Page 5 of Miss Dignified
“No, missus. ’Twasn’t that sort of beating. Good eggs.”
“What sort of beating was it?” Lydia’s question prompted an exchange of looks between Captain Powell and his guest.
“A painful one,” Brook said. “I’m not fast enough on me feet, and they knew that.”
Another look passed between the two men, one portending more discussion when Lydia wasn’t on hand, being female and therefore either untrustworthy or simple-minded. Femininity brought with it all manner of sad deficits in the opinion of those who’d never experienced it.
And, Lydia silently added, in the opinion of many who had. “Captain, will you show Mr. Brook where he is to sleep?”
“I will leave that to you, Mrs. Lovelace. I must go out.”
Lydia did not particularly like her employer. She did, however, respect him. Captain Powell’s devotion to poor soldiers was genuine and unrelenting. His cousins held him in high esteem, and then too, he’d allowed the kittens to stay.
Lydia had hoped the captain would not notice the cats until they were old enough to fend for themselves or to creditably prosecute the duties of domestic felines. Silly of her. Captain Powell noticed everything. He did not always remark on what he noticed, but he nonetheless perceived all of the goings-on in his household.
He’d allowed Lydia her kittens, though, and if she was to find Marcus, she needed her employer hale and sound.
“Why must you go out at such an hour, Captain?”
“To stretch my legs. Brook, I will expect a fuller report at breakfast.”
Don’t go.The same thing Lydia had said to Marcus when he’d made the decision to buy his colors. Now, she knew better than to attempt to reason with a grown man bent on his own aims.
“The rain is coming down in torrents,” she said. “Do not track mud into my back hallway if you are so fortunate as to return in one piece.”
Captain Powell bowed. “Perish the thought. Brook, you will heed Mrs. Lovelace’s guidance as if her orders were signed by Wellington himself.”
Brook gestured with his fork. “Aye, sir. Good hunting.”
Lydia did not like the sound of that one bit. She followed the captain into the back hallway and took down his cloak.
“You are to exercise caution, Captain. No brawling in noisome alleys, no insulting any thugs you encounter in the gaming hells.”
“How do you know I plan to frequent gaming hells and alleys?”
Lydia settled his cloak around his shoulders. “Your cousins worry about you.” She passed him a top hat, not the one he wore to the clubs, the one he kept at the back door. “If Brook was set upon by miscreants, that misfortune did not befall him on the steps of Carlton House.”
The captain fastened a few buttons. “I suspect this was not a casual beating, Mrs. Lovelace. You will lock up after me.”
“I lock up every night.” She shoved his walking stick at him. “Take this.”
“I might need my hands free.”
To use his almighty knives and fists. “Then you can drop it, but with a walking stick, you will look more like a gentleman coming home late from his club and less like a demon of the night searching for the bandit who stole his horse.”
Lydia was not petite, but she was shortish. When Captain Powell tapped his hat onto his head in the darkened hallway, she felt positively Lilliputian beside him.
“Please be careful, sir.”
“I’m only going on reconnaissance, Mrs. Lovelace. I spent years lurking in shadows and reconnoitering by moonlight. Stop fretting. Brook was out looking for his older brother, who has been missing for the past week. They have lost their lodgings because Brook on his own cannot pay the rent. I’m off to learn what I can about a disappearance, not to seek retribution for a beating.”
He was off to do both, the wretched man. Lydia fired her heaviest artillery, a single shot of honesty. “I would miss you.”
His brows rose. He touched a finger to his hat brim and then disappeared into the darkness. Lydia locked the back door and stood staring for a moment at the gloom.
Had he smiled at her? Something had made the dimple in his cheek flash. A pity the gloom had obscured the captain’s features, for Lydia would have liked to have seen him smile, even if only the once.
“What in seven soaking hells has you out at this hour on such a night?” Orion Goddard posed the question quietly, though the kitchen staff at The Coventry Club would never gossip about the colonel’s personal business.
