What Happens in Piccadilly Page 9

  Burney’s heart began to pound. “And are we… like-minded, your grace?”

  “As you frequent a certain establishment near Lincoln’s Inn, and yet another near the Arcades of Covent Garden, I think it safe to assume that we are,” Averston replied. “The question is whether or not our personal preferences are as compatible as our broader persuasion. Tell me, Charles Burney, do you possess the ability to be discreet?”

  Burney swallowed convulsively. “I do, your grace. Living as we are in this city full of gossips and hypocrites, I could hardly be less.”

  Averston’s lips pursed in the faintest imitation of a smile. “Quite true, of course. There’s a coffee house on Grate Street near Lincoln’s Inn Field. It is called Dasher’s. Do you know it?”

  “I know of it, but I have never been,” Burney admitted.

  “There is a door off the main room that leads upstairs. I keep a set of rooms there for when I need to be more discreet in my pleasures. Be there tonight at eight o’clock sharp. When you arrive, greet the woman at the counter and tell her you are a friend of Patroclus,” he instructed. “She will give you a key. I will join you there at nine.”

  “And what should I do with the hour between?”

  Averston smiled. “You will wait for me… and I will join you at my leisure. That is all.”

  “Until tonight, your grace,” Burney said, trying to keep the anticipation from his voice. There was something about Averston that fascinated him as much as it frightened him. Cold, calculating,—yet impossibly handsome and clearly interested, how could Burney be anything less than flattered.

  “Indeed, Mr. Burney. Until tonight,” the duke agreed with a slight quirking of his lips.

  Burney nodded and turned to leave, recalling as he did so that he had questions about the portrait. “The woman in the portrait in hall… the one Montgomery was so interested in the other day, who is she?”

  “My late uncle’s whore,” Averston replied. “And mother to the bastard whelp who could claim all of this if they ever dare to step forward.”

  “What would you do if someone did step forward?” Burney asked.

  Averston’s eyes flashed with anger. “It will never happen. Even if they tried, they’d no doubt meet some unfortunate accident courtesy of my ruthless grandmother before the claim could even be investigated.”

  Burney felt a shiver of fear, but also a shiver of excitement. He knew how to get the money for his wretched cousin, after all. And he understood now why Montgomery had been so desperate to get his pretty governess out of sight. “Until tonight, your grace.”

  As Burney fled the home, he glanced once more at the portrait. He was so intent upon it that he didn’t see the small, steely-eyed woman walking along the corridor until he’d very nearly run her down.

  “A thousand pardons, your grace,” he mumbled, helping to right her.

  “Do not touch me, you impudent whelp,” the dowager duchess snapped. Her gaze flew past him to the portrait that had fascinated him so. Continuing in a tone that was laden with her obvious disdain, she added, “Dead twenty years and still she has the power to render men stupid!”

  “I was only thinking she looked familiar, you grace,” Burney stated. “Again, my apologies for being so clumsy.”

  “Familiar? You have seen someone who looks like her?” the dowager duchess demanded, her eyes flashing as she reached out and gripped his arm with rather surprising strength. Her nails, thick with age, dug into his flesh like the talons of a hawk.

  “I don’t think so, your grace. Perhaps I saw her as a child. She was an actress, was she not?” Burney said.

  The dowager duchess released him abruptly. “Indeed. It’s a filthy trade plied by filthy women. My son was a fool. That portrait remains here, in a place of honor, because he put it in his will that if we ever removed it, all his wealth should be given to charities. Can you believe the nerve?”

  “No, your grace, I certainly cannot,” Burney replied. He wanted nothing more than to be away from her. He’d heard tales of haunted places in his life, where the presence of a ghost would render the room the ice cold. It appeared there were certain living people who possessed that ability, as well.

  Her eyes narrowed and she looked at him as if he were something unpleasant she might have stepped in on the street. “What is your business here, young man?”

  “I was speaking to his grace about a potential investment,” Burney lied.

  She laughed bitterly. “Well, he has no money to invest unless I convince the trustees of the estate to release funds to him. You’d best talk to me about the investment.” There was a triumphant note in her voice, as if she enjoyed the power she held over her grandson.

  “I would, your grace, but the duke has already declined,” Burney replied evenly. The woman made him terribly uncomfortable. She was, despite her diminutive stature, the most formidable woman he’d ever met. Her dress was somewhat old fashioned and she still wore her hair piled up in the intricate fashions popularized decades earlier. On some women, it might have looked ridiculous. On her, it simply made her more terrifying, as if time itself could hold no dominion over her. Certainly society could not. Such would never be permitted.

  She harrumphed loudly before sailing past him. Over her shoulder, she tossed one parting insult. “Then you may go, sir… and please do not darken our door again. We’ve little patience for beggars here.”

  Dismissed and chastened, Burney made his escape.

  In his study, Averston let out a groan. He’d heard her before he saw her. His grandmother. The dragon. He pinched the bridge of his nose to stave off the headache that her presence always created. Retreating to his desk, he poured some of the brandy stashed there into a glass and quickly tossed it back. There was no time to savor the burn of the fiery liquid. He wasn’t drinking for the pleasure of it but as an anesthetic, after all.

  He’d just managed to stash the glass and the brandy away when she entered, sailing toward him with a look of disapproval on her face.

  “Who was that man who was just here?” she demanded.

  “He had an investment proposition… I declined,” Averston stated. It wasn’t untrue, after all, just less than completely forthcoming.

  She strode forward and seated herself before his desk. “I see. And is business the only proposition he had for you?”

  He had no intention of discussing his sex life or his potential partners with her. “What are you doing here? I was under the impression we’d agreed to avoid one another as much as possible.”

  “So we had… and in the interim you were supposed to seek a wife and start living a less… debauched life. Certainly a more natural one!” The last was uttered with a snap to her voice, her disapproval of him quite obvious.

  “I will marry when I am ready and not before,” he retorted. “State your business and leave. We keep separate households for a reason. Namely that we cannot abide one another.”

  “I’m no longer content to let you marry when you are ready to do so. Given your proclivities, it doesn’t suit me to allow you to continue living as an abomination… I also won’t allow the risk of scandal which you court as recklessly as you do your young men.” She hissed the last part of it with a malice that few saw in her save for those closest.

  “And what will you do if I refuse?”

  She smiled coldly. “My dear boy, it is not in your power to do so. I have the ear of the trustees. At the merest snap of my fingers, I could see your lifestyle curtailed to the point of penury. If you wish to continue receiving the generous annuity that has been provided for you, you will do as you are bid. Find a woman, get yourself married and stop courting scandal by indulging your… unnatural urges.”

  Averston said nothing. He simply stared at the woman before him with disgust. “You know nothing of what you speak.”

  “I know that if word gets out about your proclivities, we will be ruined!”

  “Hardly that,” he said. “I certainly wouldn’t be the first gen
tleman in society whose romantic interests raised eyebrows!”

  “You think I care about raised eyebrows?” Her voice was a low hiss, a sure sign of just how furious she was. “I have devoted my life to the cultivation of a kind of power few will ever have. I am not fearful of society because I am society! I determine who gets the cut. I determine who has success. Who is deemed eligible or ineligible! But that power is predicated on the fact that, save for your late uncle, we are above reproach! I will not see it jeopardized so you can cavort with some pretty young man!”

  He rose to his feet, pacing with anger. “And if it was more than that? If it was more than simply cavorting? What if I loved him?”

  She laughed. “Do you?”

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. They both knew the truth.

  A cool smile curved her lips, brimming with triumph. “Of course not. Whatever flaws and perversions you may possess, you are still very much an Alford, Gerald. Your uncle was the outlier. He truly did love that worthless trollop. But you… you’re like the rest of us. Such a tender emotion will never take root in your dark heart.”

  “I hate you,” he said.

  “I know you do,” she replied evenly. “But you do respect me and you do fear me. That is preferable to being loved. Now, mark me, Gerald, I have not done all that I have and courted a seat at the devil’s right hand in order that you might throw it all away! Do your duty and find solace in it,” she said in parting and sailed from the room once more.

  How he despised her, he thought. What rankled more was that, in this instance, she was right. People were beginning to talk. Whispers had begun regarding his bachelor status. He thought of Charles Burney. Handsome, eager in the way only the young and not yet jaded can be, he’d been drawn to the man instantly. It wasn’t just that he was handsome and affable. Burney appeared to be a man who was quite capable of love, of a depth of feeling that he himself lacked. From the moment they’d first been introduced in his club the week before, he’d wanted to know him better. But as with everyone else in his life, he tempered any outward display of emotion or even excitement. To let anyone know that he had feelings for a person or a thing was to give his grandmother a weapon. She had enough of those, already.

  He should write to the young man and cancel their assignation. He knew that he should. Yet, even as he reached for the quill on his desk, he hesitated. What could it hurt, he reasoned, to indulge their mutual attraction just the once?

  Chapter Eight

  “I didn’t like that man the day before yesterday,” William said.

  “I didn’t like him either,” Charlotte seconded, crossing her little arms over her chest in a fair approximation of her brother’s rebellious stance.

  Callie sighed. “It isn’t nice to say such things. We do not know anything about Mr. Burney and he may be a perfectly fine gentleman. We should not rush to judgment.” She hadn’t disliked him. But she didn’t trust him. It wasn’t that he’d done anything wrong, exactly. It was more that he’d seemed to be false. He laughed too loud and tried too hard and in general. It was uncomfortable to be in the presence of a person who was so obviously not comfortable with themselves.

  “I don’t care if it’s nice. He’s not a gentleman! He said—” William stopped abruptly, obviously not willing to repeat what had been said.

  Callie would have pressed him but decided for the sake of Charlotte’s innocent ears, which in truth probably were not so innocent, it would be best not to encourage him. “It doesn’t matter. He’s an adult and, as your elder, he deserves a certain amount of respect. You don’t have to like him, but that doesn’t mean it’s all right to talk about him. Are we in agreement?”

  William shuffled his feet on the rug for a moment. “Fine.”

  “Thank you. Your willingness to overlook your dislike of him indicates a remarkably generous nature and a good character, William,” Callie said with a smile. “And as for you, Miss Charlotte, the same goes! No saying mean things about adults!”

  “What if adults do mean things to us?” she asked.

  Callie’s heart clenched at the thought of it. She fervently hoped none ever would. “Then you must immediately tell me or your uncle… no matter what. All right?”

  Charlotte nodded solemnly and immediately popped her thumb into her mouth. Callie gave her a warning look and she removed it. “I know, I know,” the little girl said, perfectly capturing Callie’s own tone and inflection as she repeated the words that had been uttered to her so frequently. “It’s a terrible habit and I’m too big for it.”

  Callie smiled. “It is and you are. Furthermore, you are a strong and capable young girl. You do not need to suck your thumb in order to feel safe and secure. You have everything and everyone you need. Don’t you?”

  “I miss Mama,” Charlotte said.

  Callie’s felt that terrible hollow feeling inside her as she looked at the sad, sweet face. “I know you do. Come here and sit with me for a moment.”

  Taking a seat at the small table she used, she pulled Charlotte on her lap and looked to William. “Today, we’re going to work on letters.”

  “Why doesn’t Claudia have to?” he demanded.

  “Because she knows her letters,” Callie replied. “Also, she is preparing to meet her music instructor. Your uncle hired him just this morning and she will have her first lesson in only a few short moments. All young ladies should know how to play the pianoforte and she is getting a very late start.”

  “Where’s he coming from?” William asked.

  “When was he hired?” Charlotte demanded.

  “Why don’t we get music lessons?”

  “Is he nice?”

  Callie held up her hand lest the barrage of questions continue. “He teaches the children next door,” Callie replied to William. “He comes very highly recommended. Your uncle hired him just this morning and you won’t be getting lessons unless you want to have them because boys generally are not required to learn an instrument. Charlotte will have lessons beginning in the next year or so. And before you can protest further or suggest that the man is a murderer or thief, I will check in on them later. But only after I get you and Charlotte settled in doing your letters.”

  William grumbled more, but didn’t protest overmuch. Charlotte, so long as she was being cuddled, was perfectly content to practice anything. Preparing the sheafs of paper for them to practice their letters, Callie painstakingly lined the paper with the compass and ruler and then wrote one row of letters across the top for them to repeat beneath. When the task was done, she rose and placed Charlotte in her chair.

  Once the children were settled in, attempting to recreate the strokes of the letters, Callie’s mind drifted. It had drifted often over the last twenty-four hours, so much so that she’d been robbed of any chance at actual sleep. The memory of that brief—too brief—and painfully gentle kiss, administered even in the midst of a heated argument, left her reeling. She still didn’t know why he had kissed her, but perhaps her greatest shame lay in that she desperately wanted him to do so again.

  It had been a tease, that delicate kiss. So light, so tender that it seemed almost as if she had imagined it. Yet, she knew she had not. And she also knew that kissing was so much more than that single feathery brush of his lips over hers. The man, blast him, had given her just enough to stir her curiosity.

  “I can’t do this one,” Charlotte whined. “I can’t make it look right!”

  Callie rose and moved over to where the little girl sat. “Start from the bottom,” she instructed patiently and guided the child’s hand through the motions of the letter once, then again, and a third time. “Now you try.”

  Charlotte looked up at her nonplussed. “It won’t look as good.”

  “It doesn’t have to. You’re practicing, Charlotte. And every time you practice something, you get better at,” Callie said. Immediately, her traitorous mind thought of kissing again. Would that get better with practice, also? Drat him!

  A movement a
t the door drew her eyes and Callie glanced over to see one of the maids frantically trying to get her attention. “Wait here, children. Keep working on your letters and I’ll return shortly.”

  Stepping into the corridor, she closed the door firmly behind her and met the maid’s worried gaze. “What is the matter?”

  “Oh, Miss St. James, I know it’s not my place and I know I’m not supposed to say anything, but it’s just awful!”

  “What is your name?”

  “Bea, Miss. Beatrice, but everyone calls me Bea,” the girl said. She was still breathless and clearly distraught.

  “What has happened, Bea?”

  “It’s the little girl, Miss. Miss Claudia. That fellow belowstairs, giving her lessons… I’ve never heard or seen such in my life. He’s a monster, Miss. A monster!”

  Callie’s stomach dropped. “Wait here. Do not let the other children come below. No matter what. All right?”

  “Yes, Miss!”

  Callie didn’t waste another second. She raced down the stairs as quickly as she could, her feet flying over the polished wood until she reached the marble floors of the foyer. From there, she headed directly for the small music room. At the door, she paused to catch her breath and also to listen. She heard a few halting notes and then one discordant one. It was immediately followed by a sharp crack. It was a sound she knew well and one she’d felt the sting of far too frequently during her younger days. He was striking her with a cane.

  A dozen conflicting emotions swamped her. Fear. Anger. But it was guilt that made her stomach turn and her knees go weak. She had insisted that Claudia have music lessons, after all, that there was no time to waste. Now Claudia was being tormented by him and it was entirely her fault.

  Callie placed a shaking hand on the door knob, turned it and found it locked. Fury swept through her, burning so hotly that even the guilt faded beneath it.

  “Monsieur Dumont, you will open this door immediately,” she called out.