MARIAH LOWERED her head as she sat at table in the Becket morning room beside her new sister-in-law, Julia, covering her mouth with her hand to hide her smile as Chance told them about Spencer’s audacious outburst in front of the important Duke of Wellington. She could have told Chance that her new husband was not the sort to tiptoe about anything nor to pay attention to convention, the niceties of dealing with authority—not when he was in a rush for results.
“I still can’t believe you went without me,” Rian said, nursing his bruised sensibilities with the help of a heavily buttered scone. “I told you to wake me up in time. The Iron Duke—and I missed him.”
“If you wouldn’t sleep like the dead, you could have met him,” Spencer told him. “Some fine soldier you’d make, snoring through cannon fire.”
“I would not. And I can’t take it into my head that you actually spoke to Wellington that way. Look at Chance. He’s still shaking his own head. You don’t talk to a duke that way, Spence, not a hero. As good as calling him stupid, demanding he listen to you.”
“At least he didn’t knock him down, bloody the man’s eagle beak of a nose for him and get you both clapped in irons. You can be grateful for that, Chance,” Mariah said after a moment and then laughed when Spencer’s cheeks flushed beneath his tanned skin. “And you did say he let you tell him about Edmund Beales.”
“Yes,” Chance agreed, “and although we had to necessarily be vague, I think he believed us. At least enough to assign more of his most trusted troops to the celebrations, concentrating them near the viewing stands from now until after the Grand Jubilee, as he agrees that would make the best target for an anarchist, as he terms Beales. Of course, there are problems associated with that solution.”
Spencer popped a miniature strawberry tart into his mouth and spoke around it. “Our own men will now look damned suspicious if they loiter in the area. But if you’re suggesting we all just turn around and go home now, Chance, you already know my answer to that.”
“As you know mine, Spence,” Chance said, grabbing the last strawberry tart for himself. “But now we’re free to spend the next days combing London, watching for Renard or any other familiar face, knowing we’ve done all we could do to alert Wellington to Beales’s possible plan, even if it’s too late for him to send a message to Bonaparte’s gaoler about the other half of that plan. We can only hope Court and Jacko will soon be making considerable pests of themselves just off the shores of Elba. And that all said, ladies, and with at least a measure of the load shifted off our shoulders, may I suggest that you visit the shops?”
Julia Becket nudged Mariah in the ribs just as she was lifting her teacup to her mouth so that she had to grab the cup with both hands to save her gown. “They’re pitiful, aren’t they? Trying to make us believe that everything is all just fine now and we should go enjoy ourselves, spend their money—something I’m not entirely opposed to—and not worry our heads about Edmund Beales because, surely, they’re not thinking of him at all. Men are so transparent.”
“They may be, Julia, but I believe I would very much like to visit Bond Street, as even I’ve heard how wonderful it is. And my wardrobe is virtually in shreds.” She turned to grin at Spencer. “Isn’t it?”
Spencer choked on the last bit of strawberry tart. “Chance, I’ve decided that these two shouldn’t be together without one of us present. Not ever. And now that I’m considering it, Morgan will not be allowed in the house at all. However, Julia, I believe that last night, in a weak moment I volunteered to take my wife round the shops. If you don’t mind?”
“Oh ye of faint heart.” Julia was already getting to her feet. “And, no, I don’t mind at all, as I have much to occupy myself with here. This house has been closed up for months. Oh, and you’d best not go to Bond Street, as Mariah cannot wait weeks for her new gowns. You can leave Bond Street for after we’ve saved the world, and take Mariah to visit Oxford Street for her most immediate needs. You’ll be unfashionably early but the shops will be less crowded.”
Mariah ran upstairs to fetch her bonnet and shawl before Spencer could change his mind and, after a short discussion on the merits of calling for the coach to go a distance of only a few blocks, they walked to Oxford Street.
“Do you think we should drop breadcrumbs, in order to find our way back?” Spencer asked her as she slipped her arm through his. “I think Julia does, given the lengthy directions she forced on us since I’ve never before been to London.”
“I’ve never been to London, either, you know,” she said as they turned the corner onto Oxford Street and she looked, wide-eyed, at all the shops lining both sides of the street. “Oh, my goodness, so many shops. Perhaps Bonaparte was right and England is a nation of shopkeepers.”
“And yet he is on Elba and we’re still here. All right, Mariah, from here on out, you’re in command. Where to first?”
She looked at him in sheer panic. She’d managed her father for years, had borne up under many hard-ships—but the sight of all these shops frightened her to her toes. “I have no idea. You pick. Please?”
“There’s a gown displayed in that window over there, across the street,” Spencer told her, pointing. “It’s as good a starting point as any, don’t you think, to find a gown for you?”
Mariah regained some of her confidence. “Only one? I had considered a half dozen, at the least. And shoes. And gloves. Oh, and most definitely a few bonnets. We are, after all, in London. We can’t always be thinking dire thoughts.”
Spencer could only manfully suppress a groan and lead her across the street.
In the next two hours more than one gown was quickly found, along with a pair of black kid slippers that fit Mariah beautifully, a soft wool cloak in scarlet—not quite town wear, but perfect for walking the shore at Becket Hall—and even a beaded reticule she was not afraid to admit to have fallen in love with at first sight.
It was wonderful not to have to worry about every penny and rather than feel guilty about her purchases, Mariah refused to even ask the cost of anything. Although she did, as Spencer escaped a shop to stand outside and smoke a cheroot, spend what was probably an unconscionable amount of time poring over an assortment of grosgrain ribbons until she found what she considered the perfect ribbon to attach to her father’s watch, as Spencer had been true to his word and wore the watch every day.
Carrying several bandboxes, they were on their way back down Oxford Street when Spencer spied a window filled with a glorious assortment of fresh fruit and they went inside to make a few additional purchases, hoping the drizzle that had begun would stop again shortly.
Spencer was inspecting a pyramid of pineapples, struck by the arrangement that reminded him unhappily of pyramids of cannon balls when Mariah cried out, “Oh, my God—Spence. It’s her! It’s Nicolette!”
“Mariah, wait,” Spencer told her, but Mariah was already out the door and running madly down the crowded flagway.
Spencer tossed a coin at the hovering clerk, ordered him to watch the bandboxes and followed after her at a dead run.
Uncaring of shocked looks and a few nasty comments, Mariah hiked up her skirts as she dodged a few gentlemen and their oversize umbrellas, stepped neatly around a young man carrying a plate of meat pies, skidded to a halt at the corner, then turned to her left and took off once more, her heart pounding in her chest.
She stopped halfway down the flagway, attempting to get her bearings, as she no longer saw Nicolette anywhere. Perhaps she’d stepped into one of the shops? No, there were no shops on this narrow side street, save a tobacco shop. But she had come this way, Mariah was sure of it.
“Mariah? God’s teeth, I lost you for a moment in the crowds.”
She turned gratefully to Spencer, who had caught up with her. “It was her, Spence. I know it was her. But now I can’t see her.”
“And you’re sure she turned this way?”
A handsome black coach pulled away from the curbing just then, its windows covered, so that Mariah could not look inside.
The coach was indistinguishable from any other on the street, so she concentrated instead on the horses pulling it and the driver up on the box. The man’s livery was as black as his complexion, as were his hat and gloves, the only bit of color a cockade stuck in the lapel of his sodden greatcoat. This, too, Mariah committed to memory, and then quickly averted her face as the coachman noticed that she’d been staring at him.
“Spence—that coach! No, don’t look! If the coachman sees us, we could put Nicolette in danger.”
Spencer pulled Mariah across the flagway and beneath a canopy hanging outside the tobacco shop. “It’s raining harder. You’re getting drenched. Mariah? Are you sure it was her? There’s more than one blond woman in London, you know.”
Mariah wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly chilled. “It was her, I know it. Oh, Spence, they’re here. They’re really here and it’s really happening.” Then she turned around, peered into the window of the tobacco shop. “But that doesn’t mean she was in that coach. She could be in here, couldn’t she?”
Spencer looked up and down the narrow side street. “It’s the only shop. But, Mariah, there are at least a dozen houses on either side of this street and she could be in any one of them. Come on, we’ll retrieve your bandboxes, find a hackney, get you out of this rain and go back to Upper Brook Street to tell the others. We can assign at least a half dozen men to this street, watching everyone who comes and goes.”
“Unless Nicolette was taken up in that coach,” Mariah pointed out as Spencer took her hand, leading her back to Oxford Street where there would be a better chance to hail a hack. “Oh, wait! She was carrying a bandbox, too. It was covered in blue and white stripes, just like one we’ve got. Maybe the shopkeeper remembers her.”
“That is also possible, Mariah,” Spencer said. “Do you remember the shop?”
“Loathe as I am to admit this, yes, I do. There’s a lovely bonnet I saw in it earlier, but as I’d already purchased two, I didn’t tell you. You think the shopkeeper will remember her?” Mariah asked as they rapidly walked along the increasingly deserted flagway, as rain seemed to chase Londoners inside before they melted or some such thing.
“That is also possible. And we can hope that your Nicolette placed an order for a bonnet she plans to return to collect at some time before the Grand Jubilee.”
He stepped in front of her to open the door to the shop and Mariah stepped inside ahead of him, sparing a moment to take another peek at the natural straw bonnet on the second shelf to her left, the one with the large pink cabbage roses attached to the brim. Ah, well, she would have looked silly in it, anyway.
She left it to Spencer to approach the clerk, a small, sallow man with a rather dyspeptic expression on his narrow face.
“Excuse me,” Spencer said, once again showing a talent for lying that Mariah longed to applaud, “but just a few moments ago my wife espied a young woman she met a few years ago in school and although we couldn’t quite catch up to her, my wife did recognize the bandbox she was carrying as one of yours. So it occurred to me that my wife’s friend may have ordered something from you and left her address with you. Or perhaps she’s planning to return?”
The clerk looked at Mariah, at her damp skirt, her damp, bedraggled bonnet. “I don’t think I can possibly divulge such information about one of my patrons, no. So sorry, madam.”
Spencer mentally hit himself. He reached into his pocket and withdrew his purse, tossing a coin onto the glass-topped counter. “Surely you can make an exception, my good fellow,” he said, smiling at the clerk—or baring his teeth at the sallow-faced little ferret. It was one of those, he was sure.
“Uh…um…if madam would perhaps care to describe her friend?”
Mariah grinned at Spencer. Truly, the man was a genius. And he hadn’t grabbed the shopkeeper by the throat, threatening to shake answers out of him. That could be considered an improvement, couldn’t it? “I would be delighted. My friend is French, blond, slight although tall. Her Christian name is Nicolette, but I’m afraid that I’ve heard that she married since I last had the pleasure of seeing her and I cannot tell you her husband’s name. You have an address for her? She’ll be returning, possibly? I really do need to contact her.”
The clerk’s sallow face turned fairly pale. “No, I’m sorry. I cannot…cannot remember, that is. I wish I could help you, I truly do, but—”
Suddenly the shopkeeper was off his feet, thanks to the strong, one-handed grip Spencer had on his neck cloth as he half dragged the man across the top of the counter, going nose-to-nose with him. “Apply yourself.”
Mariah just rocked back and forth on her heels and grinned.