Chapter 19

It is a madness…to look a gift Horse in the Mouth.

—John Stevens, translation of F. de Quevedo, Comical Works (1707)

A tap at the door roused Clayton from his brown study.

"Enter," he called, haphazardly rearranging the pounce pot and inkstand to feign occupation.

Mrs. Oakes marched in, rag and feather whisk in hand. "I'll come back later if you're busy, sir."

"No, no. Go ahead. I might go for a walk anyway."

"Not a bad idea, though it's wet out," she said, briskly dusting and straightening. "You've been sitting there a week now, it seems to me. Writing and calculating and pacing. If not for those dancing lessons of yours, you would not have left the house."

"Correspondence," he answered vaguely, waving at the desk.

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Oakes said wisely. "So I've seen. Notes flying all over town to ‘esquires' and ‘Barts,' to say nothing of the occasional ‘Sirs' and ‘Lords.' And they make reply! You might beat me down with a feather, to have a tenant who mixes with such high comp'ny. I suppose soon you'll be wanting to live somewhere more fashionable than Warren Street."

He would have denied it more plausibly if she were not that moment inspecting an item propped on the mantel, sent by the earl. Absently she drew the whisk across the wall sconce, not even watching what she was doing. "An invitation to a ball," she murmured. "A ball, Lor' love you, given by Sir August and Lady Finley of Mount Street." Turning the card over, she drew a sharp breath. "Ooh, and Miss Brand and Miss Croy may join you!"

His mouth twisted. Yes, Miss Brand and Miss Croy might join him, if he liked. Though he had seen the two ladies since receiving this card, he had somehow neglected to mention it. A pointless delay, really. He intended to go, and, unlike with Almack's, there was no reason this time to exclude Priscilla and Miss Croy. So why had he hesitated?

Avoiding the question, he said to his landlady, "I'll be needing the parlor shortly, Mrs. Oakes. That was the gist of the note Mr. Braham sent earlier. He's coming to call."

"Bless me, a lawyer," she replied, punching his pillow. "So long as he hasn't any business with me."

Precisely to the minute, his caller was ushered into Mrs. Oakes' neat and mahogany-dark front room, where Clayton sat by the fire, boots on the fender and a leathern portfolio at his elbow.

"What couldn't wait, Braham?" he asked, after rising to make his bow. "I would have called in Cursitor Street to see you next week as usual, and it's a bitter day out. Not that I mind you coming, for I've been eager to show you my progress." This with a tap on the portfolio.

"If it's anything like the receipt I carry, the Cumberland Arm must be altogether in clover," said Braham with an uncharacteristic smile.

"Has another sum come in, then?" he asked eagerly. "If it was from Ferry or Lord Reading, I'll eat my hat. They each hemmed and hawed so, I assumed there was nothing to be gained from either."

Braham held up his palms in a shrug. "No Ferry or Lord Reading, so your hat is safe. But see for yourself." Reaching into his coat, he retrieved a paper to pass to him. "Cursed dark in here, Mr. Clayton. Can't you pay your landlady a little more rent, so she won't be so sparing of the candles?"

Without replying, Clayton carried the paper to the window to peruse, and the lawyer waited for the whoop of joy he knew must greet it. But his client neither whooped nor capered; he only held quite, quite still.

"Can you not make it out, man?" demanded Braham, impatient.

"I can make it out."

"A hundred shares!" Braham declared, as if Clayton needed to hear it aloud to understand. "You're another hundred shares to the good!" He shook his head, giving a dry chuckle. "It didn't even come through his man Pinckney. I suppose, when you're the Marble Millionaire, a thousand pounds is mere pin money. Rotherwood probably turned out a few pockets and sent me whatever he found. Whatever you said to him, Clayton, you did very, very well."

"Said to him? I said nothing," he replied grimly. "We've barely been introduced."

Alan Braham's brows rose. "Indeed? Well! How peculiar. Then he must have heard of it from Stanley or one of the others you havetreated with." Even in the shadowy room the lawyer could see Clayton's face darken. What ailed the man? Could he not recognize his good fortune?

"Was there no note with it?" asked Clayton, turning again to gaze into Warren Street.

"Of course there was," Braham replied to the back of his client's head. "‘He, St. John Rotherwood, presented this sum with his compliments for the purchase of a hundred shares in the Cumberland Arm Canal, etc. etc.' And he added that there was no need to disturb his man Pinckney. I was requested simply to send the receipt directly to him in North Audley Street, for he considered this a ‘private matter.' Don't you see what this means? The man is now an equal investor to Lord Stanley! I grant you, the bit about ‘a private matter' is perplexing. Who knows—perhaps his mother Mrs. Rotherwood or Pinckney set strict limits as to how he might spend his allowance, even if that allowance is more than a middle-rate squire might collect on Quarter Day. No matter. You will have to take that up with Rotherwood, because once his name can be attached to the enterprise, I daresay it will make quick work of raising the remainder."

The only response to this speech after a full minute of silence was a wordless grunt, and Braham wanted to throw up his hands. "Is there something wrong, Clayton?"

Another pause followed, in which the room fell so quiet the lawyer could hear the tapping of drops on the pane. Some detached part of his mind noted that, whatever the inconveniences of living on the edge of town, there was certainly a great deal less traffic.

Then, at last, Clayton said heavily: "I don't want Rotherwood's money."

Braham stared. Doubted. Waited. Sputtered. "Wh-whatever can you mean, you don't want his money?"

Clayton hung his head.

"Have you—heard something unsavory about the family?" the lawyer pursued. "Because I assure you, whatever might be said of the baronetcy from which their wealth came, it was no better or worse than any other in the kingdom, and in the brief time since they inherited, the Rotherwoods themselves can hardly have had time to engage in any questionable practices—"

"I have nothing to say against him or his character," Clayton amended. "I—not knowing him personally, I would prefer to continue seeking additional investors on my own."

"But—that's nonsense! Pardon me, Clayton, but why make any distinction? If you found a shilling on the street, would you not stoop to put it in your pocket, without any qualms? You must use the tools you have been given, including windfalls. I suppose you will have to consult Rotherwood before you advertise his involvement—to get to the bottom of that ‘private matter' business—though then you risk him changing his mind—but once you have done so, let that be an end to your scruples. To be candid, you need this money for the work to go forward. Unless you've already got promises for the balance in your portfolio there."

"Not quite." Returning the receipt to Braham, Clayton began to move restlessly about the room. "All told, I estimate there's an additional hundred shares accounted for, on my part, from men whose word I consider good."

"Well, there's a vast difference between a shortage of two hundred and one of three hundred," Braham observed, "so I need hardly say you will want Rotherwood's money, even if he forbids you attaching his name to the project."

When his client made no response, the lawyer tucked the paper away again, frowning. Something was not right here. Something bearing further investigation. But with the practice of long years, he succeeded in regaining his impassive expression. "In any case, leaving Rotherwood's money aside for the present, how many other irons have you in the fire?"

Apparently relieved at the change in subject, Clayton gave a fleeting grin. "A handful or more. You may ask my landlady how diligently I have been talking up the canal, answering questions, working to pin people down. My letters have crossed and recrossed town."

"Mm. I commend you, Clayton, but at the risk of becoming repetitious, I must point out once more that importunate letters are easily dodged."

"Of course they are, which is why I intend soon to make another appearance in the flesh." Opening the portfolio, he slipped out the card Mrs. Oakes had admired earlier.

"Ah. The Finlay ball. Very well. That should be well attended, and I wish you luck." With a shrug, the lawyer reached for his hat. "Only, don't waste your time on Sir August himself. Lord Stanley begged off when he had only the one daughter to marry. Poor Finlay has four."

When the lawyer was gone, Clayton gave a fitful sigh and dragged a hand through his dark hair, throwing himself in the nearest armchair.

What did it all mean? Did it mean what he thought it meant?

Why should Rotherwood, a man who did not know him from Adam, send him a thousand pounds, unless he did it for Miss Ellsworth's sake? Rotherwood who danced with her, spoke to her apart, asked her before everyone present at Almack's to write to him. While all London assumed a union with the glorious Lady Sylvia Stanley would crown Rotherwood's rapid ascent, Clayton could not forget what Dodson had called Miss Ellsworth: an "outside horse."

Surely he could learn more at the Finlay ball. Even if Rotherwood and Miss Ellsworth did not attend, there would be whispers, rumors. He might even ply Dodson for more information.

A terrible twisting gripped his insides—gut, lungs, heart. Was this what it felt like for Miss Ellsworth when the heavy wheel of the bathing machine pinned her gown to the sea floor?

But if Clayton had been the one to save her, who was there to save him?

"Forgive me," he murmured to Priscilla as he took his place in the line at Mr. Wilson's Dance Academy.

"I thought you had forgotten," she answered, eyes lowered. "The lesson began nearly an hour ago. You were working, I suppose."

After his unaccompanied attendance at Almack's, Clayton had been deeply in his intended's disfavor (another reason for his holing in Warren Street to work). And it would hardly improve her opinion now to confess the hour had slipped away while he was lost in thought about someone else. Therefore he made no such confession. Instead, wryly calling himself a coward, he chose the surest way out of her black books.

"You will never guess what I have received," he said, the words barely uttered before he winced. Oh, heavens, had he acquired Priscilla's pernicious habit of forcing the listener to prompt her to continue?

She liked it, at any rate, her head lifting eagerly. "What? What did you receive, John? Do tell me!"

The masterful Hubert Saint-Cloud turned his elegant head four degrees in their direction at that moment, however, and Priscilla instantly put a finger to her lips, hissing, "Shh! We are interrupting. But tell me quickly!"

His news had to wait for Mr. Saint-Cloud to deliver his soft, iron-hand-in-a-velvet-glove instructions, however, and for the dance master once again to shunt Clayton from the line, that he might demonstrate with the blushing Priscilla as his partner.

"Goodness, what a pet he's made of you," her intended remarked when the accompanist launched into The Merry, Merry Milkmaids, quite their most advanced dance yet, with its shifting stars and figure eights.

But his partner glowed to see his chagrin, mistaking it for flattering jealousy, and she lowered her lashes in a coy smile. "So Cissy says. But come—tell me your news."

First he had to weave his way through the series of figure eights, however, which was more complicated to his mind than tallying long columns of figures or calculating odds on which investors might be coaxed into giving what amount. But he completed the pattern with a minimum of bumbling and answered, "We have been invited to a ball given by a Sir August and Lady Finlay."

"And—you think we might attend?" she breathed, with a pathetic look of entreaty as if she deemed him the sort of person who would raise a cup to her lips only to dash it away before she could take a sip.

He must do better than this, Clayton thought ruefully. She thought him a beast to her, and perhaps he was.

Aloud he said, "I have a few people I must hunt down. Therefore, yes—we certainly will attend."

Priscilla forgot herself so far as to give a shriek and clap. "Oh! Oh! Truly?"

So unusual was such an outburst in this setting that their fellow pupils stared and gasped, and the masterful dance master was obligated to raise both his hands, in addition to one eyebrow, to restore order.

Well, that's one of us happy,Clayton thought, as he musingly watched Priscilla float and beam. When she armed left with him, she smiled from ear to ear, as if the Almack's incident had never been. When she cast around Miss Croy, she giggled and whispered the delightful tidings and her plans for it. And when Mr. Saint-Cloud drifted near, she even braved his potential restrained ire by blurting, "Oh, Mr. Saint-Cloud! At last I am going to a ball!"

The elegant man paused in his measured walk, one finger lifted. Then he nodded and continued along the line, but Clayton swore he saw Saint-Cloud's upper lip twitch, a reaction which in a more demonstrative person might translate to an oath or a swoon. Priscilla appeared gratified by it, at least, for the corners of her own mouth tucked in a pleased, kittenish smile.

Briefly Clayton wondered if he was going to have to say something to her about the dancing master. Was she developing an improper and impossible attachment to Saint-Cloud? Begad, if the man only were in truth a vicomte, with a tidy little chateau and acceptable income, he would be welcome to her, and how many problems that would solve!

"Excuse me," he muttered to the shipbuilder's daughter when his lapse of attention caused him to miss her hand. She gave a titter, to be addressed by the good-looking young man, but he failed to notice because an unwelcome thought had returned to him. Why, even if Priscilla conveniently jilted him to elope with another man, and he were set free—free as the air—was Miss Ellsworth now forever out of reach? Did something else equally impossible to overcome now subsist between her and the confounded Rotherwood?

He feared it did.

And whether he had a right to know or no right at all, John Clayton was determined to discover precisely what that something was.