“Are you sure Mr. Wakefield will not mind?” Charity asked for the hundredth time.
Prue reassured her again. Of course he would not object to her bringing Charity to his town house for a few days. Would he? Weeks of separation had left her yearning for him, but had it given him time for second thoughts? One slightly used spy, no longer in the first flush of youth, and with a secret that would surely give him a disgust of her, if he ever discovered it.
But Mrs. Allen made them welcome and told Prue the mail had brought a letter from David yesterday, saying he and Gren were leaving for London. They should be home tomorrow or the next day. Prue left Charity to settle into the bedroom Mrs. Allen prepared for her, while Prue wrote a note to Lady Georgiana, asking for permission to call.
They had talked it over at length while with Charissa, and in the carriage on the way from Essex. At inordinate length.
Charity could not, would not, stay in Selby’s cottage. She would go somewhere she was not known and introduce herself as a widow, using another name. Mrs. Smith, she said, for who was to find one Mrs. Smith among thousands?
But how she and the children were to live was a problem. Prue would help, of course. She could double the allowance she was paying for Antonia’s care, would triple it if Charity would allow. Tolliver’s work paid well enough, and she had a little set aside.
Charity wanted to borrow Prue’s nest egg. She had some idea of setting up a milliner’s shop. Not in London, but somewhere cheaper to live and safer for the children. “Even you said I make beautiful hats, Prue,” she argued.
True enough, but running a business required more than an eye for fashion and an artistic touch with a needle. Prue didn’t want her savings to be frittered away and leave Charity and the girls in a worse situation than before.
“We need somewhere for you and the children to stay while we consider how best to make your plan work,” she told Charity. “I know a lady who supports women in your sort of trouble. She may have a place.” Or she may never wish to speak to Prue again, in which case they needed to think of something else.
On one thing Charity was determined: Prue was not to ask Selby to support his daughters until they moved somewhere he could not find them. “It is not as if he is going to give us any money, anyway, Prue. He barely gave us a thing when I thought I was his wife. Just a few pounds now and again, when he visited. The servants’ pay is several quarters in arrears. Oh, dear. Should I not pay them before I let them go?” Another problem for her to worry at, until Prue was ready to leap screaming from the carriage with her hands over her ears.
The note sent, Prue went to check that Charity had everything she needed.
Her sister was sitting next to the window in her bedchamber, looking out.
“It is very grand, Prue, is it not? Not your David’s town house, though that is finer than I expected. But the streets, the carriages, the people. We are not even in London here, are we? Not really?”
“This is Chelsea,” Prue told her. “We are not in the City, but nor are we far. What would you like to see while we are here, Charity?”
“I will just stay here, Prue, please, except when we go to visit your friend. I want to make arrangements for somewhere to live, then go and collect the girls to take them to their new home. I miss them so much. Besides, imagine if I bumped into Selby!” Charity shuddered.
Perhaps she was wise, though in a city the size of London, the chances of her meeting Selby were slender.
“I need to go out, Charity. I received a note from the agency.”
Prue had told Charity about the mythical agency that placed her with people who needed temporary staff to fill a particular short-term need, and Charity anxiously grasped Prue’s hand.
“You are not going alone, Prue? Is there a footman you can take to protect you?” She shook her head, dismissing whatever thoughts of assault and robbery had entered them. “How silly of me. You know how to…” She made a vague gesture with one hand. Prue had been teaching Charity a few tricks to save herself from attack, some of which would discourage the most persistent man. Charity had been both repelled and intrigued.
“I will take a hackney, Charity, and my little gun.” And the knife strapped to her calf. And the pins in her hair.
“They will not want to send you away, will they? Oh, I am being so selfish. But Prue, I do not know what I would have done these past weeks without you.”
“I will not leave until you and the girls are safe,” Prue assured her. “If it is a job, I will tell them to find someone else.” From the tone of Tolliver’s note, he was less than pleased she had taken leave to deal with ‘urgent family matters’. But she would tell him about her sister’s need, and if he did not agree with her placing Charity ahead of Tolliver’s investigation, what could he do about it, after all? He needed her and her skills.
Besides, while Selby’s deceit might not be pertinent to the Diamond case, it was something Tolliver needed to know. And it would distract the man from whatever lecture he was about to bestow.
She showed Charity the shelf of books in Prue’s own room, gave her a kiss, and left her to an afternoon of leisure. “I shall hardly know what to do with myself, with no children to care for, no pigs or hens to feed, no washing to do or meals to cook.” She had said that before, too.
Two hours later, Prue returned from the meeting with Tolliver. Allen opened the door to her knock.
“There is a visitor, Miss Virtue. He asked for Mr. Wakefield. I told him the master was out of town, but he said he would leave a note, and then Mrs. Smith came downstairs, and…” Allen ran out of words, and just looked at Prue, pleading.
She opened the parlour door and recognised him immediately. The Marquis of Aldridge was bending over Charity, his whole posture confiding and seductive.
“You would love the London I could show you, Mrs. Smith,” he was saying. “You have no idea how much London has to offer until you see it with me.”
“I see you have met the Marquis of Aldridge, Charity,” Prue said, dryly, satisfied with the naked shock on the man’s face when he whipped around at her voice.
“Prudence? Prudence Virtue?” He turned from one sister to the other, his eyes narrowed.
“I understand a little better now, I think,” Charity told Prue. “He is very persistent, is he not?”
“Very,” Prue agreed. “Persistent but not, as you will recall, constant.”
“Oh, I remember. I recognised him, of course. He looks just like…”
“Gren,” Prue interrupted. She was not going to mention the child he had denied before its birth. Let him ask what became of the baby, if he would. “Yes, very like. And a little like David too.”
The colour on Aldridge’s cheeks, the tightening of his lips, showed his displeasure at being discussed as if he were not there.
“What are you doing here, Prudence? And with, I take it, your sister?”
“Miss Virtue to you, Lord Aldridge. And my business is my own. I take it you came to visit David? He is from home, but I will see he receives your note.”
His eyes narrowed and he thought for a moment, then nodded decisively. “Mrs. Smith, would you be kind enough to give us a moment? I have something I need to say to Miss Virtue.”
Prue responded to Charity’s questioning frown with a short nod. Whatever Aldridge wanted, talking to him alone might be the fastest way to get rid of him.
Charity gathered up the materials she had been using to trim a small house cap, and stopped on her way out the door to whisper to Prue, “Do you wish me to remain within earshot?”
Remembering the man’s keen ears, she whispered back, “Lord Aldridge will not hurt me, Charity. Besides, I have a gun in my reticule.”
His eyes widened at that, but Charity just nodded. “I shall be in the next-door parlour, Prue,” she said. She gave Aldridge a frigid nod, not even a curtsey. “Lord Aldridge.”
He crossed the room and closed the door behind her, then stood with his back to it.
“Do you really have a gun in your reticule?”
“Yes. Do you wish to see it?”
“I will take your word. You have changed, Prudence.”
“I would hope so. And I do not make you free of my name, Lord Aldridge.”
“I have been free with more than… No. That is not why I asked to speak with you. Miss Virtue, I lost my temper last time we met and said some things that were untrue and unfair. I have wished to apologise ever since I had time to consider my behaviour.”
That was unexpected. She had expected threats, or warnings, or an attempted seduction, or even an enquiry after the baby about whom she had written to Aldridge when her condition became clear. But not an apology. Yet he seemed sincere.
Prue found she was seeing him through several lenses.
As her long-ago lover, he had changed. The stripling boy had grown into a man, and the man’s muscles were well defined under the jacket and pantaloons that lovingly hugged his shoulders, biceps, torso, and thighs.
Through David’s stories, she saw the lonely heir, kept separate from other children, indulged as long as he met his father’s arbitrary rules, severely punished if he fell short.
And Gren gave her a different Aldridge altogether. To him, his older brother was the hard-working manager of the Haverford estates, and a fond, if over-protective, mentor to Gren.
By contrast to all of these, persistent gossip in society cast him as a heartless, predatory rake, a despoiler of maidens—though no one could name a maiden he had despoiled. Prudence could, but she was willing to share the blame for her fall. She was not much Aldridge’s junior, after all, and if his seduction was persistent, he had told her no lies. He had not needed to. She had told herself all the lies required.
He was waiting for her response.
“Very well. I accept your apology. We were both angry, and it was a long time ago.”
Aldridge looked up into one corner of the room, the only sign of tension one finger tapping relentlessly at his thigh. “I… I also owe you an apology for not making my position clear. I should not have assumed you understood what I was offering.”
“Are you apologising for seducing me, Lord Aldridge?”
He shrugged and flashed that gorgeous smile, and it had no effect on her, perhaps because she had learned to watch people’s eyes. His were watching for her reaction. “If that is what you need to hear.”
“Thank you, Lord Aldridge. If that is all, Allen will see you out.”
“It is you, not your sister. I am right, am I not? You are Wakefield’s mistress?”
“I am David’s friend, Lord Aldridge. Good evening.”
“I have never forgotten you, you know. Could we… perhaps…? I do not blame you for your pride, but now that you know what the world is like, well, my offer is still open. It will always be open for you.”
Prue, who was about to open the door, stopped with her hand on the latch, absorbing the sheer crassness of Aldridge’s outrageous statement. He clearly took her silence as encouragement.
“I am a wealthy man, Prudence, and not a Puritan like Wakefield. I can gown you in silks and shower you with jewels, take you to the theatre and the opera and entertainments, the like of which you could not dream. What say you? Do you not remember how good we were together? I cannot imagine your later protectors—”
“Enough.” Her tone was so fierce that he took a step back. “How dare you? Quite apart from the insult to me… Is this how things are done in your circles? Coming into a man’s house and trying to steal the woman you assume to be under his protection? First my sister and now me? And wrong in both cases. What a sad life you lead, where everyone has a price and none have value.”
“No! I just meant…” Aldridge bit his lip and looked up at the ceiling, as if for inspiration. But when he met her eyes again, his own were unveiled and earnest. “I know David, and I am worried for you. He won’t keep you, you know. He is cold, Prudence. He tempts a person to trust him, to depend on him, but then he just disappears without a word. You will find out, and so will Jon. He will reject you when he finds you a nuisance. He will reject you both.”
She reacted to the pain in his eyes, rather than his words. “We will not argue, my lord. I see now you mean no insult.” She shook her head disbelievingly, but went on, “I thank you for your kind intentions. Leave your message and be on your way. My life is my own, not yours to put in order.”
The message was for Gren, not for David.
“It is just to tell him His Grace wants to see him at Haverford House as soon as he arrives home,” Aldridge explained.
“If he comes here, I shall make sure he gets it,” Prue promised.
Aldridge gave it into Prue’s care and left, the front door no sooner shut behind him before Charity whisked into the room, saying, “Are you all right, Prue? Did he hurt you?”
With some wonder, Prue realised Aldridge had not affected her at all. Years ago, when they had separated, she had thought she would break in two. When she had written to him and received no reply, the pain had almost destroyed her. She had named her baby daughter in a burst of defiance, hoping to make new memories to cover the old.
Yet today, seeing him, even touching him when he deliberately allowed his hand to brush hers as he handed her the note for Gren, she had felt nothing beyond a mild irritation.
“No, Charity. Not at all. In fact, I am pleased I saw him. He means nothing to me, and that is a good thing to know.”
Charity pursed her lips, her brows drawn together in a frown. “I hope your David believes that.”
Tired from the travelling, the Virtue sisters went up to bed after an early supper, and Prue was pleased to escape Charity’s constant raking over of Aldridge’s visit, Selby’s deceit, Charissa’s misfortune in being truly married to the man, and Charity’s own uncertain future.
Mrs. Allen had assumed Prue would continue to sleep in David’s bedchamber. He would not think it a presumption, would he, to occupy his bed when he was not there? It was undeniably a comfort to put her head on the pillow he had used, and look around at the things with which he chose to surround himself, as she thought over the events of the day.
Aldridge had driven the visit to Tolliver to the back of her mind, but now she examined it from every angle.
She had expected him to be angry about her absence on family business, but he had seemed indifferent—perhaps even satisfied—as if her absence served his purposes better than her work would have done.
Her revelations about Selby had drawn some interest. He had questioned her keenly, and when she proposed further investigations, said he would conduct them.
She was not to worry herself, he said. She should look after her sister, take as much time as she needed. It was most unlike him. What on earth was Tolliver up to?