Reforming Lord Ragsdale Part 8

"Oh, yes. From now on, you give all the bills to me, and I forward them to Mr. Fotherby for payment. I cannot get power of attorney to pay your bills myself because I am a woman, Catholic, and Irish." She ticked off the items on her fingers.

"I call that downright prejudiced," he joked.

"Well, at least it is more misdemeanors than the law allows," she agreed. "I am not sure which of the three is the least palatable."

There was no regret in her voice, but only that businesslike tone that gave him the distinct impression that he had cast himself into capable hands. She had a relaxed air about her, as though she had just come from a hot bath, or an entertaining party. I suppose it is given to some to bask in the toils of finance, he thought. He indicated a chair.

"Be seated, Emma, and tell me which necklace I should give to Fae," he ordered. "I thought a peace offering would be in order when you visit her." He looked away and coughed. "A bauble might make her not suffer so much when I cut the connection."

He held out several necklaces, and placed them in her lap. She scrutinized them with the same intensity she had tackled his bills, then picked up a simple chain with an emerald. "This one, by all means," she said, her eyes shining with more animation than he had seen before.

As Emma held it up to catch the vault's fitful light, he was struck by how elegant it would look around her neck. The stone winked at him as he took it from her hand and replaced it in the velvet-lined box.

"No, Emma, that one will never do. Think in terms of greed and avarice, and then choose between these three," he said, struck by the knowledge that he was about to come to the end of five years of Fae Moulle's demands. Greed and avarice? Now, why did I never see that before, he asked himself as Emma frowned and picked up a particularly gaudy chain with diamonds and rubies alternating.

"Excellent!" He put the rest back in the box and returned them to the teller, who hovered at his elbow. He slid the necklace into a velvet pouch and handed it to Emma. "Take this to Fae with my compliments, and see if you can figure out how the deuce to get her to let go of my purse strings." He sighed. "I know she is attached to me, but as you say, it is time to reform."

"Very well, my lord," Emma said. As the teller was replacing the jewels, she picked up a plain gold chain. "Is this valuable to you, Lord Ragsdale?" she asked.

"No. Do you want it, Emma?" he teased.

She shook her head, blushed, and took a deep breath. "If you were to send this to the governor at Newgate, he would make David Breedlow's life almost pleasant." She looked at him, as if gauging his mood. "Or you could send it to his sister. He told me her name is Mary Roney, and she lives in Market Quavers."

He s.n.a.t.c.hed the necklace from her and replaced it in the box, wondering at her nerve. "No, and that is final! You have stretched my philanthropy far enough for one day. Now, now, just go home and reconcile my books," he ordered. "You can see Fae in the morning."

She left hurriedly, as though afraid he would turn her impulsive effort into a humiliation. When she was gone, he took out the necklace again, and another one, which he handed to the teller. "Make up two packages. Address this one to the governor of Newgate, and this to Mary Roney," he said. "I will write a note for both in Fotherby's office."

So there, Emma, he thought. I really am a fine fellow. I only hope Fae does not repine too long over the news you bring.

Chapter 9.

If anything, it was colder the next morning when Emma left the house on Curzon Street. Where is spring? she wondered as the wind whipped around her dress and exposed her ankles, much to the noisy appreciation of a road crew replacing some curbing. She tugged her cloak tighter, grateful at least that the stench of Newgate was fading from the fabric. Even the scullery maid, no stickler for cleanliness, had insisted that she leave it outside the room the two of them grudgingly shared.

Emma hurried along, convinced that her earlier visit to Newgate was a pleasant excursion, compared to this task before her. "Lord Ragsdale, you should have been drowned at birth, to have foisted this a.s.signment on me," she muttered. It was one thing to go to prison for him; it was quite another to initiate his dirty work in sloughing off a mistress. Duties of a secretary, indeed, she thought. What it really smacks of is the most monumental bit of laziness imaginable, and so I should tell you to your face, Lord Ragsdale.

She felt in her reticule for the necklace, wondering at the bad taste of someone to wear such a bauble. Satisfied that no leprechaun had spirited away the necklace, she kept her head down and turned into the wind on Fortnam Street. No, I shall not scold you, Lord Ragsdale, although you richly deserve it, she thought. Not now, at least, when we seem to have declared a truce of sorts.

Last evening spent with Lord Ragsdale in the book room was more pleasant than she had any hope to expect. To begin, when he had requested that Lasker bring him dinner on a tray, the marquess did not eat in front of her, but shared his meal. It had been so long since she had eaten food of that quality that she could hardly force it down at first. Not until Lord Ragsdale looked at her and remarked, "Really, Emma, if you're thinking about smug-, gling this rather remarkable loin of beef to my d.a.m.ned secretary in Newgate, I don't think you could get it past the matron."

I suppose I was thinking about Mr. Breedlow, she reflected as sne blushed and took some food on her plate. She chewed the ten-derloin thoughtfully, amazed that Lord Ragsdale cared even the slightest what she was thinking.

He had been silent then, his long legs propped up on the desk, the plate resting on his stomach, concentrating on his dinner. Actually, Emma considered as she watched him, you should dress in a toga and recline. His profile was strong, and while his nose was not Roman, there was something patrician about the whole effect that impressed her. She smiled to herself, and looked away, think-ing, If I can be impressed by Lord Ragsdale, when I have seen him bare and blasted by last night's liquor, I suppose anything is possible.

"Do I amuse you, Emma?" he had asked.

She looked up, startled at first, and then relieved to notice something approaching a twinkle in his eye. Only candor would do, she thought as he waited for her reply.

"In a way, I suppose you do, my lord," she replied, crossing her fingers and hoping that her own a.s.sessment of his character was not misplaced. "Only think how far you have come from yester-day morning, my lord. Reformation agrees with you."

There, now, make something of that, she dared, and took another bite.

"Perhaps it does," he agreed, setting his plate aside, but not moving from his relaxed position at the desk. "I have, only this day, forsaken liquor and my club. I have advanced some coins tofeed my worthless secretary, and plan to discard my mistress tomorrow. Next you will tell me that I must go to church, stop gambling, give up the occasional cigar, and take in stray dogs."

Emma laughed. "All of the above, my lord."

He pulled out his watch and stared at it. "And this time next week, we will go to Hyde Park, and you can watch me walk on water! Come, Emma, to the books. I want to get to bed early so I can be fresh enough in the morning to find more ways to torment you."

And so you have, Emma thought as she hurried along the street. I am to go to your mistress and find a way to diplomatically ease your useless carca.s.s out of her life. Oh, dear, I hope there isn't a scene. How does one do this?

She looked at the direction Lord Ragsdale had written down for her, and to her dismay, the narrow house-one of a row of elegant houses-was precisely where he said it would be. Did you think it would blow away? she scolded herself as she took one last look at the address, then raised her hand to the knocker.

The woman who opened the door was obviously the maid. She started to curtsy to Emma, then stopped when she took a good look at her shabby cloak and broken shoes.

"Servant's entrance is through the alley behind," she said, and started to close the door.

Emma stuck her foot in the door. "I come from Lord Rags-dale," she said, leaning into the crack that still remained open. "I have something for Fae Moulle."

"Miss Moulle to you," snapped the maid. She left the door, and returned in a moment. Standing behind her was an overblown woman with hair of a shade not precisely found in nature. She had large blue eyes, and lips of a color that the homely word "red" would not do justice to.

Emma moved her foot from the door and suppressed the urge to laugh. Goodness, Lord Ragsdale, she thought, you really are in need of reformation if this is your idea of beauty. She touched the necklace in her reticule again, thinking how well it would suit.

"I am Lord Ragsdale's secretary, and I have something for you from him," she repeated.

"You cannot possibly be his secretary," said the woman who must be Fae. "My lord's secretary is languishing in Newgate, I believe."

She smiled and stuck her hand through the narrowing crack in the door. "Miss Moulle, he won my indenture in a card game, and we have resolved that I am to straighten out his affairs."

Her choice of words almost sent her into whoops, so she turned away and coughed, hoping the hilarity that threatened to consume her would pa.s.s. Now what will appeal to you, Miss Moulle, she thought as she turned back. She reached into her bag and pulled out the necklace.

"He has commissioned me to bring this to your notice," she said, dangling the gaudy bauble just out of reach.

The door swung open, and Emma felt herself practically sucked inside. The necklace was s.n.a.t.c.hed from her hand at the same moment the maid relieved her of her cloak. In another moment, she found herself arm in arm with Fae Moulle, being propelled into the sitting room as Lord Ragsdale's mistress issued orders for tea, cakes, and more coal for the grate.

As she glanced around the sitting room, it occurred to Emma that Lord Ragsdale did not stint on his mistress. The expensive draperies complemented the costly furniture, which sumptuously set off the deep carpet. She had to consciously force herself not to kick off her shoes and run her bare feet across its softness. Emma suppressed another smile; the only thing that didn't seem to fit in the room was the young man sitting on the sofa.

Fae's rather shrewd eyes turned a shade anxious as she followed the direction of Emma's gaze.

"Miss..."

"Costello," Emma offered.

Fae gestured toward the sofa and its occupant, who appeared poised to bolt the room. "This is my ... brother," she said.

If this is your brother, then I am the Lord Mayor of London, Emma thought as she nodded to the young man. "Delighted," she said. "How fortunate for Miss Moulle to have relatives in the city."

A small silence followed that no one seemed to know how to fill. His cheeks flaming the shade of Fae's lip color, the young man leaped to his feet, babbled something about work to do or people to see, and fled the room. Fae watched him go, her face filled with a longing that disappeared as soon as she fingered the necklace.

"How kind of Lord Ragsdale to take such good care of me," she said, her French accent more p.r.o.nounced. "Do sit down, Miss Costello, and here is the tea."

Emma sat in the chair closest to the fire, accepted the tea, and leaned back to bask for a moment in the wages of a sinful life. Mama would be shocked if she could see me in the love nest of a debaucher, she thought. I wonder where Fae keeps all those gloves, she considered next as she watched the woman scrutinize the necklace with the practiced air of a gem merchant. I wonder she does not put a jeweler's loupe to her eye, Emma considered. She sighed and reached for a macaroon, and then another. It will not be easy to pry Fae Moulle away from these particular flesh-pots. I know I would not give up such luxury willingly. She waited for Fae to speak, hoping to take some cue from her words.

"Miss Costello, you say he won your indenture in a card, game?"

Fae was asking. "I can't imagine Lord Ragsdale doing anything that smacked of exertion, and card games can be rigorous affairs."

"It is true," Emma replied, wondering at a female so lazy that she thought cards a challenge. How fitting for Lord Ragsdale, she ( concluded. "But really, I think he is not the idle man you believe him to be."

She stopped, macaroon in hand, and wondered why she was defending Lord Ragsdale. How odd, she thought, as she popped it in her mouth.

"Oh, he is lazy," Fae countered, leaping to her feet and taking a quick turn about the room. "He usually comes here to sleep off the exertion of an evening at White's." She paused delicately, then plunged ahead. "At least, that is all he has come for lately. I mean, he won't even exert himself to..."

"I think I understand," Emma interrupted hastily, her cheeks red.

Fae Moulle only nodded and took another circuit of the room, looking out the window as though she expected to see the young man outside on the street. "Sometimes he is so neglectful that I have to invite my ... brother to keep me company."

You know I do not believe you, Emma thought as she nodded. "Brothers can be a wonderful diversion," she said, preserving the fiction. She thought of her own brothers then, both the quick and the dead, and pushed aside the remains of the macaroon plate. She took another sip of tea and looked Fae in the eye. "I have come to negotiate with you, Miss Moulle," she began. "Let us first clear up some questions."

She left Miss Moulle's establishment as it was growing dark, a smile on her face and her stomach too full of macaroons. What a turn I have done you, Lord Ragsdale, she thought as she hurried along, hoping to beat the rainstorm that threatened. Indeed, it is a pity that I could never study for the diplomatic corps. With scarcely the smallest difficulty, I have rid "Your Mightiness" of a mistress, and managed to cheat you soundly in the bargain. Who would have thought the day to have had such promise when it began? I know I did not.

It wasn't the sort of deception that would see her to Newgate, irons, and a berth to Australia. She had merely hinted to Fae that Lord Ragsdale was beginning to suspect that his loving light-skirt was playing a deep game. Fae had squeezed out some noisy tears and just the threat of a spasm, until Emma a.s.sured her that Lord Ragsdale had nothing more substantial than suspicions.

She knew that she could have told Fae that it was all over, and Lord Ragsdale's mistress would gladly have packed her bags and let it go at that, relieved that he had not discovered her other male visitors, and made an ugly scene. There wasn't any need for Lord Ragsdale to spend another penny. But since he had many such pennies, Emma smiled inwardly and plunged ahead, content to fulfill his request to the letter of the law.

"Miss Moulle, Lord Ragsdale has authorized me to suggest to you that he would not be too unhappy if you left his employ," she said. "In fact, he is willing to make you an offer..." She paused, and coughed slightly. "... An offer to make up for the sadness such a parting will cause you."

Fae was fanning herself vigorously, despite the slight chill in the room. Her blond curls fluttered from the effort. "Oh, I am not sorry!" she burst out, then stopped, and considered what Emma was saying. Her eyes took on a more melancholy expression, her shoulders drooped, and she a.s.sumed such an air of wounded pride that Emma wanted to applaud the performance. "Perhaps I am a little sorry," she amended. "After all, two years of my life ... What, uh, kind of offer did he have in mind?"

Emma looked beyond Fae, as though studying the wall. "He told me he felt honor-bound to provide for you in some way, Miss Moulle." She folded her hands in her lap. "I suppose that is your decision. He especially wanted me to ask you what would make you the happiest."

Fae leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees in a most unladylike posture. She stared into the grating where the flames leaped about Fae was silent so long that Emma wondered if she had drifted off to sleep. Emma was about to nudge her, when Fae looked at her, her practiced melancholy replaced with glee.

"I have it!" she exclaimed. "Tell your master that I want to open my own millinery shop in Bath."

"My, that will be expensive," Emma exclaimed, unable to keep the admiration from her voice. "Think what the inventory will cost, and the expense of a shop and probably living quarters."

"Of course I will need living quarters," Fae agreed, getting up with a decisive motion to stand by the fireplace. "And nothing paltry. After all, I am used to Half Moon Street, am I not? And who can make a suceess of such an establishment unless it is in the most forward part of town?"

"Oh, indeed," Emma replied. "After all, Bath is not a town for nipfarthing ways, or so I am told." She shook her head, aiming for the right degree of doubt. "This is an expensive proposition, in deed."

Fae rose to the bait. "Do you think it is too much?" she asked anxiously.

"I am sure there is nothing Lord Ragsdale would not do, no lengths to which he would not go, to make sure that your leaving is a pleasant experience," Emma said. Did I actually say that? she asked herself, knowing that she was spreading around as much fiction as Fae herself. And Fae knew it, too. Emma could tell by the unholy look that came into the woman's eyes.

They looked at each other for another moment, then both burst into laughter. The next few moments were taken up with the most delicious merriment. It seemed to swell from the soles of Emma's feet upward. She laughed until her sides ached, and then lay back in the chair, exhausted with the pleasure of such tomfoolery. The maid even stuck her head in the room's entrance, but Fae waved her away, then surrendered to a fresh spasm of jollity at Lord Ragsdale's expense.

Fae was the first to recover her voice. "Miss Costello, that was outrageous."

"Yes, wasn't it?" Emma replied, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. "But now you wish to ... ah, change professions?" she prompted.

Fae relaxed again, and looked up from the carpet, which she had been contemplating. "I don't see a future in this one, especially if other men are like John Staples," she said simply. "And I fear they are." She met Emma's eyes then. "And I know how to make hats! Let me show you what I can do."

Emma spent the next hour in Fae's chamber, admiring the woman's dash and flair with bonnet tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. "I buy the best from the shops here."

"I've seen the bills," Emma interjected.

Fae chuckled. "Then I rearrange them to suit myself," she explained. "A ribbon here, a bit of trim there." She placed a high-brimmed chip-straw bonnet on Emma's head and tied the green satin bow under her ear. "There now. See what I mean?"

Emma looked in the mirror, delighted with Fae's efforts. "It makes my eyes so green," she marveled, turning this way and that for the full effect, and trying to remember when she had last worn a hat. She took it off reluctantly. "I know that you will manage very well in Bath, and so I will tell Lord Ragsdale."

Fae hugged her. "Bless you. If Lord Ragsdale had sent that sourpuss David Breedlow, I'm sure I would have gotten my walking papers and nothing more." She frowned at Emma's expression. "But I hear that he is soon to be transported, and one shouldn't speak ill of the dead."

Emma shuddered. "Just because he is going to Australia does not mean that he is numbered among the dead!" she burst out, freeing herself from Fae's embrace. She was immediately ashamed of the ferocity of her outburst. What must you think? she asked herself, embarra.s.sed in turn by the look of surprise on Fae's well-fed face. I must not cry, she thought next. What will Fae think?

But Fae only looked at her and took her by the shoulders again. "So that's how it is?" she asked softly. "Bah, these English! Sometimes I think the guillotine is more merciful. Oh, Miss Costello, do let us soak this Englishman for all we can. It is a revenge of sorts."

It was easy then to dry her tears on one of Fae's wonderful rose-scented handkerchiefs, eat a few more macaroons, and then put her head together with Lord Ragsdale's mistress to create a list of necessities for the proposed shop. When Emma finally left the house with a kiss and a wave of her hand, she was wearing one of Fae's many pairs of kidskin gloves, and clutching a precise account of Fae's demands. While it will not choke you, Lord Ragsdale, she thought as she hurried along, it will give some satisfaction to two powerless women. Fae will have a future, and I will have ... what?

The rain began before she reached Curzon Street, but she tucked the list down the front of her dress to keep it dry. She knew that Lord Ragsdale would swallow Fae's demands and count himself lucky to be so easily rid of her. He would buy his horses, spend his money, and probably take another mistress later, after he was married. She stood stock-still in the rain, fully aware that John Staples represented everything that she hated about the English. I cannot go back in that house, she thought. But I must. I owe him at least my services until this indenture is paid off.

She went up the front steps slowly, dreading the people inside, the silence of the servants' hall when she appeared for dinner, the cold room she shared with a most reluctant scullery maid. She stood on the steps, unwilling to raise her hand to the knocker, as she thought again for the thousandth time of the events of that last dreadful day in Wicklow. The weather had been like this, only she had been on the other side of the window gla.s.s, watching a solitary figure approaching her father's house. "And I let you in," she said, her hand on the knocker. "Oh, I wish I had not, for all that you were Robert Emmet." She spit out the name as though it was a bad taste. "Ireland's hero. Oh, G.o.d, why did I do it? Why?"

The door swung open then and she gasped out loud. Lord Ragsdale stood there in his shirtsleeves, staring back at her. When she did not move, he took her by the arm and pulled her inside.

"I saw you from the upstairs window, you silly nod," he scolded. "Don't you have door knockers in peat bogs? Really, Emma."

She wished her face did not look so bleak. She shook herself free of him, wishing she could just bolt the hallway and leave him standing there. She could only shiver and look him in the eye, daring him to say anything else.

"We had a door knocker," she said simply.

She didn't know what it was about her words, but he touched her arm again. "Emma, what's wrong?" he asked, bending closer to look into her face.

Startled, she looked at him. Can you possibly care? she thought first, wild to tell him, wild to tell anyone, wanting to talk out her misery until it didn't hurt anymore. Perhaps when it had all been said, he could help her. She opened her mouth to speak when Lady Ragsdale's voice came lightly from the sitting room.

"Johnny, are you ready yet? You promised."

Emma closed her mouth. That was close, she thought. I almost wasted my breath telling my story to someone who would only shrug when I had finished. Thank you, Lady Ragsdale, for reminding me that this is my burden alone. She took a deep breath and pulled Fae's list from the front of her dress.

"Miss Moulle offered these conditions, my lord."

Lord Ragsdale took them from her. "That's not what you were about to say," he commented, his voice mild as he scanned the list.