Maiden Lane Read online

“I vouch for no one.”

  Her attention turned to me. Typical of her to aim for what she regarded as the weaker point of Richard’s armour. “You knew of this?”

  I inclined my head. “I have no interest in this young man.”

  Lady Southwood gave an exasperated sound, something like “Tcha!” but went on to say, “Despite your callous disregard of him and his mother, he seems to have grown into a presentable youth. Do you know of his history?”

  I had to work hard to suppress a gasp of disbelief, since she had caused his disappearance from Richard’s life.

  Richard barely blinked at her blatant turn of face. “I met him last year in Devonshire and became acquainted with some of the highlights of his career.” We knew more than we admitted or would let her know. “If he disturbs you, madam, I will ensure he doesn’t visit you again.”

  “I can do that for myself, should I wish it.” So she wanted him here.

  I was beginning to understand her tactics in this matter. “Where is Lord Southwood? Does he know of this?”

  A muscle on Richard’s hand, seemingly at rest on his knee, twitched. Lady Southwood gave an easy smile. “I will inform him when I see him. He has business at the House today.” Parliament took his attention, then. Had John called because he knew Lord Southwood would be away from home or because she had invited him? “Do you wish to acknowledge your son?” The last two words dropped into silence.

  Richard chose not to break it immediately. He looked from his mother to his son and back again, giving John the merest glance of indifference. “I have no son. You ensured we became strangers to each other. It’s best that we continue that way.”

  For the first time John spoke. “I shall make you acknowledge me.” I blessed the fact that while he looked like Richard, he didn’t sound like him. His voice was lighter, with a Northern accent, very slight but discernible. I suspected that he kept it to evoke interest.

  Richard tilted his chin and gazed at John, but avoided direct eye contact. I’d seen that before, an aristocratic trick to emphasise superiority, as if indicating that the recipient of the regard was not worthy of so intimate a connection. “No, you will not.”

  “People are talking.”

  “And why should that concern me?” His tones took the temperature in the room down a few degrees.

  I knew why. Gossip was not only damaging, but also invidious, and rarely forgotten. With John spreading his particular brand of poison, it could hurt Richard more than I ever wished to see. Or would allow. I’d take action to ensure that didn’t happen if I had to.

  His mother gave Richard a look of exasperation, her lips thinning, her brow furrowed by a frown. “You know quite well why. Your father is currently undertaking some delicate negotiations in the House.”

  “Then I suggest we ignore the boy. His addition to the family cannot, I assure you, my lady, redound to our credit.”

  “I don’t see why not.” Lady Southwood unfolded her hands and reached for her dish of tea, which was no doubt cold by now. But she took a delicate sip before she replaced it in its saucer. A delaying tactic.

  “Then let me explain.” Richard glanced at John and immediately back to his mother. “Last year, this young man appeared in Rose’s home county, claiming to be a Sir John Kneller. He hired a house in the district and courted Rose’s sister Ruth quite determinedly. He claimed to be older than his actual age, which would make him acceptable to Ruth. He abducted my wife in an attempt to silence my attempts to prevent his criminal activities. I took her back and put paid to his pretensions.”

  “Criminal activities?” Lady Southwood didn’t seem too perturbed, but like Richard, she rarely displayed her true emotions. Sometimes I doubted she had any, apart from a violent desire to pursue her family’s power and influence.

  “He attempted to control the smuggling industry in that part of the country. It is already an organized activity, and disrupting it would cause the kind of bloodshed that has already occurred in other parts of the country.” A very civilised way of describing the death and destruction of local industry that smuggling brought to parts of the coast. “I put a stop to it, and he left the district. Now he has re-emerged, sans the honorific, and with ambitions beyond any he is entitled to.” He glanced at me and I understood that he was ready to leave. I made to get to my feet when John interrupted.

  “I was adopted by Sir John Kneller and I’m proud to continue his name. He showed me kindnesses my family never have.” He blinked and drew a breath, not as practised at hiding his emotions as my husband and his mother. Nor I, though it took more of an effort for me to cover my expressions with a polite society mask. “However, I have recently come into the possession of a document that makes all the change in the world.” He glared at Richard, who studiously ignored him. “It appears that my father married my mother before he caused her to be removed from Eyton. He must have had a change of heart.”

  Again that fraught silence, in which I imagined they could hear my heart pounding. Wildly, I sought out the possibilities, the probabilities and what it meant for Helen. If it were true. Richard said nothing, his posture frozen, his gaze icy. Only the diamond pin in his neckcloth flashed when he took a deep breath.

  Richard had offered to marry Lucy, the mother of twins John and Susan, but had always said his mother had removed Lucy before he’d done it. And he hadn’t known of her pregnancy. She had taken the decision from him, afraid he’d carry out his threat. Richard wouldn’t have married Lucy, not at fourteen. But his parents dealt with the problem for him in such a way that it came back to haunt him years later.

  “My mother sent Lucy away,” Richard said.

  John blinked, and then stared at Richard. At least his eyes were grey, otherwise he could have created a facsimile of Richard. His face was the same shape, pointed and angular, with the sensual lips that appeared, to those who didn’t know him as well as I, to belie his cold nature. John had even adapted Richard’s preference for clear colours and fine lace, although he wouldn’t have the money to duplicate it completely. Neither did he need to for people to remark the difference.

  “It seems I misjudged you, in one matter at least.” John had accused his father of abandoning him, of having a hand in sending him away. Perhaps we had an opening here. Something we could work with.

  Richard gave his son a brief nod. “You did. But that led you to behaviour I find unacceptable.” He favoured his son with a chilling glance. “I have never married anyone apart from Rose.”

  “I beg to differ,” said John, equally smooth. “I have the documents and I traced the witnesses.” He must have paid a lot to get them.

  I tried not to show my alarm, clasping my hands loosely in my lap and carefully retaining my expression of polite indifference. Only Lady Southwood revealed any interest, and that only by a widening of her slightly protuberant pale blue eyes. “An interesting bid, but as you must recall, Strang was fourteen and unable to contract a marriage of his own accord. Even if he had gone through with some kind of ritual, it wouldn’t be legal.” I hated the way she always referred to Richard by his title. Many high-born mothers did, but some used the title with some fondness. Lady Southwood never did.

  John smiled, his ease increasing my lack of comfort. He wouldn’t have made such a claim without a great deal of preparation. “But this was before the recent Marriage Act.” Irregular marriage occurred all the time. “It has to be proved in the courts. But at the very least, it is a precontract. I have a case, you must admit.”

  “With a fourteen-year-old boy?” I put all the scorn I could muster into that statement. John would pounce on any sign of weakness.

  “Yes. It has been known.” He gave me an easy smile. He’d been watching Richard. “You understand that a precontract invalidates all subsequent marriages until the death of one or both of the parties.”

  My heart plummeted. I had borne a child, and I had another in my womb. If he proved his case, that would make our marriage null and void, and our chil
dren bastards, since we married when Lucy was still alive. I couldn’t bear it. I must have shown a sign of my stress because Richard got to his feet and strolled across the room to the window, the swirl of his heavy coat skirts blocking his son’s view of me for a crucial second or two.

  “I didn’t do it,” he said. “I never went through any form of ceremony with Lucy Forder. Neither did I make her any promises in front of witnesses.” Legally, that was what counted. No doubt John, in possession of a tidy fortune, had bribed people to say so. We needed legal help.

  And all the while, Lady Southwood watched us, speculation glittering in her eyes, brighter than the diamonds around her throat. I knew what she was thinking just as if she’d said it aloud.

  Strang could be free. He could marry again, someone of my choosing this time. I can support this boy as long as it suits me, and then get rid of him.

  Chapter Four

  OUR NEXT CALL WAS IN the City. Not wanting to advertise our presence, we sent our crested carriage home and hired a hack. Richard sent the first one away, and by the state of the second, I didn’t want to know how bad that had been. This one had cracked upholstery and debris on the floor that I avoided looking at. And it stank, so it was as well the leather blinds weren’t drawn over the open windows. I tried to appear nonchalant, but I didn’t fool my husband for a moment.

  “I’ve told them to send the uncrested vehicle for us.” I heard the smile in his voice and rejoiced in it. I’d seen the despair behind his disdain at his mother’s house. We’d left after John, not wishing him to regain territory, but his mother, a gleam in her eye, wouldn’t speak to us and wouldn’t listen when Richard tried to tell her what John had done in Devonshire last year.

  “Will you speak to your father?”

  “I fear I must.” Relations between Richard and his father had improved of late, but this would set them back, I was sure of it. “He’ll hear soon enough, in any case. Gossip moves faster than thought. He’s in the House today, so the chances are high that he’s heard already. I’ll find him after we’ve visited Alicia.”

  Alicia Thompson lent her name to the agency that we owned with her and Richard’s manservant, Carier. The whole enterprise had begun as a way for Carier to invest his army pension, but these days it had grown and developed far beyond its modest beginnings.

  I took a moment to stare up at the tall, narrow building, set at the junction between two streets in the City of London. The brass plate outside gleamed with prosperity and elbow grease, and the wide black-painted door stood open to the street, with people passing in and out. People seeking work as domestics, respectable and otherwise, prospective employers who wanted to interview servants away from their homes and then us, looking as out of place as swans in a duck pond.

  Alicia greeted us in her office, with its old but comfortable furniture and its mismatched but serviceable china. Sometimes I felt it as a relief, because every day I lived surrounded by perfection, the best of everything. I enjoyed imperfection too. I had known old, comfortable clothes and furniture, and sometimes I missed closing the door, making myself a pot of tea instead of ordering one sent up, and propping my feet up on the nearest chair. Richard had no such reserve. If he wanted to prop his feet on the exquisite, brocaded salon chairs, he did so.

  Alicia poured us each a dish of tea from a large brown pot. We helped ourselves to sugar and milk, and she sat back to listen to us. As usual, papers and books were scattered over her desk in seemingly random array, but she could put her hands on a specific piece of information in the blink of an eye.

  “It’s good to see you looking so well, Rose.” She lifted her dish to her lips. Hers had large tea roses blossoming on it. Mine had forget-me-nots. In public, Alicia gave me the respect due to my station, but in private we had long reverted to more familiar names.

  “I’ve settled into the pregnancy,” I told her with a smile. “I found the first month or two uncomfortable, but now all I need is an extra rest in the middle of the day. Which means I’ve had to cut down on my levées.” Receiving people in my chamber in the mornings, or what passed for mornings in London, was not my favourite London pastime. I wasn’t altogether unhappy about giving it up.

  Alicia raised a brow at Richard, who obliged. Succinctly, he told Alicia about John’s appearance in London and his visit to Lady Southwood. “I want him gone. And if Timothy has some time, I’d like to discuss the legal ramifications.”

  “I called him,” said the perspicacious Alicia. “He’ll be here shortly. I’d have collected his information before you came, but the rumours only began to circulate early this morning. I didn’t know about his visit to your mother, but I did hear about his appearance in the ballroom. Most of London has. He went out of his way to point up the similarities between you, didn’t he?”

  Richard’s mouth settled into a grim line. “He made sure of it. It was one of the most prestigious events at the start of the season, and he danced with every eligible maiden present. I believe he imagined I’d compete with him, but no.”

  “You don’t need to,” I said, exchanging a glance with Alicia. She nodded, her eyes sparkling with amusement. She knew exactly what I meant. On the town for twelve years or more, Richard merely had to show his presence for people to notice. It was one thing his son never understood, that Richard belonged to polite society, by birth and right. He’d have to seriously transgress for them to disown him. His son would only have to put a foot wrong and the sticklers would turn their backs on him. It could be one of our most effective weapons if it became necessary.

  “Thank you for that.” He didn’t smile, however. I hardly expected him to. Strain showed in the depths of his eyes, in the way he kept moving, drumming his fingers when he was sitting, walking around the room when on his feet. Only in private, only with us. His guilt over abandoning his son overwhelmed him at times, but only his closest friends knew that.

  The door opened on a knock and Timothy came in. He was the only person who would do that, enter without waiting outside. Timothy and Alicia lived together, but they weren’t married. They didn’t shock many people, as most assumed they were married. They didn’t go out of their way to disabuse anyone, and they didn’t move in high society. After a disastrous first marriage, Alicia refused to consider handing over her private fortune to anyone else, even the man she loved. And she did love him. Her gaze softened as she looked up and saw him. He smiled easily and crossed to her side of the desk before bending to kiss her cheek. He shook hands with Richard and bowed to me, then dragged a chair over to sit next to Alicia.

  He glanced at her, brows up. Timothy Dixon worked out of Lincoln’s Inn as a man of law, one of the most well-known of his kind in the country. Richard’s family used him, and his mother declared herself scandalised that Richard occasionally hobnobbed with him socially. Not that her comment gave my husband a moment’s pause.

  Richard rejoined me and brought Timothy and Alicia up to date. Alicia frowned and pursed her lips when she heard what John had claimed, but Timothy merely watched him, his pale eyes concentrated in thought. When Richard paused after his admirably succinct, dispassionate account, he sat back. “Well, Timothy? Could he disturb us?”

  Timothy leaned back and steepled his fingers. He sighed. “He could. It would prove expensive, but he could. I suspect he’ll try to do it informally at first, carry on his campaign of appearing in public places, making himself agreeable, allowing people to come to their own conclusions. If he claims to be your son in front of witnesses, you can sue him, if you wish. If you don’t, it makes you look weak.”

  “I’m already aware of that,” Richard said. “I presume he can acquire a good forged certificate to show that I married his mother.”

  “Forgive me,” Timothy said, “but how far does this go? Did you have an affair with his mother? Is he your son? If you want me to act for you in the future, you need not answer.” Just in case he wanted to lie.

  “Yes.” Richard reached for my hand and I gave it willingly
. He gripped it like a lifeline, although the rest of his body suggested complete relaxation. I gripped back and I doubted I appeared serene too. “I had an affair with her when I was fourteen and she was at least three years older than me. I didn’t know about the pregnancy because my mother sent her away. She had twins. Susan is one, John is the other. John made himself known to us last year.”

  “Have you ever acknowledged him publicly?”

  “No.”

  Timothy nodded. “Did you make Lucy Forder any binding promises? Especially in front of others?”

  A telling pause followed. I wanted to believe that Richard found it difficult to remember. Eventually he gave a firm “No.”

  “Did you go through any form of marriage with her, however outlandish you might have thought it at the time?”

  This time a swift “No.” He pressed the fingers of his free hand to the bridge of his nose. “I did say I’d marry her, once, but we were alone. I’m positive that nobody heard us.” And I guessed where. A pavilion in the grounds of Eyton, one where an occupant could detect any approach well in time. One where I’d spent some romantic time with Richard. I wouldn’t be doing that again. Not in that place.

  “That shouldn’t count, legally. I can’t advise you officially, but it’s best to let your memory of past events grow vague if anyone asks you about that incident.”

  I appreciated Timothy’s advice, and so did Richard. “She might have told my mother, because shortly after that Lucy disappeared. My mother had caused her to move to France.”

  “And found a husband for her,” I put in. “A husband who acknowledged the children as his own. He’s dead now, but surely someone will remember them.”

  Richard shocked me by planting a kiss on my mouth, a noisy, playful buss. “You wonderful woman! I’ll send someone across to get statements that the man said the children belonged to him. Have I told you recently that I love you?”

  I adored his newfound confidence, his ability to discuss our love in front of trusted friends. He rarely went this far, however. “Yes, but never stop,” I answered, and I felt a hot blush suffuse my cheeks despite my brave words. Or maybe because of them, as he was looking at me in the way he did when he wanted to strip me naked. Warm, intimate and passionate, something his society friends wouldn’t have believed of him. But I did.