Amelia's Intrigue (Regency Idyll Book 1) Read online

  “B-But it is stupid, Tony. And, and I d-do not know what h-happens. First I am d-doing something, and then I am w-waking up on the g-ground or on a c-couch or m my b-bed. And this t-time D-David and Amelia were there when I woke up.”

  “Oh, so you call Miss Mapleton Amelia, do you?”

  “She s-said might. B-but she was there, T-Tony, and n-now she will prob-probably not ever want to see m-me or you again, just like Miss P-Patton.”

  Tony sighed, and standing, he tugged his brother up and away from the small table at which they had dined and over to a little striped settee before the fire. “Sit, brat,” he ordered, and then sat down beside him. Stretching out his long legs, he put his hands into the pockets of his breeches. He watched from the corner of his eye as Geordan copied him. Both of them sat for a few moments staring into the firelight. “You know, Geordie,” he murmured at last, “David and Amelia only wanted to help you.”

  “She will g-go away n-now like M-Miss P-Patton,” the earl whispered, his voice trembling.

  “She will not go away like Miss Patton. Geord. She is not at all like Miss Patton.”

  “N-No?”

  “Do you think she is like Miss Patton?”

  “She is a l-lady.”

  “Yes, but all ladies are not the same.”

  “You s-said they were.”

  “I did? When?”

  “When, when I g-got ill and Miss P-Patton said she would, would n-never m-marry you unless, unless you sent me—”

  “Geordie, stop!” Talbot shouted, tugging his hands from his pockets and spinning to his feet. He paced across the room and back angrily, then stared down at his brother. The earl would not meet his eyes. “Who told you this, Geord? I did not tell you. Did I? Geord, look at me! Did I say any of this to you?”

  The earl's eyes were swimming in tears as he finally looked up into his brother's. “N-No, T-Tony.” he answered, his legs no longer stretched out before him but bent at the knees: his feet flat on the floor; his hands no longer safely in his pockets but moving restlessly, fingers grasping at air. “Only the p-part about all l-ladies being the same.” Unconsciously the small sturdy body began to rock back and forth from the waist.

  Tony’s anger died instantly. He sat back down beside the earl and, wrapping both arms around him, pulled his older brother tightly up against himself. “Do not, Geord,” he begged softly, rocking along with the earl. “Please do not. I am not angry with you. I swear I am not. I am angry at whoever told you what Miss Patton said. I had no idea you knew, and it shocked me, brat, to hear you say… Geordie, are you listening to me?”

  The auburn head nodded against his shoulder, and the smaller hands grasped the lapels of his coat tightly, holding on to him as if in sheer terror of falling from some steep precipice.

  “I love you, Geordan, with all my heart,” Talbot whispered, one hand caressing the earl's curls. “I am very sorry that I frightened you. Did I make you cry?”

  “Y-Yes,” the earl's muffled voice rose from the folds of Tony's neckcloth.

  “Well, I did not mean to. Will you forgive me, please?”

  “Y-Yes.”

  Tony could feel the rocking begin to slow. The hands that clung to his lapels began to ease their grip. He kissed the faded scar on the earl's brow and smoothed the now-sweaty curls back from it. “Everything is all right. Geordie,” he whispered.

  “N-No, it's n-not,” the earl whispered back.

  “It isn't?”

  “N-No. I m-mucked up your c-coat and your n-neckcloth.”

  Tony sighed dramatically and pushed the earl away from him to where he could look into the blue eyes. “How could you do such a thing, my lord? And to your only brother? The infamy of it!”

  The beginnings of the lopsided grin began to twitch about the tear-stained face. “You are b-being dramatic, Tony.”

  “I am enacting, you scoundrel, a Cheltenham tragedy.”

  “You are?”

  “Yes. Do you like it?”

  “Uh-huh. Will, will you d-do some m-more?”

  “Geordan,” Talbot smiled, hugging the earl once more to his chest, “you are incorrigible. Now, let me tell you something,” he added, releasing the giggling earl from his grasp. “You are not to be afraid that Miss Mapleton will not want to see us again, because I have here in my pocket—hmm, a bit damp, I fear—I hold right here in my hand, my lord, a personal invitation for you and me to attend Miss Mapleton's come-out ball.”

  “R-Really, Tony? D-Does it have our n-names on it?”

  “Indeed, your lordship.”

  “Where? S-Show me.”

  Talbot, relieved at having distracted his brother from thoughts of Miss Patton, seizures, and losing Amelia's friendship, very carefully pointed out to him both their names, written in a fine copperplate. It did not occur to him that he had been showing the earl what his name looked like for almost twenty years and still Geordan could not recognize it. It did not occur to him that there was anything odd in his reading word for word the invitation while Geordan stared over his shoulder and asked which word was which. What did occur to him was that his brother's lopsided grin had returned full-blown to that beloved face, and that he would do anything in the world to keep it there.

  IT was nearing midnight and the earl had long since retired when Talbot led the Welsh mare out onto the cobblestones, mounted. and set oft toward the Thames. His mind intent upon locating the meeting of deframers and joining that angry gathering, he failed to notice the lithe, lean shadow that hovered just beyond the corner of the stables.

  In the chill darkness the earl waited, holding his breath until his brother had left the courtyard. Silently, then, he dodged into the outbuilding and emerged in is matter of moments astride a rambunctious Mouse. Dressed in his oldest riding clothes, which were in even worse state than those he had worn to ride with Miss Mapleton, he urged the great black stallion from the courtyard out on to the street in the direction he had seen his brother take the last three times he had watched him ride away at this hour of the night. He gave the horse its head along the nearly deserted street, and the stallion’s long running strides brought him within sight of his brother well before that gentleman had left the main thoroughfare. The earl reined in, bringing Mouse to a trot, and stayed as far behind Tony as he could manage without losing sight of him. “We m-must be very q-quiet, M-Mouse,” he mumbled. “If T-Tony sees us, he will send us h-home.” Mouse arched his neck, his front hooves dancing against the cobbles, eager to run again. “N-Not yet,” Geordan whispered, patting the heavily muscled neck. “Th-this is n-not for f-fun, Mouse. T-Tony is in s-some sort of t-trouble, and we are g-going to h-help so you m-must be g-good and d-do as I say.”

  Talbot's path took them through parts of the town that at this hour still held a lively population, and both brothers were forced to slow their pace past clubs and coffeehouses and gaming hells, where link boys and hacks congregated amongst private coaches and chairmen, seeking the opportunity to gain a cartwheel from foxed gentlemen who might need their assistance home. As they rode, the streets grew narrower, darker, and less active, though there still seemed to be people prowling from establishment to establishment. They passed through the city, where most of the buildings had been shut up tightly for the night and most of the streets were totally deserted. Tony urged the Welsh mare to a gallop then, but Geordan held Mouse back, fearing the sound of hooves might alert his brother and cause him to turn and see who followed.

  But when once they passed the ramshackle buildings that surrounded the docks and struck out along the river, the earl gave a relieved sigh and left the path his brother held for the shelter of the trees and a sort of tracking he and Mouse knew well. How the two of them invisible within even the smallest stand of wilderness had caused the grooms of Westerley, especially Martin, a great deal of thought. They had never, however discovered the answer. It was simply a fact and had to be admitted among them. Once that fierce stallion and his determined rider reached the cover of even th
e narrowest strip of forestland, they dissolved into it and even the merest sound of them disappeared.

  Tony, intent upon catching any bit of sound along this unnerving path and peering intently through the darkness for the least sign of movement, would have been astounded had he known his brother rode Mouse at times within five feet of him. But since he caught neither sight nor sound of them, he was not astounded, merely uneasy that he had once again missed the gathering or had received faulty information as to the meeting place.

  He was relieved when, at last, he saw the flickering of firelight ahead of him and the sound of many voices reached his ears. He brought the mare to a walk and directed her off the path into an open field where he dismounted and led her toward a great bonfire surrounded by men, women, and children all jabbering and chattering together with a high degree of excitement.

  The earl brought Mouse to a halt at the end of the tree line and stared into the clearing. He could see Tony leading the Welsh mare toward the muttering mob, and his heart began to race with fear. He had never seen so many people all at one time. He thought there must be millions. but his idea of numbers was always confused, for he couldn't understand them no matter how he tried, and so he told himself that there were certainly not millions, but just a lot. He swung from the saddle, his scuffed, worn boots sinking a bit into the muddy ground. He thought to lead Mouse into the crowd as Tony, far ahead of him, was leading the mare, but Mouse was already skittish at the sound and smell of all those bodies, so instead he let the stallion's reins drag the ground. “You w-wait for m-me, Mouse,” he whispered, caressing the horse's nose. “I will be b-back soon.” With that he turned and squelched his way across the field in his brother's wake.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  TALBOT stood at the very edge of the gathering, his eyes searching intently for the men he trusted to help him. After six months of sporadically attending these meetings, Tony's sheer tenacity had forced the wary deframers to accept him as one of their own. Had they suspected he was a member of the gentry, he would have been hard put to gain admittance into their society. But they suspected him more, because of his dress and demeanour, of being a highwayman, and so eventually viewed his presence as unexceptional. Many groups of the discontented deframers, or framebreakers, as they were sometimes called, existed throughout Manchester, Birmingham, and the other factory towns of England, and their numbers in London were not inconsiderable. At this gathering alone there were at least three hundred. As Tony moved off into the crowd, the earl, fearing to lose sight of him, began to run full-tilt across the field. As he reached the outer edge of the crowd, a small child ran in front of him and sent him stumbling aside to avoid a collision.

  “Whoa, lad,” a gruff voice roared out. An arm encased in a very worn coat sleeve caught the earl by an elbow. The strength of the arm alone kept Geordan upright.

  “Th-thank you,” the earl said.

  “An' it's welcome ye are,” replied the man, his heavy beard giving his face the look of a demon in the flickering firelight. “Where be ye off to in such a rush, m'boy? Ye ain’t late, you know. Mr. Wolfe ain’t yet mounted the platform.”

  “Mr. W-Wolfe?” the earl asked, looking innocently into the squinty eyes that studied him.

  “Aye. It's him ye come ta hear speak. Where do ye come from, lad? Ye do not sound much like a Lundiner.”

  “I am a L-Londoner, though,” the earl assured the man proudly. “I h-have lived in L-London over three w-weeks now. That is a very long t-time.”

  The man laughed and nodded sagely, taking the earl's measure. “Aye, a very long time. Ye are not here alone, are ye, lad? There be someone wi' ye?”

  “M-My brother,” offered the earl, stretching up on to his toes in an attempt to spot Tony among the mob, “but I c-cannot see where he has g-gone.”

  “Well, ye ought not ta be runnin' loose among all these people wi'out 'im, lad. There's some rum coves lurkin' about what might like nothin' better than ta turn yer pockets inside out.”

  “Wh-What's a c-cove?” Geordan asked, his eyes widening. “And why would they w-want to d-do that to my p-pockets?”

  The heavily bewhiskered man shook his head and rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “What's yer name, lad?”

  “Geordie.”

  “Ah, Geordie. 'Tis a fine name. How old do ye be, Geordie?”

  “Th-Thirty-one.” Geordan's eyes caught a flicker of firelight and the great blue irises sparkled. “B-But I am s-slow,” he added. “My mama t-told me so. Th-That is why I d-do not under-under-s-stand a lot of things.”

  “Aye, I thought tha' might be th'case,” smiled the man. “My name is Bear, and it's pleased I am to be ameetin’ of ye.”

  “B-Bear? R-Really?”

  “’Tis what ever'one calls me. Would ye like fer me ta help ye fine yer brother, Geordie?”

  “W-Well...”

  “I think ye'd better let me, lad. Ye do want to find 'im?”

  “N-Not ex-ex-actly,” Geordan mumbled, stuffing his ungloved hands into his breeches pockets and staring at the ground. “I only w-want to know where h-he is.”

  Bear's smile broadened. “I begin ta unnerstand,” he said with a significant lift of his bushy dark eyebrows. “Yer brother, he don't know yer here, does he?”

  “I f-followed him,” Geordan confessed, one boot kicking at the ground. “And, and, I do n-not want him to s-see me.”

  A great paw gently tugged one of the earl's hands from its pocket and engulfed it carefully. “Not ter worry, Geordie. We'll fine where yer brother lies an' we'll stay close by until th' meetin's over. Then ye kin foller 'im back home agin.”

  The big man led Geordan through the milling crowd. Having discovered from the earl that Tony was leading the Welsh mare behind him, he kept his eyes peeled for the animal which would be a deal easier to spot than the cove himself. “You know a l-lot of p-people,” Geordan said, as the man called Bear stopped to consult a man, his wife, and three children, who huddled near a little fire of their own near the big blaze.

  “Aye,” Bear nodded, “a fair amount of 'em. 'Tis b'cause we all did work tagether, lad, at the Sandburn Factory.”

  “You w-work at a f-factory?” Geordan asked, his excitement clearly audible. “R-Really? With all the m-ma-chines?”

  “Worked, lad, worked. We don't none o' us work there no more. Those da—deuced machines seen to that.”

  “How?”

  “Why, they took our jobs away, Geordie. When a man kin git hisself a machine what works an' works an' don t never have ta stop, an' he ain't got ta pay it no blunt, nor i take no back talk from it, he gits it; an' before ye know it, yer out on th'street with nothin' an' yer family's star-vin'.”

  “R-Really?”

  “Really, Geordie. All these people come here ta listen ta Wolfe talk ’bout what we kin do ta stop it an' git our jobs back. Did not yer brother work in a factory?”

  “N-No, I d-don't think so. T-Tony works with g-great big b-books with l-lots of n-numbers in them.”

  “Ah, he's a bookkeeper. Well, good fer him. An' he still cares ’nough ’bout others what ain't got so much edjucation as ta come ta th'gatherin's. ’Pears ye got a mighty fine brother, lad.”

  “Y-Yes,” the earl nodded enthusiastically. “T-Tony is the b-best. C-can you not f-find other jobs that machines c-cannot do?”

  “No, lad. Things er bad these days. Even a loaf o' bread be hard ta come by. An' all th'soldiers come home—ain't nuf work fer them, neither. Lot's o' them here tanight as well.”

  The two worked their way toward the bonfire. Before they reached it, however, a roar went up from the crowd. Bear directed Geordie's attention to a platform that stood a good six feet above the crowd. “That be Wolfe. Got idears of his own ’bout what ta do. Le's stop here an' give a listen fer a minute er two.”

  The earl, staring up at the man on the platform, nod-ded and, tugging his hand from Bear's grasp, sat down cross-legged on the ground. Bear, grinning, sat down beside him.

&n
bsp; Talbot had discovered several friends and had gone around behind the platform and off into the shadows with them. He had no need to hear what Zachariah Wolfe would say about the sad state of the lower classes in an economically depressed and steadily industrializing England. He had heard it all before in previous gatherings as well as on the street and in the clubs. He had read it in the Times and the Gazette and the Journal written more eloquently and with greater thought behind it than Wolfe could possibly manage. Talbot had come to develop a great sympathy for the deframers, to understand their hopelessness and confusion, but he deplored the violence that men like Zachariah Wolfe urged them to—the raids on factories, the destruction of machinery, the burning of buildings. Those things made him want to strangle all the Wolfes of the world slowly and painfully, one by one.

  “The thing is, Tony, I seen 'im not more'n ten minutes ago,” a tall, lean man in a ragged infantry uniform muttered. “Right in front o' the platform he were.”

  “Are ye sure, Bob?” Talbot asked, attempting to imitate the accent of the people about him. “I ain't seen no sign o' him.”

  “Ah, but ye be not sure o' who it is yer lookin' fer,” chimed in another of the men. “Cranshaw's right, Tony. It were Justice. Seen ’im wi' me own eyes.”

  “Aye, talkin' in whispers ta Wolfe, ’e was, consultin' wi' im so ta speak,” added the third individual, a stolid-looking ruffian who was missing his right arm. “But I kin not hold wi' it, Tony, that he be the man ye be a lookin' fer.”

  “Ye did not see ’im leave?” Tony asked.

  “Don't no one never see Justice come nor go,” Bob Cranshaw declared. “He fades in an' out like the dark an' the dawn.”

  “I tell ye what we'll do, Tony,” the man with the missing arm, who was known as Coffee, offered. “The three o' us'll wander out amongst the crowd an' ave a look-see.”

  “Aye,” agreed Bob Cranshaw. “We'll spread about how we be lookin' fer a word wi' Justice.”

  “If ’e still be nearby,” the third man, Harry Grey, added, “he'll fine his way ta us, an' we'll fine our way ta ye. But I do not ken how he coulda been th'one, meself, Tony. Not at all a likely cove ta ’ave murdered anyone. Can't fathom it.”