Amelia's Intrigue (Regency Idyll Book 1) Page 17

  “Just ways,” Mapleton answered cryptically. “Talbot, I will ask you to trust me. Leave Puddin’ Lane to me alone. If Geordan has been here, I will learn of it.”

  “In time?” asked Talbot worriedly.

  “I hope so, Tony. But we have covered every street in the lane, and your mother arrives soon, does she not? You must be there to meet her and break the news.”

  Talbot nodded grimly. “Very well, Max. I shall trust you to overcome the silence here. You’ll inform me as soon as you discover anything?”

  “The very moment, Tony. But now we must leave this place.”

  As the little band turned their mounts toward home the object of their search, surrounded by three awestruck children and two bemused adults, was busily making his way through the burned-out shell of the Swit & Co. Manufacturing Building. “We n-need more pieces that look like this,” Geordie instructed, squatting before Abby and Davey and Jesse. “But you m-must be very c-careful. Do not c-cut yourselves on any-th-thing.”

  “They won’t,” Jesse proclaimed, one hand on Abby’s shoulder and the other on Davey’s. “I’ll watch out for ’em, Geord,” and they all went off with heads down, eyes searching the floor.

  “I cannot fathom wha’ ’tis yer goin’ ta be able ta make from this rubbish,” Bear growled, a smile playing across his face.

  “A c-carousel,” Geordie answered seriously. “I s-saw one once, in a maga-maga-zine.”

  “What’s a carousel?” Coffee asked.

  “W-well, it is a round p-platform with animals on p-poles. The p-platform turns around and the animals g-go up and d-down.”

  “Yer kiddin’. Animals? On poles? Goin’ up an’ down?”

  “And around,” nodded Geordan happily. “It will be j-just the thing for Abby and D-Davey. They ain’t g-got m-many things to p-play with,” he added, with a glance at Bear.

  “No, I reckon another toy wouldn’t do no harm,” said Bear, reading the look in Geordan’s eyes. “I’d be ri’ happy if ye was to make ’em another one, lad. Now, what else do we be lookin’ fer?”

  It took them less than two hours to find what Geordan considered necessary for the making of his carousel. By the time all the parts and pieces of machinery and scraps had been placed into an old burlap bag that Coffee had found among the battered remains of the deframer assault against Swit & Co., all of them were covered with soot and dirt and dust. They resembled a little band of beggars as they returned to Bear’s lodgings. “This cannot possibly work,” Coffee proclaimed as Bear set water to heating on the grate, “You gonna bathe them children?”

  “Aye, an’ meself as well. An’ ye could stan’ some water upon ye, Coffee. Soon as them little ones finish cleanin’ up them bits an’ pieces out there, I’m gonna do some cleanin’ of the children’s bits and pieces in ’ere. Water oughta be warm ’nuff by then.”

  “We n-need s-soap,” Geordie announced, sticking his dusty auburn curls through the open doorway.

  “Ye certainly do,” Bear laughed.

  Geordie stared at him perplexedly for a moment, then grinned. “Oh, n-not to get c-clean with, Bear. For J-Jesse to carve the animals from. Have we g-got any?”

  “I got plenty of soap,” Bear declared. “Molly jist bring another load from t’big house. Ye hold on an’ I’ll git ye some. I’ll carve, too. That way it’ll git done faster.”

  The earl spent the rest of Sunday afternoon seated in the dirt before Bear’s lodgings, piecing together from cogwheels and spinners and ratchets scavenged from the demolished machines the deframers had left behind, a rather fanciful, definitely small, but quite adequate model of the carousel his Uncle James had shown him. When the time came to add the carved animals by means of several small iron pins, Jesse and Bear furnished their carvings proudly. Though Jesse’s horse did look a bit like a dog and his pig resembled a little round dust ball with a head, they were nevertheless viewed with awe and exclamations by Davey and Abby and Geordan. Jesse was therefore equally as proud of his contributions as was Bear, and they all waited breathlessly to see Geordie attach them to the small circular machine without breaking them.

  This done, the earl, with all the self-confidence of a master builder, produced a tiny iron bar which he slipped into the latch on the mechanism. He cranked the bar carefully until it would go no more. Then, holding the point that stuck through the cloth top of the toy, he removed the bar. Everyone stared as he lifted his finger from the point and the platform began to turn and the carved animals to rise and descend on their little poles. They all stared, and blinked, and then they cheered.

  THE Countess of Rutlidge, her gorgeous blue eyes swamped with tears, wiped angrily at the drops that trailed down her soft, glowing cheeks. She sat in a high-backed chair in the front parlour, her brother James behind her, her younger son with hands in pockets, his back to her, staring down angrily into the empty grate. She sniffed quietly into the large muslin handkerchief with which James had provided her and looked at neither of them. “Shall I ring for Mrs. Ware, Cicely?” James asked. “Would you like to lie down for a while?”

  “No,” sniffed the countess. “I do not wish to lie down! I wish to find my son!”

  “We will find Geord, Mama, I promise you,” Mr. Talbot said, kicking at one of the andirons.

  There was a soft swishing of silk and taffeta as the countess rose and crossed the room to put her arms around Talbot’s neck, and her soft copper curls against his shirt front. “It is not your fault, Tony,” she sniffed. “You must not think I blame you.”

  Talbot’s hand went to smooth his mother’s hair. “Well, I blame myself,” he muttered.

  “You shall not,” his mother insisted, looking up at him seriously. “You have done everything exactly right.”

  “No, ma’am. I have not. Had I done everything exactly right, Geordan would not now be missing.”

  “It is Geordan who has done something wrong,” the countess declared, more tears flooding her eyes. “How should you guess, Tony, that he intended to sneak out of the house in the middle of the night? Oh, what a peal I shall ring over him when he is safe again! He has no more sense than… than… any other man!” she concluded, pulling away from Tony and sweeping from the room, leaving her son and her brother to stare at each other.

  “Any other man?” Tony asked. “Us, do you think she means?”

  His Uncle James shrugged his shoulders. “Your mother thinks most men are lacking a certain amount of common sense. She had hopes that Geordie might be different.”

  “I declare, I have never been such a watering pot in my life!” the countess growled as she entered her own dressing chamber. She sat down before her mirror and stared at the rather bedraggled, middle-aged lady who stared back at her. “Not even when Geordan was first injured did I waste my time crying about it, not even when Daniel was killed, and I will not do so now!” She straightened her shoulders, wiped the tears from her eyes, and began to make repairs to her face. She ran a comb through her thick, glossy copper curls and shook them a bit awry. Slowly, the image in the mirror began to look younger and less care-ridden. By the time the countess’s dresser, Patrice, hurried into the chamber, the countess no longer showed any sign of having sustained the least shock. “I should like to drive with my son in Hyde Park this afternoon, Patrice,” she said rather regally. “I think perhaps I will wear the spruce taffeta and that little hat with the high crown and the single white rose. And my parasol. I might carry my parasol, don’t you think?”

  When again she descended the stairs, both her brother and Tony were brought up short at the sight of her. “I swear, Cicely,” James said, walking forward to escort her into the room, “London always did agree with you. You look as young and fetching as you did when you first made your come-out.”

  “Thank you, James,” she smiled, “but if I recall correctly, you delighted in referring to me as a grubby, gangling urchin when I made my come-out and could not believe that any of your friends would be the least interested in me. Anthony, you
and I will join the Promenade, my dear.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Talbot answered. “I shall have your courage brought round at once.”

  “No, you will have your curricle brought round, dearest.”

  “But it is not at all comfortable, Mama,” Mr. Talbot exclaimed. “And it ain’t fashionable, neither.”

  “No, I do not expect it is, Anthony. You are so like your father. Neither of you has ever been all the crack. But it is yours, dearest. It is what you drive, and therefore it is what I wish to be driven in. Come here and let me fix your neckcloth. I have mussed it up, but it is not stained. There,” she said, rearranging the cloth with several deft movements that laid it into gentle folds Tony could not have achieved in thirty minutes. “Now, smile, my darling, and we shall go out and meet the ton head-on. And you shall introduce me to your friends, and I shall introduce you to mine.”

  The Promenade at Hyde Park was in full swing as Talbot turned his horses through the gate. He could not recall ever having felt quite as nervous. It was inexplicable, but somehow, riding beside his mother in full sight of the ton made his heart race and spots begin to dance before his eyes. It was not long before every gentleman’s eye, young and old, fell upon the glowing copper curls beneath the high-crowned bonnet with the single white rose. And one after the other they came on horseback, on foot, in phaetons, in high-perch phaetons, to be introduced to, or reintroduced to, or make their bows to, the incredibly beautiful and dashing Countess of Rutlidge.

  Lady Mapleton, having agreed on this particular Sunday afternoon to be driven in the Park by her daughter, was among the last to spy her friend. “Amy, dear,” she said with a tinge of very real excitement in her voice, “there is Mr. Talbot and his mother. May we not stop and speak with them for a moment?”

  Miss Mapleton, looking remarkably pretty in a powder blue velvet driving costume and a bit of a hat set far back upon her chestnut curls, brought her team of greys up beside Talbot’s curricle. “Good afternoon, Mr. Talbot,” she said, her green eyes flashing past him to the woman who smiled at her.

  “Afternoon, Miss Mapleton, Lady Mapleton,” Talbot replied.

  “Cecily!” Lady Mapleton cried joyfully before Talbot could introduce his mother to Amelia. “I knew you would come. I told Amy so the moment I saw Geordan ride into London beside Anthony. We shall have Lady Rutlidge with us before the Season is out, I said, and here you are. Oh, dear, Cecily, this is Amelia. You will not remember her well, for she was very small the last you saw her. Amy, my dear, may I present Lady Rutlidge.”

  “I am very pleased to meet you, ma’am,” Miss Mapleton said.

  “Likewise, I’m sure,” smiled the countess. “I am so happy to be in London again, Catherine. I have missed it. But there, I have put up my mourning, and I shall toss myself into the social whirl. You will whirl with me, will you not, my dear.”

  “I shall be delighted,” laughed Lady Mapleton. “I will call upon you early in the week.”

  Mr. Talbot drove his mother around the Park twice and then exited by the gate through which they had entered. “Lady Mapleton does not know that Geordan is missing, does she, Tony?” the countess asked as they left the Promenade behind. “Why is that?”

  “I cannot say, Mama. The rest of the Mapletons know. They have all been helping to search for him.”

  “I think,” mused the countess, “that it is Max who has decided not to tell her. I suspect there is much Catherine does not know about Max.”

  “Well, it appears there is a great deal that I have not known about Max,” Mr. Talbot murmured.

  “What? But why should you know anything at all about Max Mapleton, Tony? I am sure that you never met the man in my presence. Why you appear to have suddenly become bosom bows I can not quite… or can I? Tony? Anthony?”

  Mr. Talbot glanced down at the formidably charming little woman beside him and cocked an eyebrow. “Yes, Mama?”

  “Anthony, your relationship with the Mapletons… has it… What I mean to say, my dearest, is… are you developing an interest in Amelia Mapleton? Is that why you have become so much better acquainted with her father and brothers?”

  “Miss Mapleton, Mama, is a hoyden with no respect whatsoever for the proprieties and has a stubborn streak longer than she is tall. She is outspoken, argumentative, given to romantic freaks, and quite conditioned to having her own way.”

  The countess laughed and looked up into his eyes with a tiny teasing glow in her own. “You have developed a tendre for the child, Tony. How wonderful!”

  AS darkness moved over the sullen streets of Puddin’ Lane, Geordie, Bear, Jesse, Abby, and Davey sat down to a dinner of hog’s cheek, potatoes, and sprouts. Bear was spending the cartwheels sparingly, for he had not the least idea when he would work again. The children, though, were each treated to a glass of milk. The carousel, which Abby longed to paint a bright yellow with red trim, and which Davey insisted needed to have its animals the right colours as well, had been safely put to rest on a high shelf in the tiny pantry, and it was very soon after the meal that three tired and well-scrubbed young ones trooped off into the back room to find their beds. Bear leaned back in his chair and lit his pipe with a twist of paper from the fire. He sat gazing at Geordie until that gentleman began to grow uneasy and wiggle about under the scrutiny. “Wh-What is the m-matter, B-Bear? Have I d-done something b-bad?”

  “Bad? No. ’Tis nothin’ wrong, lad. I just been athinkin’ thin’s over. Do ye miss yer brother?”

  “Y-Yes, but T-Tony has b-been away before for longer than this. I sh-shall be g-glad to see him, though.”

  “Are ye sure, Geordie, that Gentleman Jackson knows where ’tis ye live? Ye are not just pretendin’?”

  Geordie gave his head a rather violent shake. “Honest. He and T-Tony are friends.”

  “Well, I cain’t quite fathom it, lad, but ’tis worth a try, I expect. If they’ll let us in ta speak wi’ the man, that is.”

  “Wh-Why would they n-not let us in, B-Bear?”

  “Well, because them there rooms o’ his be right in the middle o’ dandy country, me boy. Dandies around o’ it; dandies in it; an’ dandies a guardin’ o’ it.”

  Geordan grinned, and Bear could not help but grin back. “What is it yer grinnin’ at, scamp?”

  “I was thinking wh-what Tony would s-say if he knew he w-were a d-dandy. He is m-most disrep’table, you know, B-Bear.”

  Bear laughed and, standing, began to clear the dishes from the table. “Aye, I reckon he is a bit disreputable, that one. From what Coffee tells me o’ him anyways. You wipe ’em dry, Geordie,” he said, tossing a piece of an old muslin shirt at the earl. “Yesterday ye tried ta wash th’ decorations right offa th’ plates, not ta mention how long it took afore we ’ad ’em done.”

  “B-But I had never w-washed dishes b-before, Bear. I h-had to figure out about h-how to d-do it.”

  “Yes, an’ ye liked fiddlin’ in th’ water an’ makin’ soapy suds an’ bubbles as well. I reckon there was more fiddlin’ than there was figgerin’ going on. Ye do the dryin’, lad an’ we’ll ’ave time fer a cup o’ tea afore we turn in.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE hackney that drew up before Jackson’s Saloon in Bond Street at eleven o’clock on Monday morning had seen better days but never before as many passengers. Clean and scrubbed and wearing their very best clothes, Bear and Coffee exited the hired coach, causing too young bloods on their way into Jackson’s to pause and stare. Jesse tumbled from the coach after them, followed by a wide-eyed Davey and a shy, carefully descending Abby, who did not wish for anything to happen to the pretty starched and ruffled dress that Molly had given her only a week before. Bear, seeing his five-year-old pause on the top step of the hack, ceased worrying about what the bloods might think for a moment and went back to lift her to the flagway. The earl climbed out last and looked by far the worst-dressed of the lot since he still wore the clothes he had set off in on Friday night, and all they had seen since then was an attempt by
Bear to somehow brush them into a semblance of clean.

  “I say,” one of the bloods drawled to Coffee, “your driver has mistaken the direction. This is Bond Street, not Bull Alley.”

  Bear, his height and bulk dwarfing both the bucks, set Abby gently down and turned to face them. Silently he looked them up one side and down the other with an expression of obvious distaste. “Must be th’ wrong direction all ri’,” he said with a glance at Coffee. “We be surrounded by fribbles, m’dear. An’ jus’ when I was expectin’ to be seein’ a Corinthian or two.”

  “Aye,” Coffee replied. “It appears John Jackson’s sold out to the swishin’ fops.”

  Geordie paused indecisively beside Bear. “What’s a swishin’ f-fop?” he asked.

  “Yer lookin’ at two o’ ’em, lad,” Coffee muttered. “An’ if they don’t be standin’ aside, yer goin’ ta be lookin’ at mere pieces o’ two o’ ’em.”

  “Are you g-going to land them a f-facer, Coffee?”

  “’Course I ain’t, lad,” Bear growled. “He ain’t got but one bunch a fives. I’m gonna draw me a couple corks, darken a few daylights, an’ then Coffee’s gonna stomp on what’s lef’ of ’em.”

  “Having a problem here?” asked a voice from behind Bear. “Danbury? Yardley? Looking a bit pale this morning, are you not?”

  “Not a bit of it. Merely disinclined,” proclaimed one of the bucks, “to flatten these ‘gentlemen’ in front of children.”

  “Yes, well, I will thank you not to attempt to flatten them in front of me, either. I warn you, I shall find it upsetting to see your claret flowing all over Bond Street. And should it splash upon this very pretty young lady’s dress, I shall be forced to give you both the cut direct as soon as you are out of bandages. You do realize that I could have no choice in the matter.” Mr. Brummell, in buff inexpressibles and a coat of blue superfine, his cravat tied in the famed Oriental style, stooped gracefully down before Abby and taking her tiny hand in his own, kissed her fingertips. His eyes twinkled up at the earl. “Will you introduce me to this diamond of the first water, my lord, or shall I be left in despair?”