Point of Honour (Sarah Tolerance) Page 23

  Further conversation was halted when dinner was announced. Miss Tolerance went in to dinner on Versellion’s arm, imagining the conjecture their meeting must be subject to in the servants’ hall. The meal was very fine, overample for two diners; the remains of the sole and mutton were carried off to be finished belowstairs. Miss Tolerance had little appetite and, confronted at dinner’s end by an elaborate pastry and a tray of fruit and cheese, took a pear and began to peel it. She felt tired and a little melancholy.

  Their conversation had been pleasantly general, suited to the ears of the footmen who waited upon them. With the servants gone from the room, “How does the Queen?” she asked.

  “The same. Dying, I think, but slowly. A group has risen within the Crown party that wants to make the Duke of Clarence Regent, despite the bad blood between him and the Queen, and his irregular household. Balobridge will have a mutiny on his hands led by Perceval, who stands Clarence’s friend. I’ve spoken to Wales again—he is determined that the Regency should not go to his brother, and asks me to act his friend.”

  “You will do so?”

  “Of course. I only wish I were certain that he would commit to dissolve the Tory government once he is made Regent, and order a new one. He’s playing it politically, smiling upon Whig and Tory alike. I have hope—he’s always been a friend to the Whigs. It remains to see if he will be a friend to me.”

  “You have worked so hard for this. I’m sure …” Miss Tolerance began. Exhaustion seemed to lower itself upon her like a veil, and assurance deserted her. What did she know of politics and princes? “And you have hired the man from Oxford to watch after you?”

  Versellion smiled. “He and another. One is in the house with me at all times—and damned irritating it is, I must say. I thought I had done with nursemaids years ago.”

  “I beg you will continue to take the threat seriously, Versellion. I’m glad to hear you are guarded.” She sighed. “Well, it is late. I must go.”

  “I was hoping you would stay.”

  She shook her head.

  “Sarah, if the things my cousin said upset you—is that why you’re so cool to me?”

  “I dislike the name he gave me, but … no. I should go home tonight.”

  “Why?” Versellion challenged her. “What waits for you there?”

  “A quiet bed and a disturbed sleep,” she admitted ruefully. “I miss my friend; Matt would have teased me out of my funk at your cousin’s name-calling.”

  “Will you not let me be your friend?” Versellion asked quietly. He moved to sit beside her, head tilted to one side to regard her seriously. Miss Tolerance longed to do what he suggested: abandon common sense and take the comfort offered her. “Sarah, stay with me.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Tonight. Tomorrow. Always.”

  “Are you offering to put me under your protection, Versellion?” Miss Tolerance smiled sadly. “Your generosity does you credit, but you forget where and how I have lived. I have seen too much of what happens to women who rely upon the men who keep them outside of marriage. I am not meant to be kept that way.”

  “You think I would use you so badly?”

  Miss Tolerance bit her lip and shook her head. “That’s not the point. It would ruin me all over again. I’ve lost my reputation once; I cannot afford to lose …” She sought the words to explain. “My professional reputation. If I am your acknowledged mistress, moneyed women will think the better of hiring me for fear I will seduce the men they want me to follow, and men who engage me may fear I’ll let your interests come before their own. Some men will believe that my services compass the use of my body. The work I have done in the last few years to create my odd profession would be for naught. I would either starve—or prove your cousin right in the name he called me.”

  “Your liaison with Charles Connell did not ruin you professionally .” His emphasis on the last word was bitter.

  “My liaison with Connell was over when I returned to London. I was as good as a widow—and years distant from my elopement. And to be fair, if I were the mistress of a coachman or a farmer, no one would remark it. But to be the present mistress of that notable politician, that marital prize the Earl of Versellion? How could I ply my trade and play that role? And I must ply my trade. Sooner or later you will want a son—a legitimate son who could inherit the title and be groomed to the political life—and you and I would part.”

  “If we married—”

  Miss Tolerance laughed tiredly. “After two nights together, am I so irresistible you would offer marriage? For pity’s sake, Versellion, you were raised to be a political force! A kingmaker! You need a political wife, rich, expedient, well connected, and well spoke—”

  “You are—”

  “Not rich. Not well connected, as you saw in Briarton—I could not even get us a room at the inn! Not expedient, for while I do know some shocking things about society’s best families, I will never tell them. I’m Fallen, Versellion. Ruined. Good for none of the commonplace uses of well-bred young ladies.”

  “Are we to part, then?” Versellion asked at last.

  Miss Tolerance closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair.

  “Sarah? Do you honestly tell me you don’t wish to be with me?”

  Eyes still closed, she shook her head. “I cannot say that … honestly.”

  He took her hand again. “Is there nothing we may give each other, then?” he asked.

  Miss Tolerance opened her eyes to regard the hand which clasped her own. She thought for a long moment, as desire warred with common sense. At last she raised his hand to her lips. “Comfort, I suppose,” she said. For the second time in their acquaintance, she felt as if she had stepped out into a void with nothing more than hope to buoy her up.

  Versellion smiled. “Comfort is no little thing.” He turned her hand in his and raised it to his lips as he might a glass to toast with. “Wait but a few moments.”

  He rose, went to the door of the dining room, and spoke with someone in low-voiced conference for several minutes. Miss Tolerance closed her eyes again.

  “Most everyone but my valet and Murrett, the guard you had me hire, have gone to bed. I have sent word up to Park that I will valet myself tonight. Which leaves only Murrett, and like you, discretion is part of the service he undertakes to provide for me. I cannot swear that no one will know or imagine that you are here with me, but I will promise not to blazon it about—however much I might like to do.”

  Miss Tolerance smiled. “I suppose your cousin may have my aunt’s house watched to see if I return,” she teased.

  If mention of Folle disturbed him, Versellion did not let her see it. “I thought all you required was that it not be seen that you were stopping here—I did not think to establish that you were sleeping elsewhere.” He sat next to her again and took her hand, as easily as if they had been lovers for a score of years. Miss Tolerance smiled. For half an hour they sat, handfast, talking easily of very little. At last they went upstairs.

  At some point long after they slept, Miss Tolerance woke, disoriented by her surroundings. She lay quietly for a few moments, taking in the warm fall of velvet curtains around the bed, the gleam of moonlight on the silver candlesticks on the table near to hand, and Versellion sleeping soundly beside her. It occurred to her that all these things might once have been hers by right. She mused upon this until she felt a danger of self-pity; then she turned, shaped herself to Versellion’s body, and closed her eyes to sleep again.

  The sun was only barely risen when she woke again. This time Miss Tolerance rose and dressed, intending to leave the house before her inevitable discovery by Versellion’s servants. She permitted herself to sit beside Versellion, still sleeping, for a few moments before going; there was a writing table across the room and she considered leaving him a note, but in the end could not think of anything to say that would not be sentimental or pathetic. Instead, she pushed his dark hair from his face, as if she could communicate by touch those sentime
nts which she could not voice.

  “‘Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near dawn,’” he murmured. His dark eyes opened and he looked up at her with evident pleasure.

  “It’s some time past dawn,” Miss Tolerance replied matter-of-factly. “I ought to have gone half an hour ago.”

  He laughed at her. “Literalist! Will you not stay to take a cup of chocolate?”

  Miss Tolerance shook her head. “And undo all your discretion? Two cups of chocolate delivered to one room will earn you a reputation for gluttony, or tempt more conjecture on the part of the kitchen staff. I must go.” She meant to brush her lips against his in farewell, but he caught her face between his two hands and kissed her thoroughly.

  “Come tonight,” he urged her.

  She threw caution to the winds. “If I can,” she agreed. Then, because to stay longer at his side seemed to invite disaster, she left him and slipped from the room, and out of the house unnoticed.

  Miss Tolerance was aware, walking back to Manchester Square, well wrapped in her cloak, that she was more tired than she liked. It had not been late when they retired, but in the natural order of things, it had been some time before they slept. Her sleep had been disordered by dreams and waking. All the exertions of the last ten days seemed now to be making themselves felt; she ached, her head felt gluey, and the bustling dawn streets of London seemed vague to her. A cup of tea, she thought.

  She let herself into the garden through the gate on Spanish Place. The notion of a cup of tea was so enticing that it seemed she could not wait until her own water was drawn and heated. A kettle would be on the hob in Mrs. Brereton’s kitchen; she went there first. Cook was making scones and overseeing the slicing of bacon; one of the sculleriers was hulling berries, another stirring something in a bowl, and another readying dishes to receive all this food. Cook, who had looked up from her labors, commented that Miss Tolerance looked like death and prescribed tea and scones.

  “I’ll have Jess bring ’em round to you if you like, miss.”

  Miss Tolerance shook her head. “I’ll take a cup of tea back with me, and thanks. You’ve all enough to do, I see.”

  Jess, the youngest of the scullery maids and the most recently in Mrs. Brereton’s employ, grinned. “Ma‘am’s got that great old lordship this morning, and the ol’ man likes to be out and about before the neighbors know what’s what. I already took up her tray-”

  Cook boxed the girl’s ear in a flurry of flour. “An’t I tol you enough times, there’s to be none talking about the guests?” she scolded over Jess’s wails. “Specially Ma’am’s guests. You’ll wind up on the streets, girl.”

  Jess nodded penitently, one shoulder raised to ward off a second blow, but Cook had gone back to her scones, having made her point. The girl sidled away from Cook and poured a mug of tea for Miss Tolerance from the warming pot by the fire.

  “I’ll bring you round a pot and some scones if you’d like,” she offered.

  Miss Tolerance thanked her and, hands wrapped around the mug she held, made her way through the garden to her house. She was shivering by the time she got in, despite the rising warmth of the day. She settled herself on a chair at the cold hearth, her cloak still wrapped around her, and nursed the tea, savoring the warm spill of liquid down her throat. Jess, arriving with teapot and a plate of scones, looked at her with comical dismay and laid one rough hand upon Miss Tolerance’s forehead.

  “Not burning up, but you’ve a fever, miss. An’ you look like a hundredweight of misery in a bushel basket, if you’ll pardon me. D’you want the doctor? Shall I send word to Ma’am you’re sick?” The girl bustled around the room making up the fire, drawing curtains, looking for blankets. “You should be abed,” she scolded.

  Miss Tolerance, thinking of the program of work she had mapped out for the day, shook her head and started to rise. “Too much to do,” she began. But she felt weak and off balance when she gained her feet, and sat down hard. “Damn,” she muttered. It took effort to think clearly and consider how much work she could reasonably accomplish with a feverish cold. At last, bowing to the inevitable, she sent Jess upstairs to bring down her dressing gown and several blankets-and the invaluable Art of the Small Sword, should she need some soporific. When Jess at last returned to the kitchen, Miss Tolerance was well bundled, set up before the fire with her tea, the scones she had no desire to eat, and her writing desk and books to hand.

  She drowsed off and on, wakened fully several hours later by a rap on the door. Marianne had brought a nearly undrinkable tisane and a copy of Tom Jones from the house.

  “I don’t think I can read just now,” Miss Tolerance protested, sipping miserably at the infusion Marianne pressed upon her.

  “I’d no intention to let you,” the other woman said comfortably. She was dressed in a round gown and shawl and looked like a prosperous farmer’s wife. “You drink that all while it’s warm, and then you may have more tea to wash the taste away.” She opened the book, squinted at it nearsightedly, and began to read aloud. Miss Tolerance, who had known nothing of the author except that he had been instrumental in founding the Bow Street Runners, found herself engaged, then chuckling as she listened. After an hour or so, Marianne closed the book. “That’s enough for now,” she said firmly, as if Miss Tolerance had been in the nursery. “You rest.”

  She rose and started for the door, but Miss Tolerance stopped her.

  “You’ve been very kind. Did my aunt send you?”

  Marianne shook her head. “Though she had the tisane brewed up for you. But Mrs. B is always busy with affairs in the house; it’s a great lot to manage, that. I just thought … you seem to need a friend.”

  Miss Tolerance straightened in her seat and regarded Marianne with a mixture of affront and curiosity. “Why do you say that?”

  “Don’t know. It’s just the way it seems to me. P’raps I thought you’d be missing Matt. We all do,” she added. “But he was specially fond of you.”

  “And I of him,” Miss Tolerance said. “And perhaps you’re right. Thank you, Marianne.”

  The other woman smiled. “You rest. Someone will be over in a few hours to see to you.” She took the tray with her and left Miss Tolerance to dreams in which the histories of Tom and Jenny Jones, the Allworthys and Westerns, Lords Trux, Balobridge, and Versellion, Sir Henry Folle, and various modern-day prostitutes mixed freely.

  Miss Tolerance was wakened twice more to drink the horrid infusion her aunt had prepared for her; after the second time, it now being well after dark, she made her way rather unsteadily up to her bed and fell soundly asleep. When she woke again, the room sparkled with sunlight and it was after noon. She sat up, relieved to discover the room no longer danced around with her every movement. Downstairs she heard a bustling which proved, upon inquiry, to be the scullery maid, Jess, with more tea and a plate of bread and butter.

  She rose and dressed and went downstairs to break her fast. Her head was clear, and while Miss Tolerance was aware of a sensation of fatigue, she could at least entertain the thought of venturing out to see Mrs. Virtue. Cole had left her mail, and she opened it without much attention until one note turned up, written in Versellion’s hand. He had somehow discovered an address in London for Dr. Charles Hawley, not much more than a dozen streets distant from Manchester Square. This gave her cause to reconsider her plans for the day: Luton Street was a more prudent destination than Cheapside.

  “I had hoped to see you tonight,” Versellion’s note finished. Miss Tolerance read this ruefully, then took up pen and paper to inform the earl that she had been indisposed, and to thank him for his assistance. This done, she gathered up her reticule, bonnet, and shawl and left the house.

  She had not walked two streets away from Manchester Square before she concluded that she was not fully recovered. Miss Tolerance was not in the habit of indulging weakness, and feverish colds—associated in her mind with Connell’s death—were her particular abhorrence. However, she could see no purpose in exhausting herse
lf with the walk to Hawley’s address; she hailed a hackney carriage and was taken up immediatley.

  Luton Street was tidy, prosperous, but not elegant. Number Four was an older house than its neighbors, and rather shabby. The door-knocker was well polished, but the shutters and door wanted painting. The door was opened by a very young maid with freckles and an air of importance; the homely scents of mutton broth and baking bread rose from within. Miss Tolerance inquired for Mr. Hawley.

  “I’ll ask if he’s to home,” the girl offered, began to close the door, then eyed Miss Tolerance seriously and added, “You know he an’t a real doctor, do you?”

  Miss Tolerance blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Miss Hawley calls him the Doctor, but he can’t physick you, if that’s what you’re wanting. He’s only a teacher,” she added, as if this must be a great disappointment.

  Miss Tolerance smiled. “Thank you, but I don’t want physicking just now. I only need a few minutes of Dr. Hawley’s time upon business.”

  The girl nodded and closed the door; evidently the rules of the household did not specify admitting visitors to wait in the front hallway. Miss Tolerance regretted the opportunity to sit for a few moments, but composed herself to wait.

  The maid returned, flushed and agitated. “Miss Hawley says the doctor ain’t to home,” she said rapidly, and started to close the door.

  Miss Tolerance put a hand out to stop her. “Will you give him my card?” she asked. “I only need a few moments of his time.” She was aware of a woman’s voice scolding from the upper floors; the maid looked over her shoulder with some apprehension.

  Miss Tolerance pressed her card, and a sixpence, into the maid’s hand. “Please see that Dr. Hawley gets my card. Thank you.″