Chapter 11

11

For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?

Much Ado About Nothing, Act 5, Scene 2

"How the devil should I know?" Bridger stalked away from Miss Arden to the window. He opened it ferociously, nearly breaking the latch, then drank greedily of the sobering night air. Forget a punch, forget restraints, if Pimm was really the one trying to sabotage his friend's happiness then he would kill the idiot himself.

Not kill, just…maim? Ship to America? He had failed to keep his temper in check, and it couldn't happen again. Bridger compromised by slamming his fist down on the sill, startling the girl on the floor by the bed. She wailed again. Perhaps Ann's cruel headache was going around, because now it had come for him. He pinched the top of his nose and closed his eyes.

"He's a beast, and wherever he has gone, he won't keep quiet for long," he added. Miss Arden's soft footsteps approached, swishing across the rug. "We need to question the girl. Something is not right here."

"Then you believe me?" Miss Arden pressed. Her eyes were glittering when he chanced to look at her. The minx. Perhaps she had every reason to be smug. He had been quick to assume the worst of Ann, and now it seemed someone had concocted a plan to embarrass her. His own brother, no less.

"You believe that she would never hurt Lane this way?" she asked.

"I will make no statements of guilt or innocence where the lady is concerned," he replied, turning to regard Fanny behind her. "But I will admit that my brother is almost certainly involved. The man on the balcony had his same brown hair and they are of similar height. He claimed to have no quarrels with Lane, but your cousin recently denied him a sum of money, and knowing his temper and rotten disposition, this sort of retaliation is not beyond him."

"His temper," she repeated quietly, thinking. "A trait you apparently share."

Bridger grimaced and walked by her, their shoulders brushing. "Surely you can see now why I struck him."

"Perhaps you did not swing hard enough," she said, following. He allowed her a dry laugh. She wasn't wrong. "Do you think he could still be in the house?"

"I doubt it," he told her, going to stand a polite distance from the servant, who was still visibly rattled. "But it should be searched top to bottom just to be certain." Then he sighed heavily, crouching near the girl. "Did he promise you anything? What did he say to get you in this room?"

Fanny lowered her head, shivering.

"It's all right," said Miss Arden sweetly. "You're not in trouble, Fanny. We just need to know how all of this happened. Have you heard about what occurred on the balcony?"

The girl seemed more responsive to Miss Arden's approach, so he kept silent. Watchful. Perhaps his experiences in the war were not suited to this particular kind of interrogation. Flies, honey, etc. "I h-heard the staff all running through the halls, and they were s-saying Miss Ann did something t-terrible. K-kissed a man who weren't her husband." She shook her head, curls coming loose from her cap, her watery eyes imploring as she shakily stood. Miss Arden went to help her. "I tried to shout, but he had jammed the veil in me mouth and tied it with one of the ribbons."

"That is indeed how we discovered her," Bridger confirmed. He stood and rubbed the back of his neck, trying to chase off the headache.

Fanny kept her eyes trained on Miss Arden, who stroked the girl's back. "Is Miss Ann truly that ill?"

"She will be better when this is resolved," Margaret assured her. "It would help us if you answered Mr. Darrow's questions. Did his brother say anything that might shed light on all this shadow?"

"I'll be in so much trouble," Fanny lamented, dropping her chin. "He saw me going back to Miss Ann's chambers with her things, and he stopped me and whispered all these pretty things, and when he kissed me, I just thought maybe…maybe with the masquerade and everything, that it wasn't so bad to go with him, just for a moment, just for…"

Miss Arden's brilliant blue eyes bore into the side of his face.

"Go on," he said, toneless.

"Just for a moment," Fanny continued, heaving. "I thought it might be my turn for luck, for love."

Bridger groaned.

"It does happen! It does!" Fanny insisted. "It was him who said marriage and all, I was just fool enough to believe him."

"Marriage?" Margaret echoed. "Awfully desperate of him."

"That's Pimm for you." Bridger turned in a tight circle like a caged animal, then swung back toward the girl. She shivered, and he tried and failed to soften his expression. "My apologies, Fanny, that he filled your head with lies and nonsense, but your candor is most welcome. Did he say anything about where he might go? What he might do?"

"N-no," said the girl. "Just made his false promises, gave me those kisses, tied me up, and went on his way." She mashed the heel of her palm into her right eye. "Stupid. Stupid, stupid…"

"You should return to your mistress and make your apologies." He sighed, striding back to the window, desirous of air.

"Before you go, Fanny, one more question: does this mean anything to you?" And here Miss Arden recited a snatch of poetry or some such. "?‘Blue and gold, our plan unfolds. Find me at midnight.'?"

The girl had no idea what Miss Arden was talking about, and neither did Bridger. The maid left, leaving them alone. He had left the small wooden box with his pipe, tobacco, and a tin of snuff on the sill, and then reached for the tin. "What was that?" he asked, studying her from the window. It was rude to smoke in a lady's presence, but a pinch of snuff might be excused, given the extraordinary circumstances and the headache that was fit to make his head explode. Still, he gestured upward with the tin, asking, "Do you mind?"

Margaret pursed her lips in a thoughtful and altogether darling way, scrunching her nose, then shook her head, indicating he could continue. "I suppose I should tell you…"

"Absolutely you should."

"Now that we are in agreement that Ann is innocent," she pressed, sly.

"Mm." Noncommittal. Bridger indulged in a pinch of snuff, the rush of the stuff bringing immediate relief and clarity.

" Now that we are in agreement, " Miss Arden insisted, watching him, almost snarling.

"Very well!" Bridger let her have that one. "It is increasingly clear that Pimm was the brute on that balcony, and I've only ever known Ann to be a woman of sense and taste, and no woman of sense and taste would put her mouth near his."

Margaret nodded, satisfied, and came to join him. Before he could react, she took her own pinch of snuff and popped it up her nostril. She inhaled, hard, and went cross-eyed, then reeled, tipping backward. Bridger caught her before she could teeter away. He couldn't help but laugh at the brashness of it, and at her reaction.

Shaking her head, she rubbed delicately at her red nose. "Horrible! Exhilarating! Why on earth do you like this?"

"The exhilarating part," he chuckled.

"I've always wanted to do that," she said with a crooked smile, coughing. "I begged and begged, but my father never allowed it, even if I only wanted to know how to describe it for my characters."

That was…oddly impressive. He could just imagine Margaret driving her father half-mad, obsessed with capturing the vérité of experiencing a pinch of snuff.

"Understandably. Now, Miss Arden, if you are done throwing caution to the wind, could you kindly explain the blue-and-gold plan?" He put the tin of snuff back in the box and latched it. That was plenty for the moment. If his father saw him like this, with this sort of woman, and enjoying it, it might be what finally put him in his grave. It was easy to shake off the thought with Miss Arden's bright eyes sparkling up at him.

"My sisters and I discovered a man leaving a note under a vase at the party this evening," she said. "We went to investigate it—"

"Ah. Naturally."

"And 'tis a good thing we did," Margaret charged on, ignoring his glibness. "For it appears someone was trying to arrange a meeting to plan something. Listen: ‘Blue and gold, our plan unfolds. Find me at midnight.'?"

Bridger frowned, stroking his chin, relieved, at least, that his headache had dissipated. Then, he reached for his pocket watch, a gift from John Dockarty when Bridger finally decided to pursue publishing. "We need to search the house anyway, for my brother could still be skulking about. This is as good an excuse to start as any. 'Tis nearly midnight, but where to look? Blue and gold, blue and gold…It isn't much to go on."

Miss Arden took away her pretty eyes, going back to the bed where Fanny had been tied up and left. Her fingertips ghosted atop the blanket, and Bridger felt the back of his neck tighten with desire. It was an absent gesture, nothing meant by it, but the light touch of her nails over the blanket stirred an unbidden inkling of seduction in him. He closed his eyes tightly, focusing again on the problem at hand. They needed to find his idiot brother, and they needed to discover the identity of the mystery woman that had been with him. The guests might be tight-lipped and secretive if they knew anything, but Pimm would fold under enough pressure; more importantly, he could never resist gloating.

Leaving Fanny in Bridger's part of the suite, on his bed, was no coincidence. Pimm was goading him, sending a message. That the oaf was a step ahead of them made him want to tear open the balcony door and scream into the night, but he mastered himself. At least they had this secret note to investigate; nervously, he consulted his pocket watch.

"What about the Sapphire Library?" Margaret concluded.

"Sensible," Bridger replied, nodding, one fist on his hip. "And Pimm does prefer the brandy from the shelf there. But are you sure you want to be alone with a man who has no patience for Jane Bennet?"

Margaret rolled her eyes. "Do not try to force a compliment, Mr. Darrow; stay on task. I remember Ann recently had the southwest gardens redone in a Grecian style," she said quickly. He had to stop looking at her delicate hand brushing over the bed, or he would lose focus. "And from her letters to me, I know the tiles under the dome are blue and yellow, so perhaps he means to meet at the new temple."

"?'Tis two minutes to midnight," Bridger said, already crossing toward the door. "We will be far behind if we go to the gardens now."

"But we could split up," Margaret suggested and hurried up beside him. "I could try the library while you go to the temple."

"Absolutely not," he muttered. "Out of the question."

"But to catch him—"

Bridger took her aside as soon as they stepped outside into the corridor. It was quiet in that part of the house now, guests either abed or long gone in their carriages, and the uproar of the scandal centered now on Ann's chambers. Bridger didn't mean to trap her against the wall, but it happened that way, and noticing her alarm, he took a small step back, then ran his hand impatiently through his hair. "My brother is a dangerous man, Miss Arden. Whether we are friends or not, I would never allow you to be with him alone. We go together or not at all."

With difficulty, she swallowed, and it drew his attention to the lovely column of her neck, and the gentle slopes of her breasts pushing against the neckline of her amber gown. She was beautiful and distracting, and it had been a long while since any woman's body, in sum or in parts, had lodged in his mind so swiftly for later revisiting.

Snap out of it, man.

She did not move away from him, but indicated she understood with a single nod. "The library, then," she murmured. And they went, together.