Page 65 of Lady Daring
“Who else was taken?”
“John took a knock when he tried to keep the pig from ’auling you off, and he’s ’ome in the kitchen with a raw steak over ’is eye. That Lady Bess of yers is nimble on her feet, I tell you—scarpered ’erself out of the way in a trice. Was you alone, miss, up there on the platform in the thick of it. In with the Cyprians, were ye!” His laugh turned to a hacking cough.
Henrietta leaned away when a jostle of the carriage made her bump against Darien’s shoulder. “I have not yet made out how Lord Darien knew to come find you, Uncle Pell.”
“James came looking for Charley and found me at Brooks,” Darien said.
James straightened. “Oh, did I?”
“However the way of it, the two of them found me at White’s,” her uncle said, his eyes flickering over Darien. “You’re lucky they did, puss.”
Darien was sitting very close. She fought the longing to curl against him. “You and my brother have become chums, then, if you’ve sponsored him into your club?”
“He has seen fit to lend a hand in a certain…affair of mine,” Darien said. “So I thought I would return the favor and bail you out of gaol.”
“Does this have anything to do with the opera dancer you were with before and he is with now?”
Darien’s brows drew together. The growing light from outside made his eyes look blue-gray. “Does nothing shock you, Henry?”
She leaned her aching head against the seat. Tears of weariness and anger flooded her eyes. “Not after tonight. If you’d heard those women’s stories— I don’t suppose the marquess would use his name to grant them pardon too?”
“You might find it in you to be grateful to the marquess,” Darien said. “With your father gone and Charley missing, it took his name to discharge you. And how will that reflect on Sir Pelton, going against Pitt’s orders?”
He was angry with her. He was ever disapproving of her, Henrietta thought, and he had full call to be so. She had feathers in her head if she meant to send her heart after Lord Darien Bales. Everything with him was negotiation and wiles.
“And if Uncle Pell falls out of favor with Prime Minister Pitt, then he loses his influence in any suits and causes he has promised to aid,” Henrietta retorted. “Yes, I see why you have so kindly interested yourself in my uncle’s business. I do not know how to begin to thank you, Lord Darien. Or the marquess.”
A dark look crossed his face. She was behaving badly, provoking him like this, and all because she wanted to lean on his shoulder and cry. These weak impulses were, no doubt, the effect of her sleepless night. She was glad to see the coach turn into Manchester Square.
“Almost home, James, and to our own beds,” she said with feigned cheer. “Poor Aunt Althea will never come down from the boughs, I suppose?”
James threw off the cloak. His smart livery was stained beyond repair, and his quick eyes darted between the two on the seat opposite him. “Ye’ve told ’im, aye? ’E deserves to know.”
Henrietta’s courage suddenly failed her. “Uncle, can you guess who was at my debate? Mr. Equiano himself. LadyBess promised to introduce me, though of course that never happened. He signed our petition! The one I wrote!”
“Henry,” Darien said, his voice low and quiet as the coach rattled to a stop. “You wrote that you had information for me. About…that matter of mine.”
Yes, and he’d ignored her missive, it would appear. She studied him, savoring this last opportunity to be close. His hard look from earlier had turned into his habitual mask. He had come to rescue her from the watch house, of all places. Her heart swelled even as her stomach sank. If he had been angry with her before, he would want nothing to do with her now.
“Celeste sent the child to my keeping,” she said in a quiet voice, gathering her tattered skirts. “She is here, at Hines House. You may send your solicitor to make arrangements with me.”
And she plunged out of the coach so she could no longer see his face.
James hopped out behind them, and the cab rolled away. Henrietta leaned wearily on her uncle’s arm. The night soil men went by with their wagon, and down the street, the dairy man set out the day’s milk. At the house next door, a man in a jacket and trousers, dressed like a tradesman and leaning on the rail to the kitchen stairs, pulled a small notepad out of his pocket and studied the three of them.
She had been an oddity before; she was notorious now. The little scullery maid scrubbing the broad stair before Hines House pulled her bucket of whitewash to the side, and Henrietta summoned a smile of thanks.
“You’re very cool to a man who did you a service, Hetty,” her uncle observed.
“He didn’t help me for my own sake,” Henrietta said. Darien’s swift exit had torn something inside her, and she didn’t care to examine it yet. She stumbled with weariness intothe house as Dearbody opened the door. The butler’s mouth dropped open in shock.
“He wanted to know where I’d hidden his child. We’re at daggers drawn, Uncle, ever since he learned the King used Papa’s loan to fund the wars in Mysore.”
Her uncle’s brow furrowed. “He lost his brother in Mysore, lass. Lord Lucien was sent there in the Second War and never heard from since the Treaty of Mangalore. The marquess wants him declared dead so Lord Darien can inherit and take his brother’s estate in hand. Darien asked me how to defeat the suit.”
“Oh no.” Henrietta stopped short in the tiled foyer. “His brother? No wonder he gave me such a look—he must feel as if we murdered his family. And I was so beastly to him.” She raised a hand to her mouth.
“Now, pet, you can mend your fences later,” her uncle soothed, handing her over to her maid. Duprix choked back a cry at the state of Henrietta’s gown and set her mouth like a fighter on the barricades.
