Palace of Spies (6 page)

Fear hit me first, but anger followed fast on its heels. Anger cleared sight and sense and lent me the strength to turn my back and to spit out my next words to my uncle.

“What is he doing here?”

“
He
is waiting for your apology,” declared Sebastian from behind me.

“
What?
” I swung around.

Sebastian’s smile did not so much as waver. “It was with great reluctance that I felt I had to come speak to your uncle about your shocking behavior.” Sebastian gestured languidly toward Uncle Pierpont. “But as you are still young and somewhat untutored in these matters, I am willing to overlook the incident, provided I receive an apology and your promise that you’ll never behave in such a fashion again.”

As Sebastian spoke, the entire room seemed to take on a scarlet tinge. I remembered each one of his pinches and his sharp-toothed grin as he held me down. The bruises on my wrists and my legs seemed to burn with their own fury. “You’ll accept
my
apology, will you? When
you’re
the one—”

Sebastian’s eyes slid sideways. My uncle was close behind me. I could feel him there as if he were a fire burning at my back. My mouth shut tight. Sebastian settled more deeply into his chair.

“To answer your question, Miss Fitzroy, yes, I will accept your apology. I would be most grieved to have to tell my father, Lord Sanford, that you and I cannot agree.”

What he should be doing was thanking Heaven there were no sharp objects near to hand. “You tell him that! Add that you are vile, cruel, and contemptible, and I wouldn’t have you if you were the last man on earth!”

“Margaret Preston Fitzroy!” My name cracked over my head.

Shame and rage burned in my blood as I turned to face Uncle Pierpont. I was full ready to speak just as warmly to him, but my uncle wasn’t even looking at me. He bowed toward Sebastian.

“Perhaps you’d be so good as to give me a moment in private with my niece, Mr. Sandford?”

“Of course, Sir Oliver.” Sebastian stood and brushed past me. He took his time doing it, so I could get a good, long look at his toothy grin.

“Why are you doing this?” I demanded. “What is it you want?”

Sebastian’s sly gaze cut into me as surely as if he held a knife, and although he spoke not a word, I understood. He was doing this because I’d dared to fight back. He could have just thrown me over, but what would that gain him? He might never find another bride so helpless, or whose only protectors were so eager to be rid of her. Not one his father was willing to accept, at any rate. Far better to threaten public shame and scandal. Then he’d have me forever, because it was a threat that could be repeated, and no matter what he did to me, the world would take his word over mine, because he was a man and the honorable son of a peer of the realm. I, on the other hand, was nobody at all.

Sebastian bowed, still smirking, and closed the door.

“Not one word, miss,” said Uncle Pierpont before I could so much as open my mouth. “You will be silent until I bid you speak.”

“Uncle—”

“Silence!” He slammed his open hand against the desktop, making the ledger, and me, jump. “I knew you for an ungrateful, ill-mannered brat. I knew your mother to be both sorry and shameless. I should have realized you would grow to be at the very least her equal.”

The words, so bitter and unexpected, knocked me onto my heels as surely as if they’d been blows. “How dare you talk about my mother like that!”

“Because, my fine miss, your mother, my
dearest
sister, was a whore!”

I staggered. My balance was gone. He could not have spoken so. Not even he. No. I had misheard somehow.

But my uncle raised his slitted eyes, and I felt his gaze like a sword’s point on my skin. “A whore,” he repeated, as if he enjoyed the feel of the word against his clenched teeth. “Your mother dealt in men and illicit liaisons and died of it.”

It was impossible. There was no circumstance under which this could be the truth. Except . . . there was Mr. Tinderflint’s card in my sleeve. He’d spoken of knowing my mother, this strange, older, obviously well-off man. He said he’d known her well, but not where he knew her from or how they’d met. There was a roaring in my ears, and suddenly I wanted nothing so much as to creep away and hide.

Uncle Pierpont stalked around the corner of his desk until his skinny shadow slanted over me. His breath was oddly cold and smelled of onions and tobacco.

“If it had been up to me, you would have starved in a ditch,” he said. “But your aunt, my wife, talked so much of appearances and Christian charity that I agreed to take you in. I’ve fed and clothed and sheltered you for eight years. I’ve kept my silence to spare my family’s name, but I am done with it. You will take this marriage offer, or you may leave my house this instant and go to the devil, just as your mother did.”

I closed my eyes and swallowed; swallowed tears, swallowed denial, swallowed the boundless anger raging through me. I had to be strong. I had to remember what was happening right this moment and what had happened the night before.

“No,” I croaked.

“Speak up, miss. I did not hear you.”

“I said no, sir.” I lifted my chin and drew myself up to my full height. “Mr. Sandford is angry because I fought when he attacked me. Ask how that happened. I will tell you the whole of it. I will not be made into a liar by someone who would permanently shame me, and I most certainly will not marry him.”

I’d done it. I’d spoken plainly and with dignity. My uncle, for all his faults, was a clear-eyed man. He would see by my attitude and bearing I told the truth. Then he would realize Sebastian had deliberately set out to defame me. He would not allow a man who so insulted the honor of a blood relation into his family, whatever he might believe about her—my—mother.

There may be a time when I am more profoundly mistaken, but it has not come yet. My uncle crossed the room in two strides. He grabbed my arm and, ignoring my cries, propelled me out the door and down the hall.

“Husband . . .” My aunt came running down the stairs. My uncle did not even break stride. He dragged me past the staircase, past the maid and the footman, who stared in equal confusion as I stumbled and squirmed in my uncle’s grip. Olivia stood in the doorway to the breakfast room, open-mouthed. Even the dogs peeking around her skirts were stunned to silence. I was dragged past them as well. And finally, most terribly, past Sebastian Sandford, who stood smiling on the threshold of the blue parlor.

With an oath, my uncle opened the door to the street. He shoved me through. I staggered down three steps before I was able to catch the railing.

The door slammed shut.

“No!” I ran back up the steps, just in time to hear the clatter of locks being closed.

“Uncle! Olivia!” I banged on the door. I rattled the handle, but it was no use. My uncle had kept his word. I was out on the street, with nothing save the clothes on my back.

I had time to gasp only once or twice before the bow window on the second story banged open.

“Peggy!” Olivia leaned her head out, and I hastily backed down the stairs so I could see her better. “Has Father gone mad? Don’t worry—”

She got no further. My uncle was beside her. He pulled his daughter inside the house as ruthlessly as he had pushed me out. With a look of contempt, he shut the casement. I watched, my heart in my mouth, as Olivia waved her hands and pointed her fingers at her father, clearly arguing forcibly. Her father didn’t move until he recalled that I could see them. Then he reached up to twitch the drapes shut.

I heard the locks turning again. My heart in my mouth, I rushed to the top of the steps. Of course I needn’t have feared. Of course Olivia had persuaded her father.

Of course it was Sebastian, whistling, as if pleased with the outcome of his errand. Our eyes met. He bowed, still whistling, and walked on past me. The door slammed shut before I could so much as move.

I stayed on the stoop for a long time after this, twisting my fingers and trying to keep up hope that Olivia or my aunt would be coming soon to let me back in. The circumstance was so strange, I could not imagine what else might happen. But the time stretched out, and the square began to fill with carts and wheelbarrows and criers and people of all sorts. Not a few of them turned a questioning glance toward the girl standing on the steps before this fine, red brick house. I tried to straighten my cap and smooth my skirts. I tried to look as if nothing was wrong, but it was no good. I was loitering outside, alone, in a plain dress and cap not meant for anyplace but the house. I had no proper business doing such a thing, and even the scissor grinder pushing his barrow could see as much.

It began to dawn on me that the door might not open again. I descended the stairs as slowly as I could manage, just in case I was being too hasty. Perhaps, I thought, if I walked out a ways, I could go to the common green as Olivia and I did so often on fine mornings. It would give the house time to settle. Olivia could find me there and let me know I was allowed back in.

It is strange that when your mind seems completely empty, it simultaneously becomes difficult for any new thought to penetrate. Like the fact that someone was trying to catch my attention.

“Psst! Psst! Oh, for Heaven’s sake, miss. Psst!”

“Templeton?” I hurried up to the area railing, where the stairs descended to the kitchen entrance. Olivia’s maid stood on tiptoe on the other side, trying to watch me while at the same time looking back over her shoulder toward the kitchen door.

“At last! Here. From the young mistress.” She thrust what she carried through the bars and into my hands. There was a leather bag that clinked, indicating coins inside.

“Quick now, miss,” Templeton was saying. “You must go away from here before the master sees. Miss Olivia says—”

“Too late, I’m afraid, Templeton,” said a gruff voice behind her.

Bromley, my uncle’s butler, stepped out of the kitchen. Bromley was a tall, bald man with a sagging face and protruding belly who wore his livery with all the pride of a soldier in his red coat.

“The master has seen,” Bromley informed us both sternly. “His orders are that whatever the young mistress sent out is to be retrieved. He further instructs me to say, Miss Fitzroy, that if you don’t clear off immediately, I’m to throw you into the gutter.”

“You can’t do it, Mr. Bromley,” said Templeton. I’d never noticed before that Templeton was older than I was, by a good ten years or so. She was grown woman, for all she was small and round-faced. I’d never given her any thought at all, and here she was taking my part in this disaster. “She’ll have nowt!”

“You mind your tongue and be thankful there’s no talk of turning
you
out.” Bromley thrust his broad hand through the railing bars, like a prisoner reaching out of a cell. Or a warden reaching in. “If you please, miss. Templeton’s already jeopardized her place. I’ll not do the same.”

I looked at stout, trusty Templeton and thought about how quickly she could be standing out here on the cobbles beside me.

“Thank you for your pains, Templeton.” I handed Olivia’s little purse to Bromley. The butler tucked it into his coat pocket, his stony expression softening just a bit.

“You best think on what you’ve done and repent, Miss Fitzroy. Let the master see you’re truly sorry and that you’ll be obedient. He might still be ready to settle the matter.”

Bromley was right, of course. I must repent. As soon as I did, I’d be allowed to walk back into Uncle Pierpont’s house. There, I’d be most generously permitted to marry where I was told and say nothing about anything for the rest of my days.

“Please give my thanks to Miss Olivia, Templeton,” I told her slowly. “For all she has done.”

I turned my back on the servants, the area railing, the house, and all it held, and walked away.

CHAPTER SEVEN

It took a long time to find a sedan chair willing to carry me to the address on Mr. Tinderflint’s card. I had no money and could offer only a feeble promise that they would be paid upon my safely reaching my destination. Evidently the chair men who plied London’s busy streets had heard such promises before. I had to place my Belgian lace handkerchief and no fewer than six silver hairpins in pawn with the lead man before I was allowed to take my seat and be bumped and jostled through crowds and over cobbles in the direction, I assumed, of Mr. Tinderflint’s house.

This was not where I wanted to go. Very far from it. My circle of acquaintances in town was small, and among them only the tiniest number might be ready, much less able, to take me in as I stood. But Kitty Shaw was in the country helping her sister with her lying-in. Honoria Dumont was sick with measles, and Liza Frank was accompanying her bilious aunt to Bath to take the waters. That left the address on the card and Mr. Tinderflint’s vague and worrying declaration of an acquaintance with my mother.

My uncle’s accusations would not leave me. All during that terrible, jolting ride through crowded streets filled with the stink and riot of London, not to mention the ankle-deep spring mud, I sat in dread of where I might be going, and what I might find when I got there.

As it transpired, what I found was an entirely respectable square of new terraced houses, part of the endless building and bettering happening at the western edge of restlessly expanding London Town. I also found rain and plenty of it. This turned the unfinished square to a mire and drew from my chair men some truly novel imprecations. Several of these were directed at me when I asked the lead man to knock at the door of the house and ascertain if Mr. Tinderflint was at home. I had no idea what I’d do if he wasn’t, but I’d had enough of huddling on doorsteps for one day.

I craned my neck out the window and saw that the door was answered by a man in a black coat, who stared at the chair man, blank-faced. The chair man gestured and jerked his thumb at me with increasing energy. My heart shriveled. It had been some deception. I’d been given a false address for some reason. Or the chair man had brought me to the wrong house, or—