Barbara Metzger (6 page)

The two combatants moved apart, and Cristabel lowered the umbrella stand—an elephant’s foot, now that she had time to notice, and shudder. They all turned to watch a blond-haired gentleman slowly descend the stairway, leaning slightly on a cane. Now here was Cristabel’s image of a London beau! Muscular physique carefully encased in a close-fitted light blue jacket and buff trousers tucked into gleaming top boots, he had a pleasant smile on his handsome, not-quite-youthful, clean shaven face. Even his manners bespoke the courtliness of a Minerva Press hero.

“My dear Miss Swann,” he said, bowing over her hand (after surreptitiously kicking aside a stray umbrella or two). “I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation, and I beg to be of assistance. Major Lyle MacDermott at your service.” He even clicked his heels together and flashed her a wide grin, showing sparkling white teeth and a dimple in each cheek. What a sight for a maiden’s eyes, especially after the day she’d had.

“For you must know, ma’am, that your uncle trusted me to see to the smooth workings of things here.” He coughed deprecatingly, self-consciously tapping his injured leg with the cane. “The baron took pity on a wounded soldier, and kindly allowed me to reside here until I rejoin my unit. I pay a reduced rate, you see, in exchange for my, ah, managerial expertise. Very generous of the baron. I’m sure we all miss him and sympathize with you on your loss.”

Cristabel blinked. Generous? Kind? Her uncle? How charming of the man to see the good qualities in everyone. Her father would have approved. Even now the major was recommending that creature Nick Blass to her.

“You wouldn’t want to dismiss him out of hand, Miss Swann, even though he’s a bit rough around the edges. Not used to ladies, you know. But he’s a handy chap, for all that, and you wouldn’t want to have to find a man-of-all-work first thing, now would you?”

Cristabel supposed not, even though the little man was glowering up at her still, making her feel soiled. She had never seen Captain Chase’s eyes, of course, but couldn’t imagine even that raving gentleman’s stare holding so much malevolence. She looked away uncomfortably. “He may stay for now,” she conceded, winning her another of those heart-stopping smiles.

“Good, good. Nick, why don’t you bring in Miss Swann’s bags for now while we see what’s to be done?” Blass grunted, but he did go out to the carriage. Major MacDermott seemed to notice Jonas Sparling for the first time and dismissed him, too, with a coin quietly pressed into his hand. “I’ll see to the lady from now on, my good man,” the major said, leading Cristabel away from the hallway.

She would have followed him anywhere, much less into the drawing room he suggested, where they might pursue the discussion more comfortably. She did remember to thank Jonas for his escort, nodding back to his doubtful looks. “I’ll be fine now.” Of course she would, now that Major MacDermott was on the scene. He was a true gentleman and an officer, treating her with instant respect. Of course, she couldn’t quite like being alone with him in the parlor, which was a bit garish for her tastes, but this was no time for lofty principles. She’d already had to overcome a great many of Miss Meadow’s teachings on her journey to London and supposed she would have to establish other rules of conduct more in keeping with her new role as landlady. She hadn’t given a second’s thought to being alone in her uncle’s—Captain Chase’s house. She had better get used to being unchaperoned in her own house! Major Lyle MacDermott, she was sure, would never go beyond the line, so she was able to wave goodbye to the sailor with all the cheerful confidence, it seemed to that worthy, of a lamb being led to the butcher block.

There was nothing for Jonas to do but leave, however, so he went, scratching his head with the metal crook. He did manage to kick an umbrella or two into that shrimp’s path, as Blass struggled up the stairs with the harp.

Back on the street, Sparling gave a last look toward the house before getting into the carriage. Framed in an upper window, waving and winking at him, was a woman dressed only in her underpinnings, from what the old mariner knew of such things, and her ballast was well nigh overboard. If that wasn’t one of Mother Carey’s chickens, he didn’t know port from starboard. This was not a trim rig!

Decidedly concerned, for he liked the game lass, Sparling tried his best to inform Captain Chase that all was not shipshape and Bristol fashion over in Kensington. The captain wasn’t interested as he tried to find a comfortable position among the pillows.

“If you delivered her there, and there was a roof over her head, that’s all I need to know.”

“Aye, Skipper, but Miss Swann—”

“Lord, that woman gives me a headache! I don’t ever want to see her again. I don’t even want to hear her name again and that’s an order. Am I understood?”

“Aye, sir, I ken, but we’re not in the Navy anymore.”

“No, more’s the luck. They don’t let females aboard ships there. Now I know why.”

Jonas tried again to tell his master that Miss Swann was just a babe. “She don’t know—”

“Please, Jonas, please don’t talk to me of that shrew. If not on my orders, then for my peace of mind!” He tried rubbing his aching temples through the bandages.

Sparling gave up in the face of his master’s distress. “Aye,” he yielded, pouring out a dose of laudanum to ease the captain’s pain.

“A promise?”

“Aye, if it’ll help you rest.”

Chapter Six

A-achoo!”

“Are you all right, ma’am?” Major MacDermott was all solicitude, offering her a snowy handkerchief. “You seem a trifle under the weather, if you’ll pardon my saying so.”

Cristabel snuffled. “Thank you, it’s merely a head cold,” she tried to tell him, but her voice came out a squawk.

He poured a glass of something from a decanter on a side table and pressed it into her hand. “Here, this should have you feeling more the thing.”

Cristabel accepted thankfully and gulped it down—anything for her burning throat—and immediately choked on the fiery liquid.

“I am so sorry, Miss Swann. I should never have offered you spirits. I don’t know what I was thinking of. Perhaps some tea?”

“There is some lemonade in the hamper Mrs. Witt fixed for me,” she managed to croak. “Would you be so kind as to fetch it?”

While the handsome officer hurried to do her bidding, Cristabel took a deep breath and a better look at her surroundings. The damask cabbage roses were not to her taste nor the maroon hangings nor the gold tassels decorating the lamp shades, the drapery valances, and the loose pillows. There were an awful lot of loose cushions. Cristabel shrugged. There were no nasty little girls to get into pillow fights here, thank goodness, but there was an old pianoforte shoved into a corner. The furnishings were no matter, anyway, it was the smell of the place that was tickling her throat and making her eyes water. Perfume, smoke, the spirits she’d just spattered, something else even more unfamiliar—

“What is this room used for?” she asked Major MacDermott when he’d returned with the hamper. She was busy finding the jar wrapped in damp cloths and looking around for a glass. She decided to reuse the glass the liquor had been in, so missed the major’s wide-eyed start and his creative pause.

“This room? Of course, ah, this room. Yes, why this is where the, ah, boarders can entertain guests.”

“Of course, how foolish of me. One cannot expect the boarders to meet callers in their bedrooms, certainly, or transact business matters—Oh dear, don’t tell me you have caught my cold already? Here, have some of this lemonade, it’s just the thing for coughs.”

The major waved away her offer. “Too kind. I’ll just help myself to something from the tray here. You did say you were Lord Harwood’s niece, didn’t you?” he asked while he poured.

“His niece, yes. Uncle Charles was Papa’s older brother. My father was vicar to a small church near Bath, however, and they weren’t close,” she explained, thinking he had noticed her lack of mourning. Her everyday clothes were somber enough to attend graveside services, if she’d considered, but her conscience wouldn’t let her forget the lapse in conduct.

MacDermott never got past “vicar” and “church.” He downed another glass. “And you say your uncle bequeathed you
this
place?”

Now Cristabel didn’t want to lie to this attractive new acquaintance. Nor did she want to admit to him that her uncle had died a penniless wastrel, leaving nothing to be willed to anyone, if he even remembered that he had kin. It was hard to admit the facts to herself, much less to a warmhearted gentleman who had already professed Lord Harwood to be kind and generous. So she equivocated instead. “The property has been deeded to me, yes. The solicitors are drawing up the papers.”

“Strange, I heard something about a young nobleman winning everything off the old bas—baron.”

“That would be Captain Chase,” she supplied. He hadn’t seemed like much of a nobleman to her, or even a gentleman. Of course, Uncle Charles had a title, too, which just went to show. “The captain has taken possession of Harwood House,” was all she was willing to say about the situation, leaving MacDermott to infer a great deal more. Before the major could ask any more questions, Cristabel requested that tea he’d mentioned earlier. “The lemonade seems to have given me a chill.”

MacDermott hastily glanced at his watch, then gave her a closer look. “Forgive me for saying so, Miss Swann, but I think you’d do better to find your bed, rather than the tea. Colds have a way of settling into one’s chest if not cared for, you know. Or the ague.”

“I’m afraid you are correct, and I have kept you over-long, besides. You were on your way out when I arrived, weren’t you? If you could just direct me…?”

“Of course, my dear Miss Swann. I’ll fetch you a hackney directly,” he said on his way out. “Which hotel are you putting up at?”

“Hotel? I’m staying here, of course.”

The major did an about-face that would have made a drill sergeant weep. “
Here?
I mean here?”

“Naturally. Why ever would you think otherwise?”

MacDermott gasped. “Why ever? Um, ah, because this is no place for a lady? That’s it, not suitable at all for one of your refinement and grace.”

“Thank you, Major, but I assure you I am not too proud to live in hired rooms. I’ve been in much worse. Hotels do not treat single ladies very well either, you know.”

“No, no, you don’t understand,” he sputtered. “The other, ah, boarders. They’re not at all what you’re accustomed to.”

Cristabel pictured the quarrelsome chits at Miss Meadow’s academy and was thankful. “Really, Major, your concern is touching, but—”

“Working girls—Oh Lord. Shop girls, that’s it. And their clients, uh, callers…not the type a lady like you should rub shoulders with. Not at all the thing, ma’am, for a real lady.”

“Major,” she said, “I’m afraid I’ll have to learn to be something less than a lady.” Cristabel was wadding the handkerchief in her lap so she didn’t see how MacDermott’s whole face brightened at her softly spoken words, or how his hopes dimmed with her next: “In the eyes of the world, of course. I shall always be a lady in my own estimation.”

“And…and in mine, Miss Swann,” he solemnly vowed.

“Thank you. Now I must trouble you to show me a room. Any clean bed will do. We’ll make other arrangements tomorrow, but for now I just want to rest my head.”

“No. Impossible. There are no rooms. None at all.”

“But I saw the sign…”

“Old Blass never takes it down. I’ll talk to him in the morning.”

“I’ll have a deal to say to Mr. Blass in the morning myself. In the meantime I suppose I can sleep on the sofa here. At least there are a lot of pillows.”

* * *

“’Oly ’ell, Mac, what are we gonna do?”

“Lord, Nick, I have no idea. We’ve got Lord Farmington’s bachelor party on for tonight and a dying nun on the couch. This’ll be a rare evening all around.”

“I say we kill ’er.”

There was a pause. Either Major MacDermott was too shocked at the idea to express his horror, or he needed time to consider it. “No, the solicitors would only pass ownership of the place on to the next in line to inherit,” he finally decided. So much for tender sensibilities. “Let me think.”

Not being keen on the practice himself, Nick watched the major’s brain in action. It seemed to involve trying to tear great clumps of artfully arranged blond curls out of his head while pacing. Nick shrugged and gummed his cigar, but the method was working.

“I know, we’ll stick her up on the top floor in one of the attic rooms. She’ll be out of the way for tonight, won’t hear a thing up there, and she’ll have such a disgust for the place she’ll be gone tomorrow.”

“What makes you think she’ll go for it? Miss ’igh-’n-mighty who wants me to wear a uniform? Fah! The day Nick Blass puts on a monkey suit for the gentry! Anyway, she ain’t gonna take no attic room.”

“When I turn her up sweet she will. Did you ever know the MacDermott charm to fail? Talk about uniforms, though, I better go change. Never yet knew a woman who could resist one.”

Blass expressed his opinion by spitting tobacco leaves.

“Where the hell is Fanny? I sent her to fetch the cursed tea hours ago. Meantime, Nick, you get everyone off the top floor and tell them to stay behind their doors till we fetch them, for goodness’ sake!”

“Be a lot easier to kill ’er.”

“And have the magistrates down on us? By Gad, Fanny, where have you been, fixing tea for Princess Charlotte?”

“You said she was a lady, Mac. We couldn’t serve her out of a mug, could we? Angel had this pretty cup ’n saucer set, it’s a souvenir from Battlesea, she says. Only it had some little paper violets glued in, and the glue—”

“Enough, Fanny! Take it in there and for God’s sake, don’t say anything!”

“Don’t say nothing? What’ll I do if she asks a question? I mean, a real lady and all.”

MacDermott would be bald soon, at the rate he was tugging. “She’s not a real lady, with a title and all,” he told the girl, “she’s just Harwood’s niece.”

“Sure,” Nick put in, “with the hoity-toity manners of a royal duchess dressed in ragpicker’s leavin’s.”

“Shut up, Nick. Go on in there, Fanny, before the tea gets cold. No, wait! Deuce, you can’t let her see you like that!”

He fumbled in his pocket—damn, the woman had his handkerchief He pulled the ends of his cravat out from his embroidered waistcoat, only regretting for a second the hour he’d spent tying the wretched thing. He used the cloth to wipe Fanny’s cheeks before sending her into the parlor with a pat to her bottom. Then he wiped his own forehead in relief, leaving a red streak across his face.

* * *

Cristabel must have dreamed she was back at the school, for a young girl of perhaps thirteen or fourteen was standing in front of her. No, none of Miss Meadow’s students would dare to have freckles like that. They wouldn’t be wearing white blouses that fell off their scrawny shoulders, either.

“I’m Fanny, ma’am, and I brung your tea.”

“Thank you. Are you the maid here, Fanny? You seem very young.”

“I do some of the work here, miss, cooking and picking up. There’s a woman comes in for the cleaning, sometimes, and most of the girls eat out a lot or fetch things in. Mostly I’m the ’prentice, so to speak.”

“You’re the apprentice
what
?” Cristabel wanted to know, but she only got a giggle in reply. “Well, I need some blankets and some hot water. Do you think you could see to that for me?”

Instead Cristabel got a lecture on possets and poultices and learned more about Fanny’s poor pa, who always had a weak chest, except he was killed by a runaway horse and not the congestion at all. Fanny left with more giggles, and a promise to return with her mother’s special cure-all.

It worked. Cristabel didn’t know whether it was the posset, the hot tea, the rest, or simply the young maid’s cheerfulness, but she felt much better. No, she had to be honest with herself. It was the sight of Major Lyle MacDermott in dress uniform that had her off the sofa and agreeing to accompany him to the upper stories, where the redoubtable Nick Blass had discovered an unoccupied bedchamber for her.

“Isn’t that a Highlands regiment?” she asked.

The major puffed his chest out a touch more in its scarlet jacket. “Yes, ma’am. And no, I’m no Scotsman, but my father’s brother is one of those chieftain things there, and he bought my colors.”

Cristabel thought they may as well make a tour of the house on the way, since she was feeling quite chipper, and his kilt swayed with every step. She was pleased to note that the major hadn’t been badly crippled by his injury. He walked quite gracefully, without the cane in fact, and she wondered if he danced as well. Some of Lord Wellington’s officers were reputed to be the finest dancers in all of England. Now whatever put that wayward thought in her head?

“A tour of the house, you say? I’m sure we could have things more to your liking in a few days. You caught us by surprise, you know. Delightful surprise, of course. Baron Harwood was more in the way of an absentee landlord, though, so things aren’t quite ready for regimental inspection, heh, heh.”

Cristabel was determined to see her house, and to spend a bit more time admiring the major. She wasn’t nodcock enough to be infatuated, she reassured herself. She wasn’t a silly schoolgirl, after all, but there was no harm in enjoying the company of the first true gentleman she had met since her father’s passing. Especially not if he looked like a storybook hero.

So the tour commenced. The maroon front parlor was for callers. Behind it was a dining room, which was more often used as a second sitting room, since no board was provided to the renters and most of them cooked in their rooms or ate at nearby coffee houses. Humbert’s was just at the corner, the major informed her, though Cristabel could no more imagine herself sitting alone in a public restaurant than she could see herself ringing the chimes at Westminster.

The dining table could have seated fourteen or so, if it hadn’t been pushed along the wall to make room for more of the flowered chairs and cushioned lounges. Buffet-style, MacDermott said as they passed through in a rush.

“Please slow down, Major,” Cristabel pleaded, smiling. “I’ll see the dust and worn spots in the morning light anyway, you know.”

“What’s that? I didn’t—Oh yes, well, I warned you how it would be. I, ah, just hate to see a delicate rose in a chipped glass.”

A woman’s first compliment should be set to music, especially if she is twenty-four years old and can barely recognize it as such. So what was a little bad housekeeping?

The glow lasted through the next door: Nick Blass’s office. It must have been the library before the house was converted to flats, since the bookcases were still there, nearly empty now except for overturned bottles and dishes filled with ashes and cigar butts.

What books remained in the room were used as props for uneven chair legs, painfully reminding Cristabel of the precious volumes she had to leave behind in Bath. How could anyone treat a book with such disdain? At least Blass had enough sense to keep the ledgers on a separate shelf, except for the open one on the desk. Seeing where her eyes wandered, the major quickly shut the ruled pages. “No need to bother with fusty old accounts. Nick and I can tell you the particulars.”

“I wouldn’t think of imposing on you further, Major, and you mustn’t think that I am one of those women with no head for figures. I was a school teacher, you know. I did teach music, but the instructors were all required to be proficient in many skills.”