles, don’t be so ridiculous,” she said, tucking her arm inside his. “I would trust you with my life.”
He sighed and returned from whichever stormy paths his mind had been stalking down. “I apologise. I offer you my escort and then pay you no heed. What else has upset you tonight that you wished to tell me? You should not curl up like this, Verity, it is most improper.”
Good. She had broken through his silence. “Fudge. Who is to see us? Oh Charles, I must tell you about Mama. The most frustrating occurrence, you cannot imagine. Just as we have everything settled, she has decided she would prefer to live in Kensington! In a villa.”
“Kensington?” Charles sounded as horrified as she had been herself when Mama mooted it. “That would be a disaster.”
“So I think too. Kitty will never come to us in Kensington.”
Silence. “No,” said Charles, a heartbeat too late. “It is too close to her husband. She and the child would not be safe.”
That had not been the first thought in his mind. Verity felt as if she had been walking in comfortable darkness and missed a step. She twisted to look up at him. “Why else would Kensington be a disaster?”
It was dim in the carriage and his head was close to hers. The glow of a lamp as they passed showed panic and helplessness and something else, hurriedly suppressed, in his eyes.
In that split second, hanging in time, everything changed. A piercing contentment awoke in her. “Oh,” she said, and her heart banged. Charles. Of course.
“Verity, I...”
Her lips were still parted. She raised them to his at the exact instant the horses slowed.
“Exquisite timing, Charles, as ever,” he muttered, and opened the door ready to hand her out.
The moment was gone. Charles was Charles again, the elder brother John had never been. Verity took a moment in the hallway to shake out her skirts and glance at her flushed face in the glass. How foolish of her. He was being absolutely correct. She should follow his example.
They were friends, that was all. It wasn’t as if she was ever going to marry, not now she didn’t have to. Or did she? If Mama wanted to live in Kensington, Furze House would be impossible. Without their shared income, Verity’s dream of being able to help her sister and those other women would vanish.
Charles had already bespoken tea and was waiting for her to precede him into the salon. She brushed past, caught the warmth of his body and the faint scent of his cologne and was instantly back in the carriage. She was astounded at the enormous jolt of awareness. It was perfectly obvious to her that he felt it too.
What to do? Ignore it? Or acknowledge.
Such a ridiculous question. “Charles,” she said. “If you sit anywhere except next to me on this sofa, I may never speak to you again.”
His lips curved into a reluctant smile as he dropped into the armchair.
“Beast.”
“Minx,” he replied. “Verity, it will not do. I am an attorney. Your attorney.”
That was so much nonsense she could hardly believe he was saying it. She moved up to the corner of the sofa nearest his chair. “Is that why you do not wish me to live in Kensington?”
“It would be a disaster,” he repeated.
She held his gaze. “Why did you come to the Stanhope rout party tonight?”
“Truth to tell, I hardly know.”
Tenderness swelled her heart. The frustrations of the evening suddenly seemed immaterial. ‘You will know when it is right,’ Jenny had told her, and she did. Why had she never realised before? “I do not think we should deal so very badly together,” she said softly.
He gave a sudden laugh. “It would be an adventure of the highest order, but it cannot happen. I work for a living for whoever requires my services. You have plans and ambitions and a legacy coming to you. You deserve more than a man who would need your own money to support you.” He looked down and realised she was holding his hands. “Stop it, Verity,” he said, disengaging them. “I have my pride. May we put the subject away and discuss the problem of your mother and your sister and my sister?”
Verity’s heart lifted because Charles was not simply Charles and there was nothing elder-brotherly about the way he was denying the attraction. It was amazing how much better she felt for the knowledge. All her disappointment and setbacks and helplessness were now merely obstacles to be surmounted. It did not occur to her not to continue. For one thing, the idea of kissing him had entered her head and it was going to be really rather difficult to get it out.
“By all means,” she said. “To begin with, as she has told you herself, Julia is in no danger. She is saving Lieutenant Crisp from himself as a favour to his sister. She believes Lieutenant Neville is trying to corrupt him. It does seem so, but I do not know why he should, unless it is just idle mischief. His actions tonight show how irresponsible he is.” She frowned, her words trailing off.
“What is the matter?”
“How did Lieutenant Neville know of Uncle James’s legacy?”
Charles spread his hands. “You ask that with Julia’s example daily before you? Gossip disseminates.”
“The legacy is not yet common currency. Lieutenant Neville did not consider me of any value at the gallery. Now he does. Peter Crisp told Julia that Neville owes him money. Perhaps he thinks to borrow it from me?”
“Gentlemen do not borrow from ladies. Depend on it, the word will have come from Julia. Her heart is in the right place, but her tongue is never still.”
“I will ask her. Meanwhile, what are we to do about Mama?”
“You know her far better than I. Is she much given to these impulses?”
“I have never known her do such a thing before, but she has been different since we came to London, particularly since that day Mr Tweedie was here. She must have been truly crushed before, and is now learning how to breathe again. I would not set her back, but I do not wish to live here.”
“I own I cannot picture you in a villa in Kensington, but would it be so hard?”
There was genuine curiosity in Charles’s voice. Verity responded with a serious answer. “I think it would. Uncle James need not have worried about my frivolity. Your London has cured that. I cannot take part in the social round any more, Charles, not now I have seen behind the facade. I want to help. I want to open up Furze House for Kitty and Molly and their friends. If we can sustain it, then I want to open up another house after that. You have wrought better than you knew. How can I give myself to careless enjoyment when I know that somewhere children are being transported for stealing a handkerchief?”
“I did not mean to cut up your peace.” He hesitated. “Things will change, Verity. There is a reform movement in the House. Men do care. Your friend Caroline’s husband is amongst them.”
“It will not be changed next week though, or next month.”
“Nor even next year, but I believe it is coming. Verity, regarding Furze House - I should not say this but my pool of associates consider a neutral, respectable house in Newmarket would be an asset to our resources when we wish to meet. Yes, yes, you may crow over me if you must. I have suffered so much mortification today that a little more will make no difference. What I am trying to tell you is that if Mrs Bowman is fixed on staying here in London, there will still be finance forthcoming for you to take Furze House.”
Verity’s eyes shone. “Charles, how splendid. Is this Lord Fitzgilbert’s doing? Julia says he is remarkably rich. How may I live there though? I am not yet twenty-one.”
“Your sister is twenty-five. A married woman may easily chaperone her sister, even if she has left the protection of her husband.” He turned his head, listening, and then stood up. “Is that the carriage? I had best go. I will apprise Mr Tweedie of your mother’s notion. It may well be he will persuade her to move back to Newmarket. I have never yet known him choose a bold option over a safe one.”
Verity jumped up. “Thank you, Charles.” She reached up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, but he turned his head back at that moment so she caught the side of his mouth instead.
There was a second of absolute stillness between them. Her heart thudded so loudly she confused it with the noise of the street door opening. Charles was quicker. He dropped his hand from her arm where surely he had been going to take proper hold of her, and was straightening his cravat in the mirror as his mother bustled into the room.
“Still here, Charles? There, Anne, did I not tell you he would not abandon poor Verity to her headache?”
“Indeed, it was very kind of him,” said Verity, disorientated by the normality that had swept into the salon along with the rustle of silk and satin and the soft fluff of Julia’s feathered muff.
“But I must take my leave now, Mama,” said Charles. He kissed his mother, saluted Mrs Bowman’s hand and just stopped short of lifting Verity’s fingers to his lips as well.
Oh, Charles.
“I will inform you as soon as events move forward,” he said, and nodding to Julia, he left.
“Which events?” asked Julia.
“Something about the terms of Uncle James’s legacy. Have you mentioned it to anyone, Julia? Lieutenant Neville was tiresomely attentive this evening, having never noticed my existence before.”
“No, we have only told Lilith, and she would not spread it around. How intriguing. Is the good lieutenant short of money, do you suppose? Peter Crisp says he does a great deal of card playing, not always for low stakes.”
“There is nothing good about him that I can see. Why do you look troubled?”
A shadow came into her friend’s eyes. “The saddest thing. Peter told me one of their number - Lieutenant Oaks, I do not know if you recall him - shot himself two days ago. Did you not notice the black bands they were all wearing?”
“I did not realise that was what they were for. How very dreadful. The poor man’s family. It falls to his superior officer to tell them, I suppose.”
“I do not envy him the task. How do you tell a young woman with two small children that she is now a widow? Also that there is no money for her, because her husband gambled it away and then took his own life rather than face up to what he had done? It does not bear thinking of. I am out of sorts, Verity. I should have come home when you did. I believe I will go to bed.”
“I too,” said Verity. But it was a long time before she slept.
“Were you wishful of a hackney, miss?”
Verity came out of her thoughts and looked up at the hackney carriage that had moved forward as she and Julia descended the steps of the house. “Oh, is it you, Mr Grimes? How very fortunate. Yes please, and how is your horse today?”
“Verity,” said Julia, enchanted. “You really do know the most delicious people.”
“This is Mr Grimes, Julia, who has driven me on a couple of occasions.”
“Pleased to meet you. I’ve a message for you, miss. From Molly. She says yes and gladly to your proposition, what was passed on by your sister. Just send her word and the address and she’ll pack ’em all up and make her way there.”
“Oh, that’s splendid. Molly Turner and her family are to come to Furze House, Julia.”
Fred Grimes had not yet finished. “And she has a bit of information your gentleman friend might be interested in if she’s right in her thinking, but it didn’t come from her.”
“Didn’t come from... Oh, oh, yes, I understand. What is it, please?”
“He’s to go to the Bridewell as soon as may be, and to ask for Susan Norris.”
“Susan Norris. Thank you. I will send him a note directly. I suppose the Bridewell is not a place my friend and I could visit, is it?”
Julia let out a shriek. Apparently not, then.
“Well,” said Fred Grimes doubtfully, “ladies do go around it sometimes, on a charitable basis like, or just to view the poor desperate souls, but it would have to be Mr Congreve ask the questions.”
“You know him?” asked Verity, surprised.
“We all know the ones who help poor folk, miss.”
“Very well, thank you for the message that I have no recollection of you giving me, and I will send Charles a note as soon as we return. Which drapers have I not yet visited, Mr Grimes? Suitable for a large house, but not with a large budget to spend?”
“I know the very place, miss. This large house, is it in the country like?”
“Yes. It is at Newmarket. It is where Molly was referring to.”
“Would there be a place in the stable for an old horse and groomsman? One who might do local deliveries if there was any call for it? There’s only me and the horse left now, and it’s powerful bad for me and the old girl here, isn’t it, lass?” He patted the horse’s flank.
“There is stabling, and a room over it,” said Verity. “That would be wonderful. Might you bring Molly and her mother and the children to save her some expense? It’s sixty miles though.”
“I was thinking of it, miss. Or follow on after with her bits and pieces. We could take it slow. What’s a sennight or two on the road when there’s a new life ahead? God bless you, miss.”
“This house of yours is going to be extraordinary,” said Julia as they set off. “I am almost tempted to invent a scandal so I must needs rusticate with you.”
“You can come for a visit without being embroiled in a scandal first,” pointed out Verity. “I am more concerned with getting Kitty there without her husband suspecting where she is.”
Julia looked thoughtful. “You will need to, for your mama will never consent to you living there without her otherwise.”
“I am still in hopes that she will give up this Kensington scheme and come too.”
“She did not seem to be giving it up when we went around the villa yesterday. She seemed enchanted by the whole idea.”
“That is true,” said Verity gloomily. “I quite thought Mr Tweedie would say she cannot afford it, but he was encouraging her. It is a nice house, but...”
“Too out of the way for me. I should never hear anything of any note. Why would Charles not come around it with us?”
Because he is avoiding me. She coloured. “Perhaps they cannot both be away from the chambers at the same time.” But that was nonsense, for they had come up to Newmarket together earlier this year to apprehend Jenny Prettyman’s cousin. “It would have done no good even if he had been there. Charles is as perplexed as I am about Mama.”
In truth, Verity was more than perplexed, she was dumbfounded at the change that had come over her mother this last week. It was almost as if she had never known her before. Her eyes were brighter, her bearing was more cheerful and, only two days since she had first mooted the idea, she was full of optimism about living in Kensington.
“See, my dear, it is almost rural here, though but a short ride into town,” she had said happily yesterday. “And neighbours so close, not like at Kennet End, where if we see anyone from one day to the next it is only John and Selina or Reverend Milsom.”
Verity wanted to tell her they would have nearer neighbours at Furze House, but she didn’t know how to deal with Mama in this strange new mood. Was this her natural state? One her marriage had suppressed? It was plain Mr Tweedie found little difference in her to the Miss Harrington he had known twenty years before.
She was so confused. If Charles had been there yesterday, she would have perhaps worked out her own feelings by explaining to him that though she was happy for her mother if this was the life she wanted, it would never be the life for her. She would have to frame her letter in such a way that he called on them to hear the substance of it. She missed him. Things always seemed clearer after she had talked to him.
The hackney carriage slowed to a stop. Fred Grimes took the fare with thanks, then asked if he should wait.
“That would be very kind, but we might be half an hour.”
“It’s no matter to me. I’ve paid off what I borrowed for my poor wife’s medicines, not that they did her any good in the end. I was determined to do it, even if it near crippled me. I’m just marking time now, if you take my meaning.”
They went into the warehouse. Julia linked arms with her friend. “I daresay if you sat up beside him you would have his whole history by the time we were home.”
“Do not be superior, Julia. You know very well you do exactly the same with all the high-flown society people you meet. Think of Peter Crisp and tell me it isn’t so.”
“People’s lives are interesting.”
“So I think too. We are simply interested in different spheres.”
Necessary purchases made, Julia sighed. “I am so tired of not having any of my allowance left. I dearly wish I could afford a new bonnet. I will have to trim an old one afresh instead.”
Verity turned in the act of climbing back into the hackney carriage. “Do you want to go to one of the bazaars? It is very frivolous and not at all a rational use of our time, but I do think some pretty ribbon for my grey cambric would cheer it up. Pink, perhaps, or a nice cerise? Respectful colours are so depressing.”
Fred Grimes cleared his throat. “Would the Soho Bazaar suit your purpose, miss?”
“The very place!” said Julia, brightening.
“Where is that, Mr Grimes?” asked Verity at the same time. “I have not heard of it.”
“Opened last year, miss. It’s for widows and daughters of soldiers to sell millinery and trimmings and suchlike. Mr Trotter, he only charges thruppence for a foot of counter, so all the women share the shop and can make their pieces at home and then sell them. Over a hundred of them there are.”
Verity beamed at him. “What a splendid idea. Please do take us there. You see, Julia, this is the sort of aim I had in mind for Furze House. A place where everyone can work together. No one bears the whole burden.”
Soho Square itself was formed of well-proportioned houses, but there were so many carriages waiting that the hackney was obliged to stop some way away from the bazaar.
“Do not wait,” said Verity. “It will take us a deal of time to go around.”
“I’ll bide until I get another fare. If I’m not here when you come out, another hackney will be along.”
“Always assuming we can afford one by then,” replied Verity. “My friend has a tremendous eye for a bargain, never more so than when she is laying out somebody else’s money.”
Despite the accuracy of this prophesy, there remained a few coins in Verity’s purse when they emerged. This was largely, as she pointed out, because she had refused to lend her friend the money for an embroidered reticule in forget-me-not blue silk the exact colour of Julia’s eyes when she knew perfectly well Julia had another two of that same shade at home. Her friend replied that they were not at all the same blue and Verity was hard-hearted indeed not to have indulged her.
Walking nearly two sides around the square in quest of Mr Grimes, with their arms full of parcels and their attention on the argument, they did not see a gentleman emerge from one of the houses and descend the steps. The ensuing scene was just as one might have predicted.
As parcels flew in all directions and Julia ricocheted off the unfortunate gentleman to trip and fall, Verity found her arms pinned to her sides for one outraged second before she was released and the gentleman was helping Julia up.
“I do beg your pardon,” said Julia, directing the full force of an anxious, repentant smile at him. “That was entirely our own fault. Pray do not let us detain you. I hope you are not hurt?”
There was good reason why Julia had always been the one to open the apologies whenever they had got into a youthful scrape. The gentleman, though he clearly considered himself the most important person in the street, gave her a single appraising look, murmured ‘not at all’ and directed a footman to gather up their fallen possessions before stepping up into his curricle and nodding for his groom to pull away.
“That was Sir Philip Munro,” said Julia. “Did you see the cut of his coat? And the fit and the material? Quite superb. He must fence, do you not think?”
“Undoubtedly,” murmured Verity, still feeling the iron grip on her arms. It was easy to see why he excelled as a thief-taker. Had he thought they were thieves, perhaps? One to distract, the other to lift the contents of his pockets? She remembered the way Charles’s expression had flattened when he saw Sir Philip at the exhibition. Silently she agreed with him. She did not like the gentleman either.