Chapter Nineteen
Now that she was decided, Hope did not bother with pattens or cloak and bonnet. She did not even bother to clean up the mess she’d made by throwing china on the floor. Instead, she shouted an apology to the maids in the kitchen and rushed out the door.
Once outside, she did not walk sedately, as a lady should when strolling through the streets of London. Instead, she lifted her skirts to an immodest but efficient level for running and tore down Harley Street, turned at the next corner and ran the three streets to the Wimpole Street address that Gregory had given her.
There she stopped to stare up at the house, momentarily afraid to go further. It was not proper to visit a gentleman unescorted. But if she considered the things she had done with Gregory, she was probably no longer a lady. Her desire to be bound by convention had kept her from doing things she actually wanted to do for too long. She could not waste another minute. She took a deep breath to settle her nerves and grabbed the knocker, letting it drop.
She was still out of breath from running when a butler answered, staring down at her with the sort of distant confusion that one got from servants confronting the unexpected.
In his moment of hesitation, she could not resist craning her neck to gaze past him at the hall. Everything within sight was new, clean and elegant, just as she had imagined a house owned by Gregory Drake would be.
It did not give off the sense of inherited wealth and power that Comstock Manor did. Nor was it cosy, as she remembered the vicarage being. But it did not smell musty and it did not leak and when things broke Gregory could afford to have them mended or replaced. That she could be mistress of a house was yet another revelation.
The butler cleared his throat. ‘May I help you, miss?’
She smiled up at him. No. She beamed, for he was just one more example of the efficient household in her future. ‘Is Mr Drake in?’
‘I am sorry, miss. The master is currently away from town.’
For a moment, she had trouble comprehending the words. When they had parted this morning he had promised that he would be there if she needed him. And yet he was already gone. Had it been nothing more than the sort of empty courtesy that he offered in parting to all his clients?
If she had learned anything from the last week, it was that she must make an effort to understand others rather than demanding a perfection that even she was not capable of maintaining. He had promised he would be there for her. If he was not at home, there would be an explanation for whatever happened. She simply had to find him and ask.
‘Where did he go?’ she demanded, leaning to the side to peer around the servant, half-expecting that Gregory would appear out of nowhere as he always seemed to when she wanted him.
This time, the butler moved to block her view. ‘I am not at liberty to say, miss.’
‘Then when will he be back?’
‘He did not say, miss. If you wish to leave a card, he will be informed of your visit when he returns.’
‘No.’ She backed away from the door. ‘No, thank you. I will find him myself.’
The butler was looking at her as though she might run mad in the street. Since that was how she had arrived at the house, she should not be surprised.
‘It is all right,’ she assured him, still backing away. ‘Perfectly all right.’
He closed the door slowly. She was sure, as she turned and hurried back down the street, that he watched her from the window. But was the butler the only one to do so? Gregory might be waiting behind a curtain as well, having informed his staff that, should Miss Strickland appear, he was not at home to her.
She could not believe that. He had promised if she came to him he would not turn her away. He would not have said it if he had not meant it. But that left the question of where he might have gone in less than a day and how she might find him if he had given no one permission to tell her.
She smiled. To find Gregory Drake, she would have to think like Gregory Drake. If he wanted to find a person, he would search systematically using whatever clues he could find. Of course, he had a well-developed network of contacts all over London. She had not as much as a mutual friend to ask.
She knew his last employer. She could write to her sister and tell her to ask Mr Leggett to divulge anything he might know about the man he had hired. But that would take weeks, at a minimum. And since Gregory had completed the job for her family, he was likely to be working for someone else, already.
Of course, I offered my services...
And suddenly she knew.
* * *
The trip to the Clarendon was but a short ride through the city. But today, it seemed like the longest journey of Hope’s life. She took the time to return to the town house and let Polly comb the tangles from her hair. She put on her best visiting gown, bonnet, coat and gloves. Beyond that, she took no more care than she would for any other visit. She had spent weeks preparing herself for the man she was about to meet. Now that the moment had arrived, it was not as much anticlimactic as totally unrelated to the things that truly mattered to her.
All the same, she was nervous. Once she arrived at the hotel, she gave her calling card to a porter and asked him to deliver it to her cousin with her wish to speak to him in the dining room. Then, she sat down to wait.
A short time later, a gentleman appeared in the doorway, scanning the room as if searching for her. If she had been expecting a family resemblance, she was disappointed. He was taller than her grandfather had been and thinner as well. His hair was dark. It seemed almost black against his skin which was unnaturally pale. His eyes were a not particularly vibrant green.
Her grandmother had called him handsome. While she did not disagree, his appearance left her strangely unmoved. Her head was too full of another man to appreciate him. Once he had recovered his health, her cousin would devastate the maidens of Almack’s. She wished them luck.
But of one thing she was sure: he did not look as she expected an earl to look. There was some undefinable thing missing from him that she’d taken for granted in her grandfather and his peers. Was it arrogance? Pride? Or merely the confidence of a man who controlled the world around him for further than his eye could reach. Miles Strickland did not appear to be a master of his universe. He looked as though he was not sure where he belonged.
All the same, he intimidated her. Now that the opportunity had finally come to meet the heir, all her practising was for naught. She rose as he drew near, and dropped into a wobbly curtsy. ‘My Lord Comstock.’
When she raised her eyes to smile at him, he looked thoroughly uncomfortable with both her deference and greeting. ‘Please,’ he said wincing. ‘Sit down, Miss Strickland. We are family, are we not? Surely the formality of a title is not necessary.’
‘As you wish, my lord.’ She resumed her seat.
‘And the honorific is not necessary, either,’ he said, wincing again before sitting in the chair opposite her. ‘I am not totally sure it is even appropriate yet. There must be some papers to be signed. They cannot just expect...’ His voice trailed off, confused again. ‘To call me Mr Strickland would be rather confusing. Would it be too inappropriate for you to call me Miles?’
Probably. But if it was what he wished she would accede. She smiled again, though she could still not manage the dazzler she had planned for him. ‘If you wish, I shall call you Miles. And you must call me Hope.’
He nodded, relieved. ‘Very well, Hope. It is good to meet you. If you have come to welcome me, I am surprised that you did not bring your sister with you. I looked forward to meeting both of you.’
‘Actually, I had not planned to impose myself on you, until invited,’ she said.
‘I see,’ he replied, disappointed. ‘And what changed your mind on the subject?’
‘My friend, Mr Gregory Drake, mentioned that he had seen you,’ she said. ‘I went to visit him today and found he has travelled from town without leaving notice of where he was going. I wondered if, perhaps, he might have mentioned his destination to you.’
And now he was surely wondering about the manners of English women and whether it was normal for them to ask impertinent questions of people they had just met. But, if she had shocked him, he hid it well. ‘Yes, Mr Drake. We dined together the day before yesterday and again this afternoon.’ He gave her an appraising look. ‘He speaks most highly of you.’
‘He does?’ She had given him no reason to, but it was nice to know.
‘Yes. Especially after a few glasses of brandy. When he left me today, he was somewhat the worse for drink and under the impression that I was likely to marry you. In fact, he strongly advised it. He says you are a capital choice and that it makes a great deal of sense for us to wed, for the sake of family solidarity.’
‘Oh.’ As usual, Gregory Drake was working very hard behind the scenes, like Cupid’s own stage hand, to see to it that she got the things he thought she wanted.
‘Your grandmother seemed to like the idea as well. When she met me in Bristol she took great pains to remind me that you and Miss Charity are not married and it is my responsibility, as head of the family, to see that you do so. But not just any man will do. Nearly everyone I have spoken to since I arrived seems to assume that it would be for the best if I stepped up and offered.’
‘I see,’ she said, even though she did not want to. Had it been just a few hours ago that she was prepared to accept? Now, she would have to find a polite way to refuse.
‘You wouldn’t happen to be in love with Mr Drake, would you?’ Miles said with a sympathetic smile.
‘Yes?’ she said. Her voice quavered, making it sound almost like a question. ‘Yes,’ she said, more firmly, and smiled as her strength returned.
He sighed. ‘That is good to know. Because, you see, while everyone thinks it is a good plan for us to wed, I can’t say that I’m sold on the idea. You seem very nice, of course. And you are very pretty. But we do not know each other at all and what kind of a marriage would be made of that?’
‘That is true,’ she said, amazed at the flood of relief she felt to be rejected by the man she’d waited for for months.
‘If you should happen to marry someone else before I’ve had a chance to court you, I would find that most convenient.’
‘I am not sure he still wants to,’ she said. ‘He asked me, but I refused him.’
Miles sighed. ‘What is wrong with the pair of you? You seem quite besotted with each other. Make sure he offers again. By week’s end, if that would be possible. That damn Prince is after me to declare myself and I need a reason to say no.’
‘The Regent,’ she said, horrified.
‘Solidarity of the state. Heirs. Something like that,’ Miles Strickland said, shaking his head. ‘He wants to make sure I marry the right sort of girl and not an opera dancer or an American.’ His lip curled in distaste. ‘Back home, we do not have to worry about the government meddling in our personal affairs. James Madison does not know me from Adam’s off ox and that is just the way I like it.’
‘The Regent expects us to marry,’ she said again, pointing between the two of them.
‘But we are not going to,’ he reminded her, smiling. ‘You are going to marry Greg Drake, as soon as possible.’
‘But I do not know where he is,’ she said, helpless.
‘Is that all?’ The Earl let out a relieved puff of air. ‘I sent him down to Berkshire. Or up. I am not sure where it is, exactly. But I have a house there.’
‘To the manor,’ she said, shocked.
‘I had requested an audit of the entail. But though everyone in this country has been telling me what they expect of me since the day I arrived, no one actually listens to what I want. Except for Greg Drake, that is. He seems to be a dead useful fellow, able to write in a clear hand and smart enough to count the sheep, or whatever it is I have.’
‘He is at the manor,’ she repeated.
‘I’m told it’s not far. But I haven’t seen it myself. Feel free to take my carriage. Apparently, I have several of them,’ he said.
She was gone from the table before he could finish the sentence.