His Wayward Bride (Romance of the Turf Book 3) Page 11

  Not when she hadn’t learned how to clean a horse’s hooves.

  “Come back with me. Stay for dinner,” Jonah wheedled. When Irene looked uncertain, he added, “We’ll have a joint of beef. Mrs. Green is also cooking asparagus and potato and some sort of fish, and we’ll have an apricot tart and candied cherries.”

  “Jonah.” She laughed. “You don’t have to bribe. I’m only hesitating because”—she pointed with one gloved hand—“there’s a hackney in front of your house. You have visitors.”

  “I’ll get rid of them,” Jonah promised. He picked up speed again, strides eating the remaining distance to the front door.

  Bright opened it to them with a bemused expression on his freckled face. “Welcome home, Mr. Jonah.”

  “Thanks,” both Jonah and Irene said at once. When the butler only blinked at them, Jonah cleared his throat and added, “Ah, very good. Yes. All right, so I see we have callers?”

  You’re terrible at this, he could almost hear Irene laughing into his ear.

  “Indeed, Mr. Jonah. Mrs. Baird’s sister is here. A Melanie Ghosh, and her son Douglas.”

  “Aunt Mellie!” Irene clapped her hands over the false side whiskers. “She can’t see me like this.”

  “What my friend means to say is…” Jonah trailed off. He had no idea what his supposed friend meant to say.

  Bright looked mildly into the middle distance. “If anyone wanted to change his or her appearance before greeting the callers, all that person would need to do is sneak up the back stairs and make use of the bathing chamber.”

  “Bright, you’re a wonder,” Irene said in her normal voice.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Jonah.” The butler’s lids flickered, just the suggestion of a wink, before he accepted the leash of Miss Dog and ushered her away.

  Left alone again in the foyer, Jonah repeated his request. “Take the back stairs. Have a bath. Stay for the night. If you can?”

  “I can stay,” she said, and her voice held a promise of dinner and apricots. Of candied fruit and a comfortable bed. Of being held in each other’s arms. Of missions completed and of their best being enough. “For tonight, I can stay.”

  Chapter Ten

  One of the rooms on the ground floor didn’t have any of her collection in it. Susanna knew that. And the foyer was clear too, so when Mellie and Douglas had entered the house, it looked exactly as gracious as it was intended to.

  This room…wasn’t that. Meant as a parlor-turned-study tucked behind the dining room, it was a forest of chair legs from stacked bits of furniture. Folds and snips of cloth stuffed into every cranny kept the chairs steady, and stacks of paper goods and oddments filled in the gaps. It had taken Susanna ages to get everything right in the space.

  But she hadn’t started collecting in earnest until after she’d moved into Harris’s lodging, and her sister and nephew weren’t prepared for the sight. Douglas, a fine sturdy boy of eleven years, laughed. “It’s so many chairs.”

  Mellie gave Susanna another hug. “Thought there was room for a bit of everything in Fleet Street, but there’s no house like this, and that’s for sure.”

  The youngest sister comforted the oldest, when at thirty-five, Melinda Ghosh was closer in age to Irene than to Susanna herself. “I don’t care about the chairs,” Mellie added. “Or the space. Or the rough, rude neighborhood. It’s glad I am to see you.”

  She’d married an Indian-Irish secretary and picked up on his lilting speech patterns. The song in her voice made Susanna smile.

  People had often told Mellie and Susanna that they resembled each other, with arched brows over roguish brandy-brown eyes. Mellie was taller, with strong shoulders and comfortable curves, and since she’d been a toddler, she’d given the world’s most wholehearted hugs.

  “Wait, Dougie. Let me find a safe seat for you.” As Susanna checked the jumble of chairs for a place they could sit, she realized what else her sister had said. She looked over her shoulder at Mellie. “A rough, rude neighborhood? Do you mean at Harris’s lodging house?”

  “No, here.” Mellie squinted in an exaggerated manner. “Your fine and fancy neighbors glared at us, didn’t they, when we got down from the hackney.”

  Susanna drew out a chair and settled Douglas into it. He rubbed one of his ears, his round face crumpling. “Poor lamb,” Susanna realized. “You’ve got a sore ear again.”

  The oldest of Mellie’s four children, Douglas, had always been troubled by sore ears. He hadn’t quite grown as other boys, late to roll and sit and walk and speak. Now, at two years younger than Laurie, he was far from his cousin’s level of learning. But he was kind and creative, his tip-tilted eyes warm with good humor. Like Susanna, he loved color and patterns and the rich feel of cloth. He was seldom without a ball of yarn for hand-knotting, spinning intricate artworks in warm lengths from his fingers.

  Today he clearly didn’t feel well, his gestures listless as he pulled out soft yarn the color of the sky. Mellie tousled his fine black hair. “I put a drop of olive oil in each of his ears before we left. Thought our errand might cheer him up, or at least distract him, but I suppose the oil’s done all it can.”

  “A hot water bottle might help you, Dougie,” Susanna decided. “Let me ring for—no, I’ll just go out and ask for it.” Truth be told, she wasn’t sure where the bell-pull might be hidden.

  She left Melanie wrestling a three-legged stool from the tangle of possessions—and cringed at the sound of sliding and falling belongings as the door closed behind her. As she stepped into the dining room, a rectangle of cool and peace, she encountered that young butler, Bright. He was arranging the silver on the sideboard.

  “Mrs. Baird,” he said in that lovely accent of his. “I’ve taken the liberty of paying off the hackney for your callers. When Mrs. Ghosh and Mr. Douglas are ready to return home, they must take the landau.”

  “You’ve a good memory for names,” Susanna approved. “And that’s kind of you to pay off the hackney.”

  “Mr. Jonah instructed me,” Bright said.

  Ah. Jonah Chandler. He’d a good heart and a good eye, her Reenie’s husband. Susanna couldn’t quite believe all their luck wasn’t about to crash down like a tower of chairs, but she’d take the help while it was here. Lord only knew she’d managed on her own long enough.

  Susanna requested two hot water bottles from Bright, who promised to return with them shortly, then returned to her sister and nephew.

  “You’ll be taking the landau home,” she informed Mellie, who was now perched upon a milking stool.

  “A landau!” Mellie hooted. “And why not, after all those glaring neighbors? Let them see us leave in fine style.”

  Susanna folded her arms. “What’s this about the neighbors, then?”

  “Sure and you’ve noticed the rich white people looking at you like you’re—” Mellie said something in Gaelic that Susanna could only guess at the meaning of. “If they’ll sneer out their windows at me and my boy,” Mellie went on, “they’ll sneer at you and yours too.”

  “If all they do is glare, that’s fine. I’ll keep coming and going as I must.”

  Susanna said this blithely, as if glares were weightless, but they weren’t. Each was a little heavier than the one before. After days and weeks and years, sometimes simply going outside felt like bearing a burden.

  Mellie knew this, just as she knew her older sister would be watching for the glares now. “Ach. Sorry I mentioned it.”

  “It’s all right,” Susanna mumbled. Sometimes she missed her former London lodging so much she could hardly stand the loss. Not far from the winding Thames, Fleet Street was home to the bread of London life—the sailors’ families, the household servants, the clerks and weavers and publicans. Many of them from India, or the West Indies, or from America, like Susanna’s family originally had been.

  On her street had lived Mellie and their surviving brother, Carleton; a distant cousin; and a scattering of Mellie’s husband’s Indian-Irish relatives, all c
lerks and secretaries. Their sister, Joanna, lived nearby with her own family, her husband a day servant in a fancy house. It was so easy to pop in and warm each other’s days, to look out for each other when the law wouldn’t.

  Queen Anne Street was worlds away from that life. Susanna could reach it by riding in a carriage, yet the distance felt unbridgeable.

  Susanna was on her own now, with nothing to help her but her son-in-law’s money. And if she could choose only one, she’d far rather rely on people than money.

  Bright knocked at the door just then and handed over the hot water bottles. Metal flasks wrapped in soft cloth, they’d be ideal. After closing themselves in again, the two women clucked over Douglas, settling him with the heat in a nest of cloth scraps. “I like it,” he said softly, tucking away his yarn and letting his lids fall closed.

  With Douglas drowsing, Susanna and Mellie had a degree of privacy. So. They came to the purpose of the call. “You got my letters from Harris’s lodging house?”

  “Of course.” Melanie produced the package. Sealed in oilcloth, it was not much larger than two cupped hands together. But what it represented? Oh, that was large indeed.

  “How did you get Harris to let you into my old rooms?”

  Mellie shrugged, her expression sly. “I told him you’d admitted to me that you left a dead cat in the wall.”

  “I would never!”

  “It worked, didn’t it? You’re welcome.” She handed the package to Susanna, who snatched for it with hands that were too eager. “Why did you need these? Are you in trouble?”

  “Not yet. I mean—no.”

  Mellie raised her eyebrows.

  “I just might need them someday. For…security.”

  “Security? What are you on about? You’ve a good job.”

  “Not good enough.” For the first time, Susanna allowed herself to say the words out loud. “I design and sew, and Madame Chalfont takes the credit. I won’t be able to sew forever, but she’ll take the credit forever.”

  Mellie stroked the dozing Douglas’s hair, then resettled a bottle beside one of his ears. “Well, what can you do about it?”

  Her tone wasn’t sarcastic, bless her. It was curious. Fourteen years Susanna’s junior, Mellie had never lacked for faith in her older sister. She offered support for Susanna’s dreams, even before they took form.

  And they had to form, and soon. Because what would happen when Susanna was unable to sew anymore? If her eyes failed, or her fingers, or both? What would happen if Victor didn’t pay the school fees for Laurie? Or if Jonah didn’t?

  One needed to prepare.

  These letters weren’t for blackmail. They’d been written in love, kept because of…well, if nothing so great as love, at least fondness. And if need be, they’d serve as a reminder.

  “I don’t know what I’ll do about it,” she told Mellie now. “But I’ll manage something.”

  “We always do.” Her sister sighed. “Still planning on sending Laurie to Harton? Is his father going to pay?”

  “We have two months. We’ll come up with the fees.”

  “You mean you’ll manage something.” Mellie’s attempt at a smile fell far short of glee. “And what does that husband of yours do for you?”

  Susanna looked at Mellie sharply. She hadn’t read the letters, had she? Surely? “He’s done enough. I don’t ask him for more, and if I don’t, you shouldn’t.”

  Mellie pecked her on the cheek. “I love you, sis. I’ll never stop wanting everything to go right for you.”

  “Then let me decide what that is.”

  Soon, she would. Soon enough, she’d have no other choice.

  ***

  Irene sank more deeply into the copper tub, sighing as hot water eased the knots in her tired muscles. She’d scrubbed all traces of the disguise from her face and hair, resenting that it had kept her from seeing Aunt Mellie and Douglas. Seeing loving faces, family faces, always felt like an embrace.

  Victor had pulled the family all over England throughout Irene’s childhood, but there had been stolen moments of stability. Times when they weren’t running from debt or fleeing the failure of a scheme, and they could return to Fleet Street. Irene remembered the family lodging there, a spill of familiar faces—friends and relatives and friends who might as well be relatives—in all shades, from pale peach to ebony. Somewhere on Fleet Street, someone existed who could do anything at all. There were bankers and jewelers; stationers and booksellers; glovers and haberdashers; print-sellers and druggists and furniture-makers. And. And.

  The mention of Aunt Mellie’s name was a reminder of how much Irene had missed. How much she and Laurie and Susanna were missing now.

  But there was a reason for everything she was missing, and it was the same reason she’d missed seeing her aunt and cousin today. Her missions. Her life. The one she’d chosen.

  Which included the drawing Jonah had entrusted to her. Irene had promised to identify the subject, the mother of Sir William’s natural daughter. But for days, it had lain in the secret compartment of Irene’s desk at the academy, hiding its face—not because Irene had no idea how to begin, but because her mission was already at an end.

  To Irene’s eye, the picture of the mysterious Anne Jones looked like Mrs. Brodie.

  Jonah had said his brother’s wife, Rosalind, had drawn the picture. Mrs. Brodie had once had a helper named Rosalind; Irene had heard the woman mentioned. That particular Rosalind had worked as a governess, at least for a time. She’d never been a teacher at the academy, and they’d never met, so Irene had no idea what her last name was or what had become of her.

  Could it possibly be coincidence? Could there be many Rosalinds working for many women with slight features? Could it be some resourceful-verging-on-criminal woman other than Mrs. Brodie who had an illegitimate daughter with Sir William Chandler?

  Irene didn’t need the maths skills of her academy chamber-mate, Rebecca, to know that the chance was vanishingly small.

  So. Mrs. Brodie was Anne Jones, and Irene would have to tell Jonah. Or Sir William.

  Probably.

  Spain, 1805 drummed in her head like a military march. Spain, 1805. That was what Irene had been meant to look for among Sir William’s papers when Mrs. Brodie sent her to Newmarket the summer Irene met Jonah. Spain, 1805. What could it mean? Irene hadn’t asked, never would ask. But what if…what if it had to do with a child? Had Irene been a part of this mission for years without knowing it?

  Did it matter?

  She plunged beneath the surface of the water. She held her breath as long as she could, until the ceiling grew wavy and the bubbles ceased trailing up from her nose. When she sat up again, pulling in a deep breath through her nose, the air seemed fresh and new.

  She held up her hands, her fingertips thoroughly water-wrinkled. Quickly, she cleaned her hair, rubbing the damp locks with Susanna’s concoction of coconut milk, scented oil, and the juice of an aloe vera plant.

  Rinsing out her hair, she treated it with another of Susanna’s mixtures—castor oil, almond oil, and peppermint oil for a pleasing sweet scent. She climbed out of the large tub and pulled the plug that allowed the water to drain out. No need for servants to laboriously empty the tub with buckets. How ingenious! Piped water coming in, pipes taking the wastewater away.

  Irene blotted her hair dry, wrapped it in a bath sheet, and dressed in clean undergarments and a front-fastening gown. Holding her slippers in her hand, she padded barefoot to her mother’s chamber. They could talk about Aunt Mellie and Douglas. It would be nice.

  As soon as she knocked, then poked her head into Susanna’s room, she regretted her daughterly urge. The door hardly opened halfway, blocked by stacks of paper. Boxes towered, perhaps an attempt to tidy the masses of fabric scraps. Spools of thread, some empty, some almost so, made a precarious pyramid on the windowsill. One side of the bed was covered with books and periodicals, hiding half of the elegant counterpane.

  Susanna was sitting before a dressing t
able on which little pastille tins and cracked glassware cluttered the horizontal surface. She looked up from whatever she was doing—finding a spot for a tin cup, maybe? Rearranging the belongings? When she saw Irene, she beamed. “Look at you, so pretty. You’re going to let your mum fix up your hair?”

  “Um. If there’s space,” Irene mumbled.

  “Of course there is. Come sit, come sit.” She stood, yielding the room’s lone usable chair to Irene. Hesitating, Irene trekked to the seat. She placed her slippers on a tower of newspapers and satirical prints beside the dressing table.

  Susanna unwrapped the bath sheet from about Irene’s head, settling it around her shoulders. “You make me miss my long hair. My sisters and I used to twist each other’s hair up. Your aunt Joanna had such a knack for it, young as she was. Mellie makes do with pins and prayers.”

  The perfect opening. “How is she? And Douglas? Why did they call today?”

  “How did you know they called? When did you arrive?”

  “I…haven’t been here long. Just long enough for a bath. Someone told me they were here.” All true, ish.

  Not for the first time, she wished she could tell her mother the truth about her work. About what she’d given up for Laurie. But Mrs. Brodie—or Anne Jones—could do her work only if it was secret and if that secret was held tightly.

  “Your aunt brought something I’d left behind at Harris’s. That’s all.” Susanna teased apart sections of Irene’s hair with skilled fingers.

  It should have been relaxing. It wasn’t. “Aunt Mellie brought more things into this house? Where did you put them? Why? You’ve already filled this room and the parlor Sir William used to use as a study.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that. Worry about your own business.” Susanna’s voice, rich and sweet, held a brittle edge of reproach.

  “I do,” Irene muttered. “I’m capable of worrying about a lot of things at once.”

  For a few minutes, Irene was stiff as a plank in the chair. But her mother’s touch did its work, as did the quiet song she began to hum. A lullaby, Irene recognized. As a girl, she’d needed to hear this song each night before she could go to sleep.