CHAPTER 14

 

In spite of his late night, Gavin awoke early, feeling remarkably refreshed. For a moment he could not understand his pervading sense of well-being, but then he remembered the passionate kiss he had shared with Cherry. He had a vague memory of dreams, pleasant dreams, that had centered upon her, as well.

In that moment, as he lay smiling up at the ceiling, his plans for the future crystallized. He could never be happy with anyone but Cherry as his wife. Somehow he must persuade Miss Chesterton to call off the betrothal. He would call on Sir Thomas that very morning to discover just how set on the match she really was. Then, once that matter was taken care of, he could lay his heart before Cherry.

His mind clearer than it had been in weeks, Gavin fairly leapt out of bed, ready to execute his plans. He had just finished shaving when Metzger made his appearance, obviously startled to find the Earl already awake and alert.

“Good morning, m’lord. Would you like me to... Oh, I see you’ve already shaved. Mrs. Abbott has asked to speak to you at once. I told her you wouldn’t likely be down for an hour or more, but—”

“Thank you, Metzger, I’ll be down directly. You may tell her to wait in the library,” replied the Earl cheerily. His valet helped him to shrug into his coat, then went to report to the housekeeper while Gavin tied his cravat. Even the complicated en cascade gave him no trouble today.

Humming merrily, he descended to the library to ascertain what Mrs. Abbott wanted. Doubtless something pertaining to last night’s gathering. At the sight of the housekeeper’s distraught face, however, he stopped humming.

“You wished to speak with me, Abby?” he asked at once, his manner slightly more subdued. Mrs. Abbott was not easily upset, he knew; only something very much out of the ordinary could account for it.

“Oh, my lord! I don’t know what to do, and that’s the truth. She’s gone!” His normally sedate housekeeper was actually wringing her hands.

“Gone?” he echoed. “Who is gone? Christabel?” Sudden alarm surged through him.

“No, my lord, ’tis Miss Cherrystone. Miss Christabel discovered her gone this morning and came to find Lucy. She left in the night, seemingly, and took all her things with her! All she left behind was this.”

Gavin snatched the proffered sheet of paper from her hand, his alarm increasing to dread. He read through the brief, polite note, in which Miss Cherrystone apologized for leaving without notice and hoped that he would convey her affection and best wishes to Christabel.

In short, it told him nothing. He knew at once, though, why she had gone. What must she have thought when he had all but ravished her, then let her go without a word of apology? She knew that he was engaged to be married. With her elevated principles, it must have seemed to her that the only thing she could honorably do was to leave before they could do anything they might regret. But damn her principles. He wanted—needed—her back!

Belatedly, he became aware of Mrs. Abbott still regarding him anxiously. “Doubtless she has gone to her friend’s house here in London,” he said reassuringly. “I shall find her.”

“Pray do, my lord. Miss Christabel is most upset, and will be even more so if she learns Miss Cherrystone doesn’t mean to return. The child needs her—and so do you, if you’ll pardon my saying so.” Mrs. Abbott actually patted him on the shoulder as she rose to go. She had obviously not missed Gavin’s anguish at the unexpected news.

“I believe you are right,” he said with a rueful smile at the unwitting echo of his own thoughts. “Do reassure Christabel while I make enquiries.”

 

* * *

Finding Miss Cherrystone did not prove so simple a matter as Gavin had predicted. By late that afternoon, he was growing increasingly frustrated—and anxious, as well.

He had known, of course, that many of Cherry’s references had been false. As their friendship deepened, he had more than once thought that she was on the verge of telling him the truth about her background, but she had never done so. Now he discovered that not one of her impressive list of referrals could help him to locate her. In fact, none of the people he queried discreetly through Jeffries had so much as heard of a Miss Cherrystone. It was as though his jesting words to her yesterday about being an angel were true, that she had materialized on his doorstep out of thin air, and had so returned.

When Jeffries delivered a polite negative to his fifth enquiry, he swore in exasperation. “Blast it, she must have worked somewhere before coming here! What of her friend, the one she visited on her half days?”

But Jeffries responded with a helpless shrug, spurring the Earl to go out to the mews himself to speak to his coachmen. There, however, he discovered that Cherry had never availed herself of their services, always hailing a hackney when she left the house.

“I don’t suppose anyone happened to notice which one?” he asked without much hope. They had not.

Frustration now warring with despair, he returned to the house. There, after a moment’s thought, he mounted the steps to the fourth floor. Perhaps he could find something in her room to give him a clue.

Unfortunately, it seemed that Mrs. Abbott had been quite correct. The only thing he saw was the borrowed dress Cherry had worn to the party the previous night. At the sight of it, laid neatly across the narrow bed, Gavin’s precarious control began to crumble. He felt closer to crying than he had since his sister’s death.

A slight noise from behind him served to pull him from his painful reverie. He turned to see Christabel standing in the doorway to the nursery, regarding him with big, serious eyes.

“She’s not coming back, is she, Uncle Gavin?” she asked softly. One crystal tear trickled down her cheek.

Swiftly, Gavin knelt to take her in his arms. “I don’t know, Sunshine,” he said huskily. “I hope she will.” They clung together for a few moments, comforting each other for their mutual loss.

Finally Christabel stirred and looked up at him. “Perhaps Cherry was really a good fairy who came to help us. Perhaps she thought her work was done here, and she went away to help someone else.”

“Perhaps,” he replied, though the child’s guess, so similar to his earlier thoughts, shook him badly. In truth, it seemed as plausible an explanation as any he had been able to devise.

Gavin remained with Christabel until her bedtime, playing with the pet mice—Cherry had left these for Christabel, she’d said in her note, along with the peacock—and sitting at the table with her while she ate her dinner. The child seemed to draw some measure of comfort from his presence as, he had to admit, he did from hers.

Once the child was asleep, he methodically examined Cherry’s room. Nothing remained in the clothes-press, he quickly discovered, so turned his attention to the dressing-table. Pulling open the top drawer, he saw the roll of pound notes he had given her last night and froze. Suddenly, blindingly, he understood. What must she have thought when he kissed her, caressed her so intimately, only moments after pressing the money into her hand?

As he realized what conclusion she must have drawn, Gavin closed his eyes in horror and self-loathing. How could he have been so stupid? And now she was gone, hiding somewhere in the vastness of London, without a farthing, so far as he knew. She had not even received her regular wages as yet.

He opened the other drawers, but found nothing else. Finally he gave it up and went down to the dining-room, where his own dinner awaited him. Though he had no appetite, he spent a long time picking at the excellent meal before him, unwilling to go into the library, where so many memories of Cherry lurked. Finally, he had his customary port brought to him at the table.

Swirling the wine in his glass, he stared into the ruby depths and reviewed what he had accomplished that day. Surely he could have done more, perhaps question the other servants in the homes in which Cherry had claimed previous employment.

At that thought, he sat up straighter. Of course! What a dolt he was. Here he sat, one of the War Office’s best agents for ferreting out information, sending formally worded notes about Town through his footman. If ever his skills and experience in military intelligence could prove useful, surely it was now.

Instantly translating thought into action, he rose from the table and called for his coat and gloves. Major Alexander was ready for the field again.

 

* * *

Upon leaving Seabrooke House, Frederica had at once attempted to hail a hackney. Depositing her awkward trunk beside her on the curb, she had looked up and down Upper Brook Street without seeing one. Some short distance away, a group of young men were laughing and singing together, their arms linked. Frederica had never before been on the streets of London so late at night, and she wondered nervously if her decision to leave, which had seemed so inarguable when she made it, had in fact been wise.

The rowdy group was heading slowly in her direction, hampered by occasional stumbles and lurches. Just as she was considering the advisability of swallowing her pride and returning to the house, she saw a hackney coming up the street from the opposite direction. Praying that it might be empty, she waved her hand.

Mercifully, the hackney stopped and the driver was obliging enough to help her with the trunk. “Where to, miss?” he asked cheerily, once it was safely stowed.

Frederica gave him the direction of the house where Thomas had taken lodgings and they moved on just as the band of young bucks reached the spot where she had been standing.

Her brother was just returning from Seabrooke’s assembly as the hackney drew up in front of his lodgings.

“Thomas!” cried Frederica out of the window, causing him to stop and stare.

“Freddie? What the devil—”

“I’ll explain in a moment. Do help me with this trunk, there’s a dear,” she said briskly, her spirits reviving now that she no longer had to fear being locked out, which disturbing thought had occurred to her during the short drive.

A few minutes later, the jarvey had been paid and Frederica and her trunk were safely ensconced in Thomas’s rooms on the third floor.

“Now, suppose you tell me what necessitated your coming here in the dead of night rather than waiting till tomorrow, when I shall have the keys to the house on Audley Square. I shan’t have to call Seabrooke out, shall I?” Thomas’s tone was teasing, but Frederica could see the wariness in his eyes.

“Of course not!” she exclaimed quickly, horrified at the idea of Thomas and Lord Seabrooke fighting. Now that it came to it, she found that she had no desire at all to tell her brother the truth—especially after his last remark. “It was just that during the...the assembly tonight, I realized how odd my position was and decided to leave before any more damage was done. Suppose any of the people I met there should recognize me when I enter Society?”

To her relief, Thomas seemed to consider that explanation plausible enough. “Well, I suppose you can stay the night. I was going to go out again—stop into a new club down on Jermyn Street—but I suppose that can wait. You take the bedroom and I shall camp out here on the sofa.”

Frederica gave him a quick hug. “Thank you, Thomas. And this way, I shall be able to oversee the process of moving into the house you have let. I am most eager to see it!” she lied, determinedly keeping her tone cheerful. “Tomorrow I’ll send a note round to Milly, and she can join us at Audley Square. She has promised to play chaperone for a few weeks.”

“I shall leave all that in your hands, Freddie. You will know what to do better than I.” He gave her a crooked but genuine smile and went to find an extra blanket for the sofa.

The next morning, Frederica rose somewhat later than she was accustomed to doing and discovered her brother still soundly asleep. Rather than wake him, she went back to her room to prepare herself for the day ahead.

A small mirror hung on the wall above the wash-stand, and she glanced into it, automatically straightening the brown wig, which, out of habit and fatigue, she had worn to bed. Then she stopped.

Miss Cherrystone no longer existed, she suddenly realized. From this moment on, she must again be Miss Frederica Chesterton of Maple Hill. She pulled off the wig and regarded it wistfully for a moment before carefully placing it in her trunk, along with the glasses. She was going to miss “Cherry.” She had a sudden vision of Lord Seabrooke’s face, and Christabel’s, and her eyes misted over. Fiercely, she shook her head. That phase of her life was over and done.

To distract herself, Frederica scrubbed her face nearly raw, removing all trace of her false freckles, and vigorously brushed out her copper curls. Her own things, along with her abigail and a few other servants from Maple Hill, would arrive at Audley Square later that day. Until then, she would have to wear one of the plain gowns from the trunk.

While she dressed, Frederica began the thinking and planning she had been too tired—and too unsettled— to do the night before. Now, in the sober light of day, she could consider things a bit more dispassionately.

The recollection of Lord Seabrooke’s caresses still had the power to make her giddy, she discovered. Firmly, she pushed away the memory and attempted to concentrate instead on possible motives for his actions. The one she wished with all her heart to believe was that he cared for her. That he considered her a friend, she had not doubted—until last night. But was it more than that?

Recalling the liberties that he had taken, that she had allowed him to take, she decided it seemed far more likely that he wished her to be his mistress. Did gentlemen love their mistresses? She did not think they did, as a rule, though she was woefully ignorant about the subject. But neither did they necessarily love their wives. It occurred to her that she would far rather be loved as a mistress than merely tolerated as a wife. Her cheeks growing pink at the scandalous thought, she tried again to think rationally.

Had his actions been indicative of love? She had fallen head over ears for the Earl in the brief time she’d known him, but she couldn’t quite believe that he had been similarly smitten by the plain Miss Cherrystone. Perhaps the kiss had merely been an expression of gratitude, an attempt to convince her that he really wished her to accept the bonus he’d given her, and which she’d tried to refuse. It might well have been her own shameless response that allowed it to become so much more. That seemed a depressingly reasonable explanation.

And if correct, what now? Now that she knew what it was to love, could she endure being married to a man who had her heart in his keeping while his own was free? Could she hide her feelings for him, pretending only friendship, while he pursued his own pleasures elsewhere?

No, she could not.

Her dress fastened, Frederica turned to regard herself critically in the mirror. The scrubbing had left a rosy glow in her cheeks, and she realized with a start, seeing her undisguised face as though for the first time, that she was really quite pretty. Perhaps the bran-faced, bespectacled Miss Cherrystone had not been able to win the Earl’s heart, but as Miss Chesterton, properly gowned and coiffed, in fashionable surroundings, she might have a chance. Certainly it was worth a try!

By the time Thomas stirred, it was past eleven. Frederica had tidied the entire apartment and packed his belongings in preparation for the move to Audley Square. She was more than ready to be on her way, and to set her plans into motion.

The majority of the day was spent settling into their temporary home. All Frederica’s management skills were brought to bear as she hired servants, wrote letters and dealt with the details attendant on moving into the house for the remainder of the Little Season.

Miss Milliken came at once upon receiving Frederica’s message and was installed in the room next to hers. As they worked side by side for the rest of the day, setting the house in order, the former governess sent many a questioning look Frederica’s way. Their conversation was limited, however, to the number of housemaids they would require or the rearrangement of the furniture. Not until they finally found themselves alone for a belated cup of tea in the late afternoon did they give voice to the topic occupying both their thoughts.

“Well, my dear, does all this mean that you finally managed to tell Lord Seabrooke the truth?” Miss Milliken asked, after waiting a few moments in vain for Frederica to broach the subject.

“Not...not precisely, Milly,” Frederica admitted, refusing to meet her companion’s eye. “But I felt it was high time I left Seabrooke House.”

Miss Milliken regarded her shrewdly. “You have come to feel more than mere friendship for Lord Seabrooke, have you not?”

Frederica nodded dumbly.

“Would you like to tell me about it?” Miss Milliken prodded gently.

Looking up to see the warm concern on her old friend’s face, Frederica suddenly felt her eyes fill with tears. “Oh, Milly! I’ve done the most foolish thing! I’ve fallen in love with him and I don’t know whether he cares for me or not.” With a profound sense of relief, she poured out the whole story to Miss Milliken, along with her suspicions and fears. The only details she omitted were those moments of passion, which were still too private, too precious, to share.

“So when he gave me the fifty pounds and...and looked at me so, I didn’t know what to think. I was afraid if I stayed longer I would betray my feelings to him. Oh, how can I marry him now, if he does not care for me? That is why I have decided to storm his heart...as myself.” She began to outline her plans for the next two weeks.

Miss Milliken listened to the entire recital in silence. When Frederica was done, she asked, “Then you plan to keep your identity as Miss Cherrystone a secret from him?”

“For the present, at least,” replied Frederica. “If I disguise my voice somewhat, and am careful to keep my eyes downcast, I believe I can carry it off. If...if my plan works, if we can reach an understanding, then it should be safe enough to tell him the truth.”

“Deceit may be a valuable strategy in war, Frederica,” said Miss Milliken quietly, “but I cannot think that it has any place in love. There, honesty is surely the best policy.”

“Once I am confident of his love, I fully intend to be honest,” Frederica assured her. “But until then, are not all policies allowed in love and war?”