Chapter Thirteen
“Now that you’re through with callers,” Mary said, dusting off her gloves, “I sought you out for a reason.”
I bit my tongue to stifle a groan. That couldn’t possibly bode well.
“Perhaps it’s best if I stay in today. More callers might come,” I said. I believed no such thing.
“They waited too long,” Mary said. She crossed the room and clutched my hand. “You’re coming out with me. I need your help with Cypsela.”
“Anything but that,” I said with feeling, digging in my heels.
Pauline fell into step behind us. She wore a smirk. “Who is Cypsela?”
“Lord Sutton,” I answered absently. “A botanist.”
Mary dropped my hand to face me, hands on her hips. “I thought you were my friend, Francine.”
“I was—I am.”
“Then why won’t you help me when I need you? I can’t very well turn to Rose with this kind of request.”
Given her “delicate condition,” she might faint dead away. Or, at the very least, pretend to. Though I doubted that would fool Mary for a second.
Lucky for her, Mary had latched onto me today for company instead of Rose.
I sighed. “This doesn’t involve another felony, does it?”
She frowned. “Whatever do you mean?”
Pauline frowned. “I won’t chaperone that.”
I didn’t want her to. If it involved something that might get us in serious trouble, I wanted no part of it.
“Dressing in men’s clothes?” I swallowed heavily. “I’m not entirely certain, but I think if we’d been caught we could have been arrested.”
“Nonsense,” Mary said with a laugh. “I do it all the time. I’ve never been caught.”
Of course she hadn’t. As Julian had put it, she didn’t have as womanly a figure as I did. Mary was slim of breast and of hip. Whether she wore breeches or a dress, her figure remained the same.
“But you don’t have to worry. You can wear the walking dress.”
With a bright smile, she enclosed my hand in hers and tugged me toward the front of the house. Unfortunately, as we had been ensconced in the front parlor, the main door loomed too close. I didn’t have much time to dissuade her. Not that, to date, I’d ever been successful in doing so.
“You promise this won’t harm my reputation?”
She waved her free hand in the air but didn’t look behind her. She accepted her bonnet from our stoic butler and took mine from him as well, which she then shoved into my hands. Why I wore the damn thing when it did absolutely nothing to protect me from sprouting new freckles, I didn’t know. My face sported a canopy of them whether or not I shaded my skin.
I tied the bonnet to my head nonetheless. Pauline took one as well.
“Thank you, Grimsby,” Mary said cheerfully. The butler nodded gravely to her, a fond smile twitching his lips.
How she managed to charm all my family’s servants, I’d never know.
Once we stepped outside into the open sun, she told me matter-of-factly, “We shouldn’t need to tarnish your reputation. No one will know we left the house.”
I relaxed somewhat. “Good.”
On the street, we hired a hack. Before Mary jumped onto the seat beside me, she said to the driver, “Take us to Lord Sutton’s townhouse, please.” She listed the address. Pauline entered last and sat across from us. She looked dubious.
I shared her misgivings. My throat tightened. The carriage rolled forward the second she slipped onto the seat opposite me.
“We aren’t meeting Cypsela somewhere in public?”
Mary sighed. “Hardly. When he isn’t at home, he barricades himself at the club.”
Come to think of it, maybe I’d rather face Cypsela at his home than let Mary try to gain entrance to a man’s club. Knowing her, she would succeed. I turned a bit green around the gills just thinking about it.
“You’ve visited men at their homes before?”
Mary made a face. “Not exactly. I usually talk to the servants when I know they’re away. Most of the men I confront are not such social pariahs. Cypsela rarely attends soirees, so I can’t confront him there.”
My heart hammered. “Should we really be doing this? If we’re seen at his home without escort, there might be a scandal.”
Mary rolled her eyes and pointed at Pauline. “We have an escort.”
At the moment, an army didn’t seem like enough of an escort. I cleared my throat, cutting the silence between us. “If you haven’t convinced him yet, maybe he won’t see reason.”
Sunlight slanted through the window, cutting across her dark expression. “Oh, he’ll see reason.”
Unfortunately, Cypsela lived only a few streets away from my family’s townhouse, in a bachelor quarter. The hack rolled to a stop before I convinced Mary of the imprudence of her idea. She paid the man from her pin money and we disembarked. I gazed after the carriage with longing as it rolled away.
Why couldn’t I manage to stand up to Mary when she sprouted her harebrained schemes? Pauline was no help. For all that she and Mary were great friends most of the time, when Mary wore an air of someone going to battle, Pauline shrank inside herself and didn’t say a word. My friend could be frightening, especially when she believed she fought for someone unable to fight for themselves.
Fortunately, this scheme seemed straightforward enough. I strode with her to the front steps of Cypsela’s townhouse, Pauline a step behind us. If he had any sense at all, he would bar us from entering and I could return home.
His house was built almost identically to mine. Tall and narrow, with neighbors pressed on either side and a sharply sloping roof. The windows yawned down at me, judging.
Mary clipped the front door, painted blue, with her knuckles. A lean man who perfectly matched this tall, narrow house answered the door. He was younger than our butler; maybe younger than me. His expression was no less rigid.
His heavy eyebrows climbed toward his thick dark hair as he beheld us. “Who, may I ask, are you?”
“Friends of Lord Sutton,” Mary said in a cutting tone.
I beheld her with alarm. While Cypsela might call her many names, I doubted “friend” was among them.
The butler pursed his lips, unimpressed. “I’m afraid Lord Sutton is out. Would you care to leave a calling card?”
I fiddled with my reticule. I didn’t carry calling cards. On the rare occasions Mother embarked on morning visits, she presented them.
Mary shook her head, saving me the search. “No, thank you. I’ll return later.”
The butler raised his bony chin. “I believe Lord Sutton will be out all day.”
Mary bared her teeth in a lethal expression. “Tomorrow, then.”
The man’s mouth twitched. Surely he must realize by now that she would not be dissuaded. He said, “Good day, then, miss,” and shut the door in her face.
I winced. That wouldn’t put her in a cordial mood at all.
She turned to me with a pugnacious scowl. “I know he’s in there.”
I said nothing, though the butler had made it abundantly clear that he intended to deter Mary from entering. His employer would thank him for the trouble. She latched onto my sleeve and hauled me over the front steps. I stepped wrong on my ankle and stumbled down. I would have fallen if Mary had not abruptly pulled me in another direction.
“Have a care for her ankle,” Pauline called as she hitched her skirt and followed us.
Slowing marginally, Mary dragged me between Cypsela’s house and the townhouse on his right. The path was narrow and overgrown with weeds. I stepped carefully, so as not to disturb them.
At the back of the house, a fence bordered Cypsela’s property. The gate was latched and locked. Mary jiggled it, but it didn’t loosen. “Blast.”
She turned, staring at me in a measuring way. My stomach shrank. I didn’t like that look at all.
“Come here,” she beckoned.
“I’ll freckle if I go in the sun. I rather like the shade over here.”
Her expression deadpanned. “That’s what a bonnet is for. Now come. Here.” She snipped off the last word, much like I expected her to do with some dear part of my body if I didn’t comply.
Glumly, I shuffled forward. “It’s locked, Mary. I don’t know what you’d have us do.”
She knelt, making a cup out of her hands. “Step up.”
My ankle suddenly felt as solid as sap. I swayed. “I can’t, Mary. My ankle. Have a care.”
Pauline insinuated herself at my side, propping her shoulder beneath mine so I might use her as a crutch. As the weight lessened from my ankle, the shadow of pain faded to a dull ache. “She’s injured,” my maid protested, not quite looking our mutual friend in the eye. “She shouldn’t be out of the house. Please tell me you aren’t planning on breaking into the house.”
“I won’t break anything,” Mary said sweetly. “I’m just going to use the back door instead of the front door. No doubt it will be guarded by someone more sensible.”
Or perhaps someone whose senses had fled. Did she enter my townhouse through the back? It sounded ludicrous, but knowing Mary…
Pauline’s body stiffened alongside mine. “You promised there would be no felonies. I will not chaperone this.”
“We don’t need a chaperone. It’s only Cypsela. We’ll be fine.”
Only Cypsela? Did Mary know him personally?
“And it isn’t a felony if one of the servants lets us in through the back. I promise, if the cook tells us to leave, we’ll leave.”
I opened my mouth. Pauline separated from my side. As I reflexively leaned my full weight on my injured foot, a stab of pain jabbed at my ankle. It stole my breath. I leaned my weight on the opposite foot and the pain abated.
Pauline’s mouth was tight as she said, “That may be well and good for you, if you’re caught. You’d get a slap on the wrist compared to me. I won’t go.”
I didn’t want to go, either. But if the butler had turned us away, surely the cook would do so as well. The servants in a house presented a unified front.
“We’ll be fine,” Mary said, flippant. “We aren’t breaking into the house—we’ll be let in. We’re only breaking into the yard.”
Pauline looked dubious. “That isn’t any less of a crime. Miss Francine is the daughter of a baron, and you’re the daughter of a solicitor and the goddaughter of a countess. Whatever your reprimand, it will feel like a sunbath compared to what I’m handed. I’d lose my job, to say the least. Even Miss Francine couldn’t save me from that.”
She was wrong about that. I wouldn’t let Papa turn her out of the house.
I bit my lower lip. If I didn’t go along with his wishes, I had Pauline’s future to think about, as well as my own. Without my dowry or Papa’s support, I wouldn’t be able to provide for myself, let alone her. Could I reconcile myself to an unhappy marriage in order to ensure her continued well-being? She hadn’t mentioned it, but she must be just as worried over my impending choice as I was.
“You don’t have to go in,” I said. “Mary, this is madness.”
Betrayal crossed my friend’s face. “You won’t help me? This is for the sake of a young woman. How would you feel if a man accosted Pauline?”
Gritting my teeth, I stared up at the pale sky. I swore inwardly. If someone had hurt Pauline, I would move the Earth to see that they were brought to justice. Mary knew that—she felt the same about every woman in a poor situation, not only those she knew.
But she went too far. Pauline was right. This was madness.
“Let’s find another way.”
Mary scowled. “There is no other way. He won’t speak to me. He leaves any room I enter. The only place I’ll be able to force him to answer my inquiries is at his home. I need to know if he committed this crime.”
She didn’t know for sure? Then why was she so hell-bent on chasing him?
“No.” I leaned on Pauline to ease the throb in my ankle. “I won’t do it. I’m sorry.”
For a moment, Mary stared at me blankly, as if she expected me to change my mind. Not this time. My ankle was swollen. I’d barely gotten any sleep last night because I was too worried about my future. All I wanted was to shut myself in the hothouse with my plants and not come out again until this entire situation had evaporated.
I couldn’t do that, but I didn’t have to do this.
She looked me in the eye, her jaw set. “I thought we were friends.”
“We are friends, but—”
“Friendship doesn’t have modifiers. We’re either friends or we aren’t. I’d do this for you.”
I knew that. That was what made my decision even worse. There wasn’t anything that Mary wouldn’t do for one of her friends. But it turned out there was something I wouldn’t do for her. What kind of friend did that make me?
The sensible kind?
It didn’t feel that way.
Pauline said firmly, “She said she won’t help, so she won’t.”
“We can find another way,” I said.
“No. There is no other way.” She turned in the dirt alley toward the fence. She looked like she was close to tears. “Fine. I’ll do it myself. I don’t need you.”
I caught her by the arm. “Why is this so important to you? You can’t change every man.”
“I can damn well change him!”
Tears glimmered in her eyes. She turned to wipe them away. I released her, but she didn’t barge away. “Mary?”
She fished a handkerchief out of her reticule and daubed her eyes with it. “He’s not a monster. He can’t have changed that much.”
“Changed? Mary…” I shook my head. “What do you mean?”
She stuffed the handkerchief in her pocket but didn’t meet my gaze. “He’s Old Lady Gladstone’s nephew. We used to talk all the time, before I grew breasts, and he went off to Oxford and became a man.” She pressed her lips together. “I know he’s good. He has to be.”
“Maybe he is good. Maybe the rumors are false.”
She met my gaze. Her mouth had returned to its usual set, determined line. “Maybe. But I have to prove it, one way or another. If you won’t help, I’ll do it by myself.” Her face set, she turned, barrelled toward the fence, and jumped. She swung herself over the top with difficulty.
“Mary, don’t be stupid. If you get caught—”
“That’s my problem now, not yours.” Her voice was thick with disgust as she dropped over to the other side of the fence. “If you want to go home, Francine, then go home. I don’t need you, after all.”
Maybe not, but I needed her. She was my strength, a woman of action. She always knew what to do when a problem arose—or if she didn’t, she would find out. She never made me feel like I should be wittier or prettier or anything different than exactly the way I was.
“Mary?”
She didn’t answer. She had already gone inside.
I didn’t follow.