Page 45 of The Ladies Road Guide to Utter Ruin (The Ill-Mannered Ladies #2)

45

The Davenport stables were still brightly lit when we arrived, the grooms jumping into action as the mismatched pair plodded into the cobbled yard. Weatherly climbed down from his seat and helped me from the high-slung carriage to the ground, the effort bringing a gray cast across my vision.

“My lady, take my arm,” Weatherly said urgently. “You are very pale.”

I leaned against his solid arm, thankful for the support. The activity around me had blurred, the sounds oddly distorted: a crashing clang, then muffled voices, then clanging again.

Charlotte’s figure came into focus as she ran across the cobbles, emerald gown hitched above her ankles.

“Augusta, dear God, what has happened?” she said, taking my free hand. Her face loomed close. “We must get you upstairs. Julia, are you injured too?”

“No, I am unharmed,” Julia said. “But we must get Gus to bed.”

For a second my vision cleared. I blinked as Porty entered the yard, followed by the ever-curious, ever-intrusive Ermine and her husband.

“Lady Augusta, whatever have you done to yourself?” the Ermine asked in shrill condemnation, as if my injured state was somehow a character flaw. “You are so disheveled.”

“What the hell is going on here, Charlotte?” Porty bellowed. “Deele said Lady Augusta and Lady Julia were keeping his sister from him. Where is she now? Where is Deele?” He stared at the pair hitched to the phaeton. “Good God, whose donkeys are these? Where are your bays, Charlotte?” He rounded upon me, his words literally hitting me in a spray of wrath. “What have you done with those horses? They are prime blood. You are taking advantage of my wife’s friendship, Lady Augusta. This is not the behavior of a woman of your rank or indeed a friend of any—”

He was in a passion, all red face and bulging veins, and frankly, I was not up to listening to such venom, let alone feeling it land wetly upon my skin. I did the only thing possible under the circumstances. I fainted.

···

I opened my eyes, an almost-resurfacing from somewhere deep and quiet. Dim light from the edges of a curtained window, my body warm beneath blankets, my hand held. I turned my head upon a pillow—an ache, distant but persistent along my jaw. Beside me, Julia atop the covers, her hand in mine, asleep. And Tully on my other side, in a chair, head back, a breathy snore breaking the silence. I closed my eyes, feeling the soft heaviness of safe slumber rise and carry me back into dark oblivion.

I woke again, this time into full consciousness and a sense of basic body urgency. The room was still dim, but Julia was not beside me. I tried to say her name, but it came out as a cracked groan.

Tully’s face loomed above me.

“She is awake, my lady.”

Julia’s face appeared alongside. “Gus, how are you feeling?”

And then Charlotte’s face, on a waft of her lily perfume, all three of them peering at me in a similar state of concern.

I licked my lips, trying to find some saliva with which to form words. “Pot,” I managed.

Upon that statement of need, Julia and Charlotte left the room and Tully helped me out of bed to use the chamber pot. After I was much relieved, my maid helped me back onto the bed, plumped the pillows behind me, and pressed a glass of barley water into my hand. I took a long sip, feeling the cool liquid soothe my parched throat as she opened the bedchamber door for Julia and Charlotte to enter again.

“How long have I been asleep?” I croaked.

“A whole day and night,” Julia said, sitting upon the edge of the bed. I heard the worry in her voice. “Your jaw is so bruised.”

“It is not broken,” I said. “Lord Evan assured me of that. Is there any news of them?”

Charlotte and Julia exchanged a look.

“I think your mistress needs something to eat,” Charlotte said to Tully. “Go to Cook. Tell her I sent you.”

She and Julia waited for Tully to depart; then my sister pulled out a letter that she had tucked into her white morning gown sleeve. “I received this from Sarah Ponsonby earlier today. By messenger.”

She unfolded the paper and read aloud:

1st November 1812

Plas Newydd

Llangollen

My dear Lady Julia,

Lady Eleanor and I wished to express our pleasure at your recent visit and to convey the news that Lady Hester and Miss Grant have settled in very well. Lady Hester is particularly taken with our garden and I feel that her connection to it will aid greatly in her recovery.

You will no doubt be pleased to know that Lady Hester’s brother and his friend returned that same morning and, although a little worse for wear, are whole and well. They have received aid from our mutual friends and have now moved to a location more suited to their circumstances. Our mutual friends have asked me to assure you and Lady Augusta that all is in hand and they suggest that you return to London as soon as your situation permits.

Julia, my friend, I believe you can trust this report of their well-being as well as the source from which it comes.

You are always most welcome at Plas Newydd and we look forward to the next time we see each other.

Yours in affection,

Miss Sarah Ponsonby

I looked at their expectant faces. “Lord Evan and Mr. Kent went back to Plas Newydd,” I said.

I closed my eyes for a moment, taking in a full, clear breath. They were safe.

“Julia believes the mutual friends are Mr. Brummell and Lord Alvanley,” Charlotte said.

“It cannot be anyone else, can it, Gus?” Julia said. “They have, for some reason, helped Mr. Kent and Lord Evan to safety. Charlotte is not convinced.”

“Why would Mr. Brummell and Lord Alvanley help Lord Evan and Mr. Kent?” Charlotte demanded. “They would not risk it. They may be leaders of fashion and society, but that does not put them above the law.”

“Even so, I believe they have helped them,” I said. I had great faith in George’s system of favors and his influence upon his friend Alvanley. “And now, it seems, they want us back in London.” I frowned, remembering the intense conversation between Mr. Kent and Mr. Brummell at Plas Newydd. It seemed George was a man of many hats, and not only of the fashionable sort. “We should do as they ask.”

“You are not well enough to travel today,” Julia said. “Besides, it is Sunday.”

“And you are, of course, welcome to stay here as long as you like,” Charlotte said.

Julia glanced sideways at our friend. “That is not what Porty said last night.”

Charlotte lifted her chin. “True enough. He wants you both out of the hall. He and the Ellis-Brants have gone to the hunting lodge and he has told me you are to be gone when he returns. As if I would drive you out!”

“You are a stalwart friend, Charlotte,” I said, managing to smile through the pain in my jaw. “But I think we have intruded upon your kindness for too long. We must go back to London. I believe I want my own home, my own things around me. Is that silly?”

“It is not,” Julia said. She took my hand. “Are you strong enough to tell us what happened in the forest?”

I took another long draft of barley water—savoring its soft, slippery sweetness—then reported the events at the clearing. I skipped a little over the circle of men and Mulholland’s attack upon me; it would distress Julia and Charlotte, and I certainly did not wish to relive it. At some point I would have to think on it, perhaps even talk of it after enough time had passed, but not now. Otherwise, I reported it all, or as much as I could recall.

“That is quite some ordeal, my dear,” Charlotte said softly, her head tilted to one side. I think she knew I was holding something back.

“Mulholland is really dead?” Julia asked. “I think you tried to tell me in the phaeton, but you were not quite making sense.”

“Yes, very dead.” I pushed away the image of his glazed eyes. And that last rictus smile.

“Who shot him?” Charlotte asked.

“I do not know. I was facing the other way.”

“Well, it does not matter,” Julia said briskly. She released my hand. “He is dead and now the matter is closed.”

Julia was not usually so callous. And oddly, she would not meet my eye. It took me a few seconds to understand why: she did not wish to know in case it was Mr. Kent. The sixth commandment was “Thou shalt not kill”—heaven cried out for vengeance upon those who killed with intent, and all who helped them—and Julia lived by the commandments. I hoped Mr. Kent had not killed Mulholland, for my sister’s sake. On the other hand, if it was Evan who had fired the fatal shot, that did not distress me at all.

“But the matter is not closed, is it?” Charlotte said. “Whoever is behind Mulholland is not dead.”

“True,” I said. “But we have a name. Charles Whitmore.”

Charlotte shook her head. “I do not understand why Charles Whitmore would want Lord Evan dead. There is no connection. None at all.”

“Nor, it would seem, to the duel and the death of Sanderson twenty years ago,” I said.

“Even so, you have Whitmore’s involvement from two sources now, so there must be something to it.”

A silence fell as we mused individually upon the conundrum. I took a sip of barley water. I certainly had no answers, but another question came to mind.

“Where is Duffy?” I asked.

Julia sighed. “He has gone back to London. Apparently, he returned here after I left to fetch the army, and then set off at first light.”

Charlotte nodded her accord with that report. “He was most keen to go and would not even stay for breakfast.”

“I thought he would follow you to meet the army upon the road,” I said to Julia. “Lud, what kind of brother is he?”

“Think on it, Gus. He is a magistrate. If he had met the army with me, he would have had to choose between betraying us or the law. So he chose to leave and not put himself in that position at all. I think, in his own way, he was trying to be a good brother.”

“You are more generous than I am,” I said.

A knock upon the door sounded.

“Come,” Charlotte said.

I was expecting Tully with the food—which I rather wanted—but it was Hanford, Charlotte’s butler.

He bowed and addressed his mistress. “My lady, a Captain Morland is downstairs and demands to see Lady Augusta and Lady Julia. He says he has the authority of the British Army and will not go until he has seen them.”

Charlotte eyed me. “Shall I send him away? For all the army bluster, he is still the son of our friends and I am sure I can get him to leave.”

It was tempting, but I shook my head, the action sending a shooting pain into my temple. “It will have to be done at some point—it might as well be now. Are you ready for it, Julia? You are the one who lied to his face.”

“We all lied to his face,” my sister said. “And I rather think we are about to do so again.”