“Well, that’s over,” Tommy said to Lizzie as he and Carbury entered the carriage. “We’ll just stop off to see Sara got her letters and let her go to bed in peace.”
Lizzie had been anticipating considerable amusement and surely some praise for her cleverness in getting the rubies from Hanson when they had failed. She looked to Nick, but his expression was concealed in shadows. She could see, however, that he sat stiff as a board.
“I heard what sounded like an interesting fight,” she said.
“Just a little tussle,” Tommy admitted. “Hanson brought along a pair of bruisers, one as big as an elephant, the other a wiry little devil. The big fellow had a club, but between the two of us we took care of them. Hanson played referee from across the street.”
“I was relieved to hear no sounds of gunshot at least.”
“Ho, we didn’t need pistols to handle that pair,” Tommy boasted. “The one with a club knocked the wind out of Nick.”
“Not seriously hurt, I hope, Nick?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” he said in a stiff, unnatural voice. “Liz —”
Tommy, sensing that he was about to confess, said quickly, “You’ll want to hear where I went when I left Nick’s place earlier. Oh, it’ll have to wait. Here we are at Sara’s house.” He pulled the chord and the carriage drew to a stop.
“Who wants to take Sara the good news?” Lizzie asked. When neither of them answered, she said, “I’ll tell her myself.”
Sara stood at the open doorway, clutching her precious letters to her breast. “They’re all here,” she said.
“I should burn those before going to bed if I were you,” Elizabeth suggested.
“I’m going to. I just wanted to read them first, to see what a little fool I was to write them. Thank you, Elizabeth, and thank your friends for me too.” And still no apology.
“I’ll do that, Sara. Goodnight.” She hurried back to the carriage, looking forward to the little charade that was in progress there. How long would they go on pretending they had got the rubies?
“Sara sends her thanks to you both,” she said. “Shall we go to my place and celebrate our success?”
“Actually,” Tommy said, “Nick and I have to go somewhere. We’ll celebrate tomorrow.”
“I see. And am I to wait until tomorrow to hear what you were up to earlier this evening as well?”
“Certainly not. All a tempest in a teapot. The fact is, like I mentioned, I went to see a lady.”
He was annoyed when Liz’s response was a fairly bored, “So I assumed, though I fear you gave Nicholas a bad fright. I think you might have waited until after we recovered the rubies. Where are the two of you rushing off to now, or am I being indiscreet to ask?”
“We have time for a glass of wine,” Nick said.
“Good. You can show me the necklace.”
“What do you want to see that ugly old thing for?” Tommy said in a voice trying to sound normal. “You saw it at Galveston’s party. It hasn’t changed. I should think you’d be sick and tired of the sight of it. I know I am.” He turned to Nick and said, “We really don’t have time to stop for a drink, Nick. We have to be going immediately. The sooner the better.”
The carriage drew up in front of Lady Gertrude’s house. Nick ignored Tommy’s repeated complaints that they couldn’t stop and accompanied Lizzie to the house. Tommy, wearing a heavy frown, got out and followed them inside.
When they were seated and wine poured, Lizzie said, “Let us bring this little farce to an end, gentlemen. I know you didn’t get the necklace.”
“What are you talking about?” Tommy said, laughing. “Of course we got it. It’s right here —” He reached for his pocket, then said, “I left it in the carriage, but we got it all right. P’raps we’d just go and make sure it’s safe, Nick.”
Lizzie reached in her pocket and held up the necklace. “Then it seems I can keep this one I got from Hanson.”
Rather than being ashamed, Tommy broke out in peels of laughter. “Lizzie, how the devil did you get it? Didn’t I tell you she is up to all the rigs, Nick? Nick and I were going to rush over to Hanson’s place and try to beat it out of him. That’s why we didn’t want to stop. This saves us a trip. Now tell us all about it.”
She looked to Nick, who was just shaking his head in shame. “We didn’t want to worry you,” he said, “but mostly we were ashamed. We felt like a pair of jackasses.”
“Speak for yourself,” Tommy said. “We put up a demmed good fight. We did our best — no reason to be ashamed of that. You should have seen it, Lizzie. There were two of them. They came jumping out at us before we had time to blink. One of them had a club as big as an ox. An ordinary fellow couldn’t lift it. He hit Nick so hard I was afraid I’d have to handle the pair of them by myself, but Nick isn’t the sort of flat I feared he’d be.”
“I train with Jackson!” Nick objected.
“That’s what I mean, Nick. Thugs don’t fight according to rules. They mean business.” He turned back to Elizabeth. “Nick was soon back up and at them, giving as good as he got. I hardly had to rescue him at all.” He continued giving a highly exaggerated blow-by-blow description of the fight, especially his own heroic part in it.
“I wish I had seen it! The demmed fog.” Nick blinked to hear Miss Warwick use such language. “I’m sure you were both splendid,” she said, then it was her turn to regale them with her attack on Hanson.
“Tried to turn that elephant over!” Tommy said, grinning. “You’d need a lever a mile long to lift him. And you don’t think he saw you at all?”
“No, I’m sure he didn’t. And tell me about how the thug attacked you, Nick.”
Tommy answered for him. “He got knocked down like a bird in covert, the minute we got there, but like a game chick, he was soon up and doing his best. I should give you some lessons in real fighting, Nick.”
“A pity you were caught off guard, Nick,” Elizabeth said. “I’m sure you both did splendidly. And I did not do too badly either, if I do say so myself. You must toot your own horn a little when talking to Tommy.”
When Nick saw that Lizzie appreciated their effort and didn’t care which of them had actually rescued the necklace, he relaxed and joined in the celebration and laughter. He even admitted that perhaps Gentleman Jackson was not the best teacher for street fighting. Lady Gertrude, roused by the commotion, came down in a night robe of brilliant hue with a tasseled sleeping cap over her tousled mop of hair and wanted to hear all about it. Her only complaint was that Lizzie should have been serving champagne, not plain wine. And surely they deserved some nourishment after their travails.
“I shall ring for the butler. Harper is still up and about,” she said. “He never retires until our guests have left. He doesn’t trust us to lock the doors.” She gave the bell pull a yank.
Harper came and was asked to “just bring whatever doesn’t require cooking. Some bread and cheese, and some of that ham we had for dinner — don’t forget the mustard — and perhaps the remains of that Chinese cake, if the maids haven’t eaten it all up.”
She turned back to her audience. “So now all we have to do is return the necklace to Galveston’s house, ‘find’ it and see it returned to Lady Belmont. She will feel a fool, and so she should, thinking Tommy would steal the ugly thing.”
“Very true, Ma’am,” Tommy said. “I don’t even care for rubies. I never steal anything but diamonds of the first water.”
The food arrived and the meeting assumed the air of a picnic, the sort of carefree picnic Nick used to have with his nanny, before he grew up and was turned into a gentleman. When had life lost that youthful air of spontaneity and irresponsibility?
Yet Lady Gertrude and Lizzie were not in the least irresponsible. They took their responsibilities more seriously than anyone else he could think of, and got little enough appreciation for it. They were serious, but not sober, even if they were do-gooders. They worked hard, then enjoyed the reward of a job well done. It seemed a fine, worthwhile way to live. A reward was more satisfying when it had been earned.
Before leaving, they made plans to meet the next day to visit Mrs. Galveston. “Nick will call for us here,” Lizzie said to her aunt.
“Oh, Nick is coming with us?” she said, surprised. Only Lizzie recognized the air of calculation that flashed into her aunt’s eyes, and realized she was wondering if Nick was serious about marrying her this time.
“Yes, and we are going to let Mrs. Galveston take the necklace to Lady Belmont,” Lizzie said. “We feel that will lessen somewhat our connection with the whole thing.”
“Very wise,” she nodded. “And Tommy, of course, will not be mentioned at all.”
“My usual fate,” Tommy said. “I am not one of those gentlemen who gets himself talked about in the better circles. Except when I am accused of some heinous crime, of course.”
Lady Gertrude smiled sweetly. “Perhaps that is because you never do anything worth talking about, Tommy. Let us hope this imbroglio will be a lesson to you. If you enjoyed a sterling reputation, no one would have suspected you. Bruckner, you recall, spent some time with Lady Belmont, but no one suspected him.”
Tommy bowed his head, then replied in a sad tone, “You are right, as usual, Ma’am. It was very remiss of me not to have been born to a duke or earl, but only a younger son with no estate or fortune to leave me. I shall do better another time. Meanwhile, you must not stop using me for those little odd jobs at the Dials that you don’t care to undertake yourself.”
“Incorrigible,” she said, laughing, and arose.
The gentlemen took it as a hint that the visit was over, and made their adieux.