Page 25 of The Book of Lost Stories

Concealed Passages

‘My loyalties are divided,’ said Simon, ‘for she is my kinswoman. But if you will consent to be my bride, my allegiance will be sworn to you.’

‘Can you not do what is right without such a promise? What of your knightly oaths – do they mean nothing?’ Cicely said scornfully, yet she felt herself tremble under his dark and unswerving gaze.

Ravish’d by Cruel Fate by ORLANDO brOWNE

Serle Rayven, scanning his letters over the breakfast table, looked up and said, ‘This is a singular missive from Titus Hartwood, Harry! He asks me to discover, if I can, what secret Miss Weston is concealing from him about the source of her income, for he knows it to be impossible that her father could have had much to leave her.’

‘An odd request indeed. But then, I don’t know why you are so thick with the old curmudgeon,’ his friend replied, helping himself lavishly to the ham. ‘And Miss Weston may be his granddaughter, but there is no reason why you should take an interest in their affairs.’

‘The Hartwood and Rayven families have long been associated with each other,’ Lord Rayven said ambiguously.

‘They may have been, but you cannot have known any of them from Adam when you inherited. Do you mean to do as the old man wants? Miss Weston seems an unusual sort of female. Mrs Rivers was complaining that she went out every morning alone, for she has a guidebook to the sights and means to work her way through it.’

‘ Alone? ’

‘Yes, and she takes a hack, you know. She will not even send for the carriage, although Nell – Mrs Rivers – has begged her to do so. But at least now she has prevailed upon her to take her page with her, which is something.’

‘A page is not much protection. Such headstrong and foolish behaviour could get her into trouble.’

‘Then perhaps there lies your opportunity to discover her guilty secret, by volunteering your services as her escort,’ suggested Harry with a smile.

‘I think that would be taking family friendship too far, and such particular interest might wake expectations in her that I have no intention of fulfilling. You know, I have sometimes had a suspicion that I know what her secret is, only to doubt my sanity in the next second. I should be more than happy to have my ideas disproved.’

‘This sounds very intriguing, Serle, but I suppose you mean to tantalize me by keeping your ideas to yourself?’

‘For the present, for I dare say the explanation is quite mundane and you would think I had run mad if I told you what was in my head.’

‘I believe Mrs Rivers said they were to be at Miss Berry’s salon tonight. Do you not also intend to go?’

‘Yes, Miss Berry and her sister have always kindly included me in their invitations. Do you wish to come with me? They would make you very welcome, I am sure.’

‘No, I think it best if I do not come tonight, if Mrs Rivers is to be there,’ Harry said, a cloud passing over his face. ‘But I might take a stroll out later and see if anyone from the Brigade is in Town.’

‘And I think I will go and have a word with Jarvis, for I have it in mind to set him on to watch where Miss Weston goes,’ Rayven said thoughtfully. He had employed the old soldier as porter at the London house, but knew he found it slow after life on the Peninsula and would welcome a change.

*

When Nat Hartwood, true to his word, arrived to take Alys driving in the park, he found her alone apart from Pug, who took an instant and vociferous dislike to him.

‘Mrs Rivers sends her apologies, but she is laid down upon her bed with a headache and—Oh, pray hush, Pug! Sammy, do take him away and look after him until my return.’

‘I am afraid I do not care much for dogs, or they for me,’ Nat said with a rueful smile. ‘But if the little fellow is yours, then I see I must take pains to win him round.’

‘You may easily do so by offering him some choice morsel, for he is very greedy,’ Alys said, returning the smile rather breathlessly, so dazzling was it.

From the top of his burnished and pomaded golden curls to the heels of his immaculately glossy top boots, he was the picture of such masculine perfection as to gladden the heart of any maiden, even one normally as unimpressionable as Alys.

If his breeches clung so tightly that she wondered, most indelicately, how he would manage to sit down, and his fine blue cloth coat fitted so closely that he must have been inserted into it with some difficulty by his valet, yet the broad-shouldered frame beneath it owed nothing to art and all to nature.

‘I am sorry if Mrs Rivers is not feeling quite the thing. Bella, too, would have come, but begs to be excused, for she is having a morning ball with her particular friends to practise the quadrille, and, if our mother permits, the waltz.’

Since Bella’s coming-out ball was to be the very next week, Alys well understood the urgency of mastering the intricate steps of the quadrille, something she herself had yet to learn.

Outside awaited a fashionable equipage into which she was tenderly assisted, and as Nat drove her through Hyde Park, Alys, for the first time, knew what it was to be the centre of other women’s envious regard …

although after a while she began to wish that Nat would spend less time in returning the greetings of his many acquaintances and instead pay more attention to his pair of showy, high-stepping greys.

‘It is amazing how many people already seem to know that I am Mr Hartwood’s granddaughter,’ she remarked, after yet another such exchange of civilities, ‘and are agog to know why they have not heard of me before.’

‘I am afraid my mother is the greatest gossip imaginable,’ Nat said with a charmingly rueful smile.

‘Well, it is no great secret after all and—Oh, do pray watch that barouche, for I am sure there is not enough room to get by!’

The smile vanished. ‘I am accounted no mean whip, Cousin. You need have no fear on that head.’

‘Of course. It is just that I am unused to such a carriage as this,’ she said hastily.

Nor was she an expert on handling the reins, but she suspected that his skills were not such as would justify the vehicle in which she found herself perched so dangerously high above the ground, and the strong fear of their being overturned quite took the edge off her pleasure.

When she unexpectedly spotted a familiar, diminutive figure walking nearby in a party consisting of several children, a nursemaid and an elderly gentleman, she was glad of the excuse to ask her cousin to stop.

‘It is Miss Grimshaw, my companion for many years, who is at present making a stay with her relatives. Those must be some of her nephews and nieces with her.’

She waved vigorously to attract their attention and, when they came up, said, ‘Why, Letty, I did not think to see you here! I meant to call on you in a day or two, to see how you did, but I can see for myself that you are very well. This is my cousin, Mr Nathaniel Hartwood.’

‘How do you do, sir?’ Letty said, casting a doubtful and flustered glance upwards. ‘The weather was so fine and the children wished to fly their kites, so that when Mr Puncheon offered to escort us … but what am I thinking of? Allow me to introduce Mr Puncheon.’

Mr Puncheon, a portly man with a pleasant, ruddy face and silver hair, bowed, and Alys said, ‘I am pleased to meet you, sir, for Mr Grimshaw mentioned you as an old family friend.’

‘And I have heard much of you, Miss Weston.’ He favoured her with a serious, searching gaze from china-blue eyes, and she wondered quite what Letty had been telling him about her erstwhile charge.

She was surprised to see that Nat acknowledged the introductions with the barest of chilly civility, and soon made an excuse of not wishing to keep his horses standing in the cool breeze to drive on.

‘I have never seen Letty in such looks. Her little holiday must be doing her good. Mr Puncheon seemed very amiable and a great favourite with the children.’

‘He looked to me like a cit,’ Nat said, as his horses took objection to a boy bowling a metal hoop alongside them and showed an alarming tendency to bolt back to their stable.

‘I believe he is a retired tea merchant,’ Alys said, exasperated at her cousin’s pride, which made him look down on anyone connected with trade. ‘But a perfectly respectable man.’

They turned for home, much to her relief, for the outing had not been one of unalloyed pleasure even though Nat professed himself delighted with her company.

‘We are bound for the Misses Berrys’ salon tonight,’ she remarked as he handed her down from the carriage (and how relieved she was to have her feet planted on firm ground again). ‘Might we see you there?’

‘No, I am afraid I have a prior engagement,’ he said, not mentioning that he was instead bound upon a more insalubrious party of pleasure with friends. ‘How I wish, now, that I had not.’

He took her hand and favoured her with that practised smile, looking deeply into her eyes … but this time, strangely, her heart did not race and she was not breathless.

As she ran up the steps and into the house, she thought how brief her dazzlement by a handsome face and charming manner had been. But there was also a lingering regret, for it was as though the sun was still shining brightly, only she could no longer feel the warmth of its rays.

*

Fortunately, Nell, although heavy-eyed, was recovered enough to escort her that evening, and Alys found she was enjoying herself far more than she thought she would, especially once Miss Berry introduced her to a young man who was, she declared, an expert on underground drainage.

‘Miss Weston,’ she told him with a twinkle in her eyes, ‘is exceedingly fond of underground passages, Mr Stevens, so do pray tell her of the many hidden waterways beneath London that you once described to me.’

‘Oh, yes, if you please, for I had no idea such things existed,’ Alys begged him. ‘Are they made by nature or man, and what is their purpose?’