Incognita (Fairchild Book 2) Page 2

  Perhaps he’d met her at that al fresco luncheon in Richmond? Might explain it. He’d drunk liberally of the champagne there, enough to blur the edges of his memories a little. No, that couldn’t be right.

  Alistair rose, dusted off his grass stained-breeches and hobbled to the dressing table, his muscles protesting though he hadn’t been sitting on the floor long. He needed a bath, but that would require his man, Griggs, and he wasn’t in the mood for any kind of company. Instead, Alistair sprawled across the bed, pulling out a battered book. It was his favorite, his good luck charm, a volume of Horace. The pages were feathering at the edges, the cover water-stained. Someday soon the book would fall apart completely, but he didn’t know if he could bear to replace it. Horace had been his companion in Portugal and Spain, at Talavera, Buçaco, Fuentes de Oñoro and in the little medieval town of Tarifa, where he had finally taken a bullet in his shoulder.

  Alistair started with the odes, enjoying them as he always did, until he tripped on the line, who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold. He instantly thought of Tom Bagshot.

  Sophy, a captivating innocent, couldn’t be likened to Pyrrha of the poem, but Bagshot—he fit nicely as her lover. Credulous, yes, and as rich in Methodist morality as he was in merchant gold. And he, like the writer of the poem, was jealous, sick with injured pride. Alistair flipped the page, turning his shoulder against a boiling cloud of anger, reading half a page without understanding a word. Bagshot was still in his head, Horace failing to evict him. Yet beneath envy and offended dignity there was something else . . . Alistair chewed the inside of his lip, straining after an elusive wisp of memory. Something about Bagshot, or Bagshot’s morality. Yes, he had it now. It was more than just Tom Bagshot. It was the memory eluding him since he’d left the park, trying to recall just where he had first seen Madame Mouth.

  He knew he’d seen her before! It was the demure dress and the little boy hiding behind her skirts today that had thrown him off. She’d looked much more dashing, and even more delicious, the first time he’d seen her at one of the opera house’s scandal-making masquerade balls. Ladies of Quality might flit in and out—discreetly, if they valued their good names—but they didn’t remove their masks, especially when their lips were decorated with paint. He’d noticed her early in the evening, but it was later, when she was glaring at the masked fellow dancing in the pit with his own Sophy, that he sauntered over to lean against the side of her box.

  “Is he yours?” he asked. “The tall one, dancing with the lady in blue?”

  She wilted for a fraction of a second before taking firm hold of her pride. “Obviously not.” Her mouth tightened.

  “I wouldn’t worry. No harm will come of it,” Alistair said. Sophy could play her games and try to avoid him, but he didn’t like that she was waltzing with this fellow after refusing to waltz with him. He’d make sure she was back at his side after this dance. It was time he made his intentions plain.

  “Too late. Here I stand, defeated,” she said. A glimmer of humor would have softened her words, turning them into the kind of self-mocking jest that was both acceptable and wearily elegant. But there was no lift of an eyebrow, no lurking smile. She meant what she said. She cared far too much.

  “Is he your husband then?” It was always best to make generous assumptions about females.

  “No.” The word was bare, forlorn. He felt a twist of pity, enough that he had to look and see if the beautifully packaged woman was still there, or if she’d been replaced by a girl in braids and a dimity frock. No. This was the same one, brittle and alluringly varnished.

  “Then he won’t object if you dance with me?”

  “No. More’s the pity.” She pressed her lips together. “He’s of no use to me now, not even for dancing. I might as well take the floor with you.”

  “Such enthusiasm,” he said, smiling at her as he walked around the front of the box. He expected she would wait for him collect her, but when he came to the door of the box she was already there. Hungry for a protector, he surmised. She was lovely to look at, but desperate and not, in any case, for him. Probably best to avoid her, but he’d already asked her to dance. He could at least use the opportunity to position himself near Sophy on the dance floor.

  They dropped into the swirl of dancers without making a ripple. Alistair shifted his hand on her back, pulling her a fraction closer than was respectable. A test—one she failed. She didn’t resist, or appear to even notice. Her eyes were fixed over his left shoulder.

  “There is something arresting about the way she moves, isn’t there?”

  He moved her through a turn so he could see what she meant—it was Sophy, floating back into the circle of her partner’s arms.

  “I think it’s more in the line of her shoulders,” he said, unable to hide his frown. “She’s much too young to be traipsing around with strangers.”

  She caught the shadow in his voice and leaned closer. “Does it tear your heart? Or just displease you? I can’t tell if you love her or not.”

  Her sharp probing surprised him. True, his own thoughts of her were not kind, but he’d kept them to himself. Smarting from the sting of her words, he started to let go of her, intending to leave her where she stood. The smirk on her face changed his mind. There were better ways to discomfit her. He tugged her closer, so they were nearly touching, his mouth a handbreadth from her ear. Her breath quickened. She was probably waiting for words, but he didn’t speak. He didn’t intend to answer impertinent questions.

  Tired of waiting, the woman in his arms supplied an answer herself. “Hmmmn. Not heart broken. Not yet.” That, too, he decided to ignore, stonily returning her gaze as she searched his face, trying to see past the mask around his eyes.

  “What is your name?” he asked.

  “You first,” she said.

  “Rushford. Jasper Rushford,” he lied.

  “I am Mrs. Morris.” She seemed to be waiting for him to ask after her husband, but Alistair was not such a novice. If there was a Mr. Morris, he was clearly a complaisant man, and therefore of no consequence.

  “You’re a nice armful, Mrs. Morris, but I’d like a look at your legs again,” he said, propelling her into a spin so her shape would appear beneath the swaying skirts of her high-waisted gown. Very nice. Wherever she had come from, she looked like a thoroughbred at least—close to his own height and perfectly formed from her neck to her wrists to her ankles.

  “You shouldn’t say such things to me,” she said.

  “Why not? Don’t you like it?” He slid his thumb along the edge of her hand, kindling fire in her eyes.

  “Your lady won’t like it,” she said, radiating angry heat. Surprising. You’d think she’d have overcome such scruples.

  “I don’t think she’ll ever know,” he said.

  “Probably not. Her eyes are all for Tom. Look, he’s very taken with her.”

  If she meant to goad him, it was a weak attempt. Sophy could have her one waltz. It was of no consequence.

  “Bad luck. She’s not for him,” he said.

  “How do you know?” she asked.

  Alistair grinned, happy to retake some ground. “Because she’s for me. If I want her, that is.” The music slowed, sinking in heavy pools between dancers approaching stillness, a heartbeat of a pause to exchange courtesies before breaking apart and leaving the floor. Alistair lifted his hands from her as the last note swam into the air. He sank into a bow. “I’m quite sure that I do, so don’t give up on him, Mrs. Morris. The lady in blue is unavailable, and you are not without some attractions.” He let his eyes travel slowly down below her face. “Thank you for the dance. May I escort you to your seat?”

  “No.” She didn’t curtsey, returning instead a look that might have smelled of sulfur. Just as well. He shouldn’t have offered to return her to her place—force of habit, he supposed. He needed to fish Sophy out of this crowd, not squire this jade back to her seat.

  “Good hunting,” he said, speaking low.

&nbs
p; Her quick spin away was more eloquent than words. He couldn’t help admiring her as she stalked away, disappearing into the crowd of dancers, a brilliant catalogue of persons collected from every known land and point of history. It almost hurt his eyes, this collection of scandalously fragile skirts, golden collars, loose Eastern trousers and embroidered slippers with curled up toes. He stepped out of the way of a stiff lace ruff worn atop a set of panniers as wide as barrels. Not for the first time, he thanked his stars, happy to be born in a more rational age. But he’d lost Sophy. He could see every imaginable color except her domino cloak of bright blue.

  It took two or three dances before he could reclaim her and steer her onto the floor himself. In the days that followed, Alistair kept watch for the tall fellow—Tom, she’d called him.

  He only spotted him once, ogling Sophy through a quizzing glass at the theatre, looking singularly awkward, so he dismissed the fellow. A mistake. He shouldn’t have forgotten about Mrs. Morris either. Sophy might not have married Tom Bagshot, if he’d told her what he knew about him and Mrs. Morris. He could have destroyed Sophy’s love before her eyes, reducing her hero to clay, instead of telling her she’d outgrow this infatuation with Bagshot. Too late now. Sophy was married and she wouldn’t like learning about her beloved’s connection to that dark-haired female. It would break her heart. Might be best, in fact, if she never knew. But Jasper, who took up arms so quickly in his sister’s cause, would want to hear of this.

  It was his duty to tell him, Alistair decided, squashing a faint flutter of conscience. Jasper would buy that reasoning. Alistair could almost believe it himself, but for the trickle of vicious, subterranean satisfaction oozing inside him. He was no saint, after all, and it was hardly fair that he should shoulder all the misery of this affair.

  Alistair shut his book with enough force that it ruffled his hair. He must wash and change his dress. And hope Jasper’s temper had cooled enough so he could speak with him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Anna Morris, née Fulham, felt ready to scream, but it hadn’t occurred to her once to wash her son’s mouth with soap. She’d had few opportunities to confront the practicalities of child-rearing. After an hour chasing Henry in the park, where she’d torn her flounce and given herself a headache, she wondered why she bothered. Wringing permission from her brother-in-law to spend time with her son was wearing enough—and then one actually had to spend the time with him.

  She’d been pleased with her appearance when she’d presented herself at the door of the Morris home, and proud of the way she had airily dismissed Henry’s nurse. She didn’t need more tale bearers watching her. If she so much as sneezed, her brother-in-law knew of it. But Henry had dragged his feet ever since leaving the park, dropping bonelessly to the ground in protest, dirtying his clothes and trying to kick off his shoes. She’d carried him most of the way, but they would still be late. Frederick had only granted them an hour and a half—and she’d argued hard for the extra half hour. Returning dirty and disheveled with a fretful child chanting obscenities was not going to help her cause.

  “Aaasss—” Henry started up again. Anna could feel heads turning in their direction.

  “Hush!” she whispered, laying a firm finger on Henry’s lips. He stopped for a second, eyeing her hand. Before he could bite it, she whipped it away. There was little she understood about her son, but she needed less than a second to decipher that calculating look. Her mother claimed she’d been a biter too, before progressing to pinching. They’d cured her of that, eventually, but really—she’d be so much happier if she could succumb to impulse and give a hard twist to her brother-in-law’s nose, snarl at her well-meaning mother and burn the grass covering her dead husband’s grave.

  Perhaps that last was a little much.

  It was probably just as well the Morrises didn’t want her near Henry. This short afternoon outing had nearly done her in. Nothing had gone as she’d imagined: no loving gazes, no jammy kiss (she’d decided she could tolerate jam), no trotting companionably at her side. Just another failure. No matter how she tried, everything she touched turned to dust and ashes.

  You’ve gotten maudlin again. How contemptible.

  “We’re late. Your uncle won’t like it,” she said to Henry, probably sounding as plaintive and disagreeable as he did. At least she wasn’t yowling. Yet. “We don’t want—” she grunted, hoisting his slipping bottom back onto her hip, “to do anything—” Goodness, he was heavy! “. . . that your uncle will not like.” Not that Frederick was disposed to like anything she did. He only tolerated her because of the money she had brought his brother. On Anthony’s death, everything but her jointure passed to her son. Frederick was Henry’s guardian and trustee, which put both her money and her boy beyond reach. She’d known Anthony hated her, but she had underestimated how much.

  She looked down at Henry’s tousled head and surly bottom lip, a hot lump rising in her throat. She’d bungled again. “Next time will be better,” she promised.

  Henry stuck out his lip. “No.”

  They were still ten houses away. She could bundle him into a hackney and take him to her parents’ home, feed him tea and try to win that jammy kiss, but she had only a faint likelihood of succeeding. Henry didn’t like her—and why should he? She had brought him to the park and gotten annoyed with him for ruining her clothes, for scampering away from her and finding new, appalling vocabulary. Instead of following him as he capered across the grass or taking him to stare at the milk cows up on the hill, she'd turned peevish, sure they were drawing disapproving eyes. Instead of laughing with him at the spectacle of two grown men tussling it out like a pair of schoolboys, she’d gotten angry. Yes, it was true that Henry would probably end up calling someone in the Morris house some colorful names, but what of it? If he used them on his uncle, she was in perfect agreement. Unfortunately, Frederick the Ass-wipe didn’t need more excuses to bar her from Henry’s company.

  Ignoring yet another pitying look from the elegantly dressed strolling along Mayfair’s pavements, Anna swiveled Henry to her other hip, hoping to ease the burn in her right shoulder. Her back was sweaty and her face hot. It was fitting, she supposed, that even an afternoon in the park turned into a struggle—everything else was. Her parents felt badly for her, but they were of little help. She ought to be used to helpless frustration, to containing the feverish plans that circled round her head like a mill wheel. These ideas seemed good in the small hours of the morning, but they always proved weak and flimsy against Frederick once the sun filled the sky. That wasn’t what filled her with despair. Defeat at Frederick’s hands was nothing compared to today’s, from Henry. He didn’t like her. She might as well give up trying.

  But Henry’s dark hair and petulant mouth . . . they were exactly like her own. And though she couldn’t remember ever sharing his sturdy legs, round knees, and impudent smile, those were hers too. He was her son and she would have him. Someday. Soon. She caught his round pink hand and pressed it to her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said, but he pulled his hand free, impatient with her caressing. “Next time we can go to Grandpapa and Grandmama Fulham’s. You’ll like the kitty.” Someone had to, besides her mother.

  Henry narrowed his eyes. “Does he have teeth?”

  And claws, Anna thought ruefully, remembering a pair of gauzy silk stockings.

  “Boris has teeth. Boris chewed my dit,” Henry said.

  She knew Frederick’s poodle, Boris, but she didn’t recognize the other thing. “Your dit?”

  He nodded, expecting that to be answer enough. “Next time can I bring it? But not if there’s a kitty.”

  She nodded, dumbfounded, but willing to agree to anything he suggested. He settled himself complacently, pointing to his own door once she began climbing the steps. The door swung wide, revealing the butler and the nurse, poised with waiting hands. Henry wriggled free and scampered into them with such eagerness that Anna felt her stomach widen into a cavernous hole. For a moment she wished he was back in
side her, where he might bump and nudge, but no one could take him.

  “Were you a good boy?” the nurse asked Henry, eyeing Anna’s dress.

  “Next time I’ll wear a dark one,” Anna said. Maybe Frederick would allow her to take Henry for a drive and they could get ices. That might go better. He couldn’t run away from her if he was in a carriage. She would bring a maid with her. Or a leash.

  “I’m hungry,” he said to the nurse.

  “Your tea is waiting for you,” she said, taking his hand and leading him up the stairs. Anna tried not to mind when he didn’t look back. Alone with the butler in the hall, she waited a moment, but was not invited inside. “Give Mr. Morris my apologies for our lateness. Henry had a hard time walking all the way home.”

  He bowed, acknowledging her message, and she left, realizing once she was outside that she should have paused to straighten her bonnet in front of the hall mirror. She gave one futile brush at her skirts, but the prints of Henry’s shoes were plainly marked. At least Henry had temporarily forgotten his new words.

  She turned in the direction of her parents’ house, wondering when, if ever, Henry would notice her absence. On the whole, it might be better if he did not. They would never let her have him.

  *****

  Alistair was nearly finished the transformation from grubby ruffian to society gentleman when Oakes summoned him.