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Mary curtsied again and left the room.
Adrian’s father lingered after Heronvale and Levenhorne took their leave, both hurrying home to dinner with their wives. “What diversion awaits you this evening, son?”
Adrian tilted his chin. “None, unless I accepted an invitation I no longer recall.”
His father looked at him queryingly. “No visits to a gaming hell? Or, better yet, no lusty opera dancer awaiting you after her performance? A young buck like you must have something exciting planned.”
Adrian finished his second glass of port. “Not a thing.”
“You are welcome to dinner, then. Your mother and I dine alone this evening. I am certain she would be pleased to see you.” His father stood. “Come.”
Why not? thought Adrian. A glance around the room revealed no better company with whom to pass the time, and he had a particular dislike of being alone this night.
As they strolled through the streets of Mayfair where all the fashionable people lived, Adrian was mindful that he’d walked nearly this same route before. The Varcourt house, part of his father’s new inheritance, was on Berkeley Square, only a few roads away from Lydia’s townhouse on Hill Street.
And the garden gate he’d carried her through on John Street.
“You are quiet today,” his father remarked.
Adrian glanced over at him, realising he had not uttered a word since they’d left White’s. “Forgive me, Father. I suppose I was woolgathering.”
His father’s brow wrinkled. “It is not like you at all. Are you ill? Or have you got yourself in some scrape or another?”
“Neither.” Adrian smiled. “Not likely I’d tell you if I were in a scrape, though.”
His father laughed. “You have the right of it. Never knew you not to get yourself out of whatever bumble-broth you’d landed in.”
It was perhaps more accurate to say Tanner always managed the disentanglement, but Adrian’s father probably knew that very well.
“What is it, then, my son?” his father persisted.
Adrian certainly did not intend to tell his father about his encounter with Lady Wexin. Likely his father would see it as a conquest about which he could brag to his friends. Adrian was not in the habit of worrying over the secrecy of his affairs, but Lady Wexin’s name had been bandied about so unfairly, he had no wish to add to the gossip about her.
Adrian did wish he could explain to his father the discontent he’d been feeling lately. His father would in all likelihood pooh-pooh it as nonsense, however.
His father seemed to believe there could be no better life than the one Adrian led, spending his days and nights gambling, womanising and sporting. Adrian had lately wished for more than horse races or card games or opera dancers, however. He was tired of having no occupation, no purpose, of feeling it would take his father’s death to bring some utility to his existence.
Adrian’s discontent had begun about a year ago when he’d accompanied Tanner on a tour of his friend’s estates. He’d marvelled at Tanner’s knowledge of his properties and the people who saw to the running of them. Adrian had learned a great deal about farming, raising livestock, and managing a country estate during that trip, more than his father had ever taught him. Adrian’s restlessness had increased recently after learning of Tanner’s sudden marriage. He did not begrudge his friend’s newfound domestic happiness; surprisingly enough, he envied it.
His father came to an abrupt halt. “Good God, this is not about some woman, is it? Do not tell me. I’ll wager it is Lady Denson. The word is she is quite enamoured of you, as well any woman would be.”
An image of Lydia flew into Adrian’s mind, not Viola Denson, who had indeed engaged in a flirtation with Adrian, but one in which he could not sustain an interest.
“Not Lady Denson,” he replied. “Nor any woman, if you must know.”
And it seemed his father always wanted to know about Adrian’s romantic conquests. He told his father as little as possible about them.
If his father were paying attention to more than Adrian’s love life and gambling wins, he’d recall that his son had asked to take over some of the family’s lesser holdings. He’d thought it proper to ease his father’s new burdens of all the Varcourt properties, but the new Earl of Varcourt would have none of it. “Plenty of time for all that,” his father had said. “Enjoy yourself while you can.”
Adrian glanced at his father, a faithful husband, excellent manager, dutiful member of the House of Lords. His father might glorify the delights of his son’s bachelorhood, but, even without those delights in his own life, his father was a contented man.
Unlike Adrian.
Adrian attempted to explain. “I am bored—”
His father laughed. “Bored? A young buck like you? Why, you can do anything you wish. Enjoy life.”
He could do anything, perhaps, but nothing of value, Adrian thought. “The enjoyment is lacking at the moment.”
“Lacking? Impossible.” His father clapped him on the shoulder. “You sound like a man in need of a new mistress.”
Again Adrian thought of Lydia.
“Find yourself a new woman,” his father advised. “That’s the ticket. That Denson woman, if she wants it.”
Typical of his father to think in that manner. His father had inherited young, married young and lived a life of exemplary conduct, but that did not stop him from enjoying the exploits of his son.
“Do not forget,” his father went on, “your friend Tanner’s marriage has deprived you of some companionship, but you’ll soon accustom yourself to going about without him.” His father laughed. “Imagine Tanner in a Scottish marriage. With the Vanishing Viscountess, no less. Just like him to enter into some ramshackle liaison and wind up smelling of roses.”
Indeed. Under the most unlikely of circumstances Tanner had met the perfect woman for him. Why, his wife was even a baroness in her own right, a very proper wife for a marquess.
Adrian’s father launched into a repeat of the whole story of Tanner’s meeting the Vanishing Viscountess, of aiding her flight and of them both thwarting Wexin. Adrian only half-listened.
Adrian glanced at his father. The man was as tall, straight-backed and clear-eyed as he’d been all Adrian’s life. Even his blond hair was only lately fading to white. He did not need Adrian’s help managing the properties or anything else.
Adrian was nearly seven and thirty years. How long would it be before he had any responsibility at all?
“Did you know Wexin’s townhouse is on Hill Street?” he suddenly heard his father say.
“Mmm,” Adrian managed. Of course he knew.
“Strathfield purchased it as a wedding gift. Nice property. There’s been a pack of newspaper folks hanging around the door for days now. I agree with Levenhorne. Those newspaper fellows know a thing or two about Lady Wexin that we do not.”
Adrian bristled. “Tanner says—”
His father scoffed. “Yes. Yes. Tanner says she is innocent, but when you have lived as long as I have, son, you learn that where one sees smoke, there is usually fire.”
There was certainly a fire within Lady Wexin, but not the sort to which his father referred.
They reached Berkeley Square. His father stopped him before the door of the Varcourt house. “When your mother gives the word, you must give up your rooms and take over the old townhouse. She is still dithering about what furniture to move, I believe, so I do not know how long it will take.”
Splendid. Adrian had wanted an estate to manage. He would wind up with a house instead.
Samuel Reed stood among three other reporters near the entrance of Lady Wexin’s townhouse. His feet pained him, he was hungry, chilled to the bone and tired of this useless vigil. The lady was not going to emerge.
“I say we take turns,” one of the men was saying. “We agree to share any information about who enters the house or where she goes if she ventures out.”
“You talk a good game,” another responded. “But how do we know you would keep your word? You’d be the last fellow to tell what you know.”
The man was wrong. Reed would be the last fellow to tell what he knew. He was determined that The New Observer, the newspaper he and his brother Phillip owned, would have exclusive information about Lady Wexin. He’d not said a word to the others that he’d caught the lady out and about. She’d been walking from the direction of the shops. Why had she gone off alone?
He glanced at the house, but there was nothing to see. Curtains covered the windows. “I’m done for today,” he told the others.
“Don’t expect us to tell you if something happens,” one called to him.
Reed walked down John Street, slowing his pace as he passed the garden entrance. He peered through a crack between the planks of the wooden gate.
To his surprise, the rear door opened, though it was not Lady Wexin who emerged but her maid, shaking out table linen.
Reed’s stomach growled. It appeared that Lady Wexin had enjoyed a dinner. He certainly had not. He watched the maid, a very pretty little thing with dark auburn hair peeking out from beneath her cap. Reed had seen the young woman before, had even followed her the previous day when she’d gone to the market. For the last several days, Reed had seen only this maid and the butler entering and leaving the house. He’d surmised that Lady Wexin had dismissed most of the servants.
He’d been able to locate one of Lady Wexin’s former footmen, but the man refused to confirm whether or not other servants had left her employment. The man had refused to say anything newsworthy about Lady Wexin, but perhaps a maid might have knowledge a footman would not.
He watched her fold the cloth and re-enter the house. A carriage sounded at the end of the street, and he quickly darted into the shadows until the carriage continued past him.
He glanced at the moonlit sky. Time to walk back to the newspaper offices, get some dinner and write his story for the next edition, such as it was.
If only he could identify the gentleman who had come to Lady Wexin’s aid. He could make something of that information. The man was familiar, but he did not know all the gentlemen of the ton by sight. He’d keep his eyes open, though, and hope to discover the man’s identity soon enough.
Chapter Three
The scandalous Lady W—walks about Mayfair without a companion…or was it her intention to rendezvous with a certain gentleman? Beware, fine sir. Recall to what ends a man may be driven when Beauty is the prize…—The New Observer, November 14, 1818
Sheets of relentless rain kept indoors all but the unfortunate few whose livelihood forced them outside. Adrian was not in this category, but he willingly chose to venture forth with the rain dripping from the brim of his hat, the damp soaking its way through his topcoat and water seeping into his boots.
He turned into Hill Street, watchful for the reporters who’d lounged around Lady Wexin’s door the previous day when he’d made it a point to stroll by. As he suspected and dared hope, no one was in sight.
To be certain, he continued past the house to the end of the street and then back again. Not another living creature was about.
Apparently there were some things a newspaper reporter would not do in pursuit of a story, like standing in the pouring rain in near freezing temperatures. Adrian was not so faint of heart. What was a little water dripping from the brim of his hat, soaking his collar and causing his neck to chafe? A mere annoyance when he might see Lydia again.
Still, he wished he might have brought his umbrella.
Adrian strode up to the green door of the Wexin townhouse and sounded the brass lion’s-head knocker.
No one answered.
He sounded the knocker again and pressed his ear against the wooden door. He heard heels click on the hall’s marble floor.
“Open,” he called through the door. “It is Pomroy. Calling upon Lady Wexin.”
“Who?” a man’s muffled voice asked.
“Pomroy,” Adrian responded. He paused. He’d forgotten again. “Lord Cavanley,” he said louder.
He heard the footsteps receding, but pounded with the knocker again, huddling in the narrow doorcase so that only his back suffered the soaking rain. He planned to knock until he gained entry.
Finally, the footsteps returned and the door was opened a crack, a man’s eye visible in it.
“I am Lord Cavanley, calling upon Lady Wexin.” Adrian spoke through the crack.
The eye stared.
“On a matter of business.” Adrian reached into his pocket and pulled out a slightly damp card. He handed it through the narrow opening. “Have pity, man. Do you think I wish to stand out in the rain?”
The eye disappeared and, after a moment, the crack widened to reveal Lady Wexin’s butler. The man was of some indeterminate age, anywhere from thirty to fifty. He did not wear livery and possessed the right mix of hauteur and servitude that befitted a butler. Adrian liked the protective look in the man’s eye.
“Be so good as to wait here a moment, m’lord.” The butler bowed and walked away, his heels clicking on each step as he ascended the marble stairs.
Adrian remembered carrying Lydia up those flights of stairs.
His gaze followed the butler, puzzled as to why the man had not taken his coat and hat, but left him standing in the hall like a visiting merchant.
Adrian removed his hat and gloves as puddles formed at his feet on the marble floor. The gilded table still held its vases, and the vases were still empty of flowers.
Finally the butler’s footsteps sounded again as he descended and made his unhurried way back to Adrian. “I will take you to Lady Wexin.”
Adrian handed him his hat and gloves and removed his soaked topcoat carefully so as to lessen both the size of the puddles and the amount of rainwater pouring down the back of his neck. He waited again while the butler disappeared with the sodden items, daring to hope the man might lay them out in front of some fire to dry a bit.
When the butler returned, he led Adrian up the stairs to a first-floor drawing room. Even standing in the doorway, Adrian could feel the room’s chill. There was a fire in the fireplace, but Adrian guessed it must have just been lit.
Lydia’s back was to him. She stood with arms crossed in front of her, facing the window that looked out at the rain.
“Lord Cavanley,” the butler announced.
She turned, and her beautiful sapphire eyes widened. “You!”
The butler stepped between her and Adrian.
She waved a dismissive hand. “It is all right, Dixon. I will see this gentleman.”
Frowning, the butler bowed, tossing Adrian a suspicious glance as he walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.
Adrian was taken aback. “I announced myself to your man.”
She shook her head. “But you are Mr Pomroy.”
He realised the mistake. “Forgive me.” He smiled at her. “You must not know me as Cavanley.”
“I certainly do not!” She stepped forwards and gripped the back of a red velvet chair. Her forehead suddenly furrowed. “Did…did your father pass away? I confess, I did not know—”
He held up his hand. “Nothing like that.” He caught himself staring at her and gave himself a mental shake. “Well, a cousin of his passed away, but he was quite elderly and had been ill for many years. My father inherited the title, Earl of Varcourt, so his lesser title passed to me.” Good God. He was babbling. He took a breath. “How is your ankle?”
Stepping around the chair, she stared at him as if he had just sprouted horns. “It troubles me little.”
“I am glad of it,” he said. His voice sounded stiff.
She walked closer to him and his breath was again stolen by her beauty. Her golden hair sparkled from the fire in the hearth and lamps that he suspected had also been hastily lit. While the rest of the room faded into greyness, like the rainy day, she appeared bathed in a warm glow, as if all the light in the room was as drawn to her as he was. She wore a dress of rich blue, elegantly cut. Its sole adornment was a thick velvet ribbon tied in a bow beneath her breasts. A paisley shawl was wrapped around her shoulders, the blue in its woven print complementing her dress and her eyes.
