Chapter 2

E ven the relative serenity of White’s in midafternoon could not assuage Lord Ragsdale’s curious combination of vast ill-usage and shame of the dreariest sort. After a brief appearance in the main hallway, where the billiards players lounged between games and laid outrageous wagers on the evening’s activities, he eased himself into the reading room. He sank with a sigh into his favorite old leather chair (wondering all over again why ordinary homes didn’t have such simple pleasures), snapped open the Times , and burrowed behind it.

There were several articles that should have interested him. Napoleon had left the French Army under the tender mercies of Marshal Soult in Spain, and Soult had cat-and-moused General John Moore all the way to La Coru?a in swift retreat.

“Bother it!” John Staples growled as he turned the page. And here was Napoleon in Paris again, enduring another diplomatic minuet by the lame but adroit Talleyrand. “Spit on all Frenchmen!” the marquess muttered and buried his face in the announcements of weddings and engagements. Yes, spit on the French , he thought as he perused the closely written lines to read of friends about to succumb to one stage or another of matrimony. If the French had not nosed about the Irish in the last century and given them cause to revolt, he would still be looking at the paper with two eyes instead of one. And he might still have an army career.

He folded the paper and rested it on his chest, allowing reason—or a close cousin to it—to reclaim him. John, you idiot, you have made a scene in front of a servant , he chided himself. He winced at the memory of the shock on his mother’s face and Robert’s frank stare. Like all good butlers, Lasker had developed sudden amnesia, irreversible until the evening meal belowstairs in the servants’ dining room, Lord Ragsdale was sure.

Lord Ragsdale knew that once Lasker spread the word belowstairs about the master’s rudeness (probably with raised eyebrows and then the sorrowful pronouncement that the late Lord Ragsdale would never have exhibited such rag manners), he would suffer several days from a slowdown in domestic efficiency. Until the staff recovered from this attack on one of their own, the maid who delivered the morning coal while he still slept would rattle it a little louder in the scuttle; his shaving water would be only lukewarm; there would be scorch marks on his neckcloths; and the béarnaise sauce would be soupy. Such were the subtle punishments handed out by powerless people.

He had only managed the barest glance at Emma Costello when he flung himself out of the gold saloon and was rewarded with a look of bewilderment. If he had suddenly struck her with his fists instead of his words, she could not have looked more surprised. He thought about Emma Costello and County Wicklow and doubly swore at himself for being a fool. He had spent his lifetime upstairs and far from servant gossip, but he knew enough about the hierarchy belowstairs to assure himself that Emma would not be treated well there, either. No one liked the Irish. He should never have shouted at her.

He sighed again and rubbed his forehead above his dead eye. It seldom pained him now, but he massaged the spot out of habit. When his eye was still a raw wound, some imp—was it too much laudanum?—twitted his agonized brain until he began to think that if he rubbed hard enough, his sight would return. It never happened, of course. When the pain lessened, he could only wonder at his foolishness.

So much self-flogging made him restless. With an oath, he got up, listened to the leather chair sigh for him, and moved to the fireplace, where he stood staring down at the flames. Rain scoured the windows again and matched his melancholy.

As soon as the rain let up, he would return to Curzon Street and apologize to his mother and Robert Claridge. An apology to Robert’s sister probably wasn’t necessary. Sally had watched his brief explosion with the wide-eyed stare of someone destined always to be a fraction late with the news. One didn’t have to apologize to servants, of course, so he needn’t say anything to Emma.

He returned after dinner at White’s and a brief visit to Fae Moullé. She had opened the door to his two-rap knock with her usual cheerful demeanor and helped him out of his overcoat, chattering half in French and half in English about some neighborhood happening. In the early days of their relationship, her bilingual patter had amused him. Now as he allowed her to unwind his muffler, he felt only a certain irritation that she couldn’t confine herself to one language or the other. Hot words rose to his lips, but he forced them back. No sense in tempting another work slowdown among those he paid; one from Fae would be much more uncomfortable than lukewarm shaving water. He kissed her instead, allowed her to lead him toward the bedroom, and then changed his mind.

He sat next to her but placed her hands carefully in her lap. “No, Fae.”

Her lower lip came out in that familiar pout. He looked at her and wondered why he had thought that expression so attractive. Grow up, you silly widgeon , he wanted to shout. He took her hand instead, noting how shapely it was, how each nail was filed to a softly rounded tip. Such effort was probably the work of an afternoon for Fae.

He turned slightly to face her. “Fae, my love, what do you think about when I am not here?” he asked.

A number of expressions crossed her face, but the one that kept recurring was a vague puzzlement that sank his spirits even lower. She just looked at him, as though wondering what he wanted her to say.

“Really, Fae,” he plunged ahead, warming to his topic. “When we’re not together, what thoughts cross your mind?”

Again that silence. I don’t pay you enough to think, do I? he considered, and the realization made him rub his forehead once more.

“Do you ever read?” he asked, his voice gentle.

“Read, John?”

“Yes, Fae. That’s when you open a book and examine its lines from left to right with the object of interpreting the words on the page. Some do it for enlightenment; others for entertainment,” he explained patiently, his insides writhing.

She was silent as she took her hand out of his and gave him her profile. “I think about what I am going to wear and how I should arrange my hair.” She brightened then. “When the delivery boy comes with food, he always jokes a bit and asks what I think about politics.”

“And what do you tell him?”

Fae turned back to regard him, her eyes wide in her flawless face. “Oh, I just laugh.” She gave him a demonstration, her tinkling laughter as lovely as her features.

He grinned then and pulled her up. “Fae, well, it was a stupid question, wasn’t it?”

Her hands went to his neckcloth then, but he removed them and put on his coat again. “Some other time, m’dear.” She was starting in again in her Anglo-Franco babble as he closed the door quietly behind him.

The evening sky was spitting out snow as he hurried along the street. If he didn’t feel any worse for his encounter with his mistress, he also felt no better. When he returned home and allowed Lasker this time to help him out of his overcoat, he suddenly realized that it wouldn’t take much to send him off to Norfolk finally, to an empty estate and a full wine cellar. I have avoided it too long , he thought. He stood indecisively in the hall, wondering where his mother was.

“She is at cards, my lord,” Lasker pronounced.

“Lasker, you are amazing,” Lord Ragsdale murmured. “I don’t even have to speak to get an answer from you.”

“Just so, my lord,” Lasker agreed as they walked along together. He opened the door to the morning room and closed it quietly behind him.

Lady Ragsdale looked up from her solitaire and patted the chair beside her. John shook his head and stood over her, looking down at her hand.

“Mother, you’re cheating again,” he commented.

“Of course I am,” she agreed equably. “How do you expect me to win at solitaire unless I cheat?” She took his hand suddenly and kissed it. “My dear, whatever is the matter with you these days?”

He sat down then and, leaning back, stuck his long legs out in front of him. “I don’t know, Mother.”

She smiled, glanced sideways at him, and then cheated again. “You remind me of someone on the verge of something.”

He smiled back and returned the card she had just laid down to her hand. “If I had uttered such a nonsensical bit of illogic back at Brasenose in my Oxford years, my don would have kicked me down the stairs!” He tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling. “As it is, you are probably right.”

“Very well, then, son. Go to bed.”

“Yes, Mama.” Lord Ragsdale stood up and stretched. “By the way, it is snowing again. ”

While he watched, she put the offending card back in its place before her. “We are still going to Oxford tomorrow.”

“Yes, Mama,” he repeated, smiling slightly. He may not have apologized in words, but she understood. How dear you are to me , he thought as he admired her calm beauty. Perhaps if I am extremely lucky, one day I will have a daughter who looks like you.

She blew a kiss to him as he stood in the open door. “Son, you have a chance to redeem yourself tomorrow.”

“Hmm?”

“My dresser is not feeling good enough to travel. Emma Costello will travel in her stead and look after Sally and me.”

He sighed, started his hand toward his forehead, and then dropped it. “Then I will be on horseback, madam,” he replied crisply as he left the room.

Robert Claridge was still up, but only just, when Lord Ragsdale knocked on his cousin’s door. When he opened it to Robert’s sleepy “Come in,” his young cousin sat up quickly in bed, as though trying to appear at attention.

“For heaven’s sake, relax!” John admonished as he closed the door and sat himself down beside his cousin’s bed. “I am only your cousin, and by the eternal, I am a stupid one. Forgive me for my outburst this afternoon, Robert,” he apologized simply.

Robert scratched his head and lay back down again. He punched his pillow into a comfortable ball and looked at his cousin. “Don’t trouble your head about it, my lord,” he said. “My aunt Staples explained why you haven’t much love for the Irish.”

“No, I haven’t,” he agreed, grateful to his mother all over again for smoothing his path with his young relative. “But that’s no excuse for such rudeness to your servant.”

Robert’s eyes were closing. “I can’t see how it signifies. It’s just Emma, and I know there are times when she would try a saint.”

“Of which I am not one,” Lord Ragsdale said with no regret, grateful down to his boots to be so easily out of that mess. He crossed his legs and settled back in the chair. “Tell me, cousin, how did you get a servant from Ireland?”

Robert opened his eyes. “I was fourteen or fifteen when Papa bought her in the Norfolk sales.”

“Bought her?” Lord Ragsdale sat up straight again. “Surely you don’t mean that.”

“I do, cousin. She’s indentured. I was with him at the wharf when the ship’s master led the lot of them into the sale shed.”

Lord Ragsdale closed his eyes. He had heard of things like that, but the reality was never closer than a column in the Times . “Were they ... were they chained together?” he asked.

“Heavens, no,” Robert said. He sat up in bed, wide awake now. “You’ve never seen a more harmless lot of lice-ridden, scraggly men and women. Everyone was so thin.” He paused. “My lord, that’s the way things are in America. We buy, sell, and indenture, and don’t ask too many questions.” He reflected a moment, as though groping about in his memory. “There was something about a rising in Dublin. Papa could tell you.”

If that’s the way things are, good riddance to the colonies , Lord Ragsdale thought. He was spared any comment on the hypocrisies of American government, because Robert was warming to his subject.

“Papa was looking for a clerk who could cipher. He stood there with the other buyers, calling out what he wanted. You know, someone was yelling ‘Seamstress,’ and someone else, ‘Blacksmith,’ and another, ‘Cordwainer.’ Quite a racket in that barn,” Robert explained. “Anyway, they must have been an ignorant lot of bog-trotters, because no one responded to any trades.”

“Were they all Irish?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Then that explains it,” Lord Ragsdale said. “You’ve never seen a more illiterate bunch of popish bead rubbers than the Irish. The only exertion they are capable of is breeding like rabbits.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know that,” Robert said. “Anyway, Papa called out ‘clerk,’ one more time, hoping for a miracle, and Emma stepped forward.” Robert smiled at the memory. “I thought she was daft, and Papa even more daft for considering her.” He sighed and lay back down again.

“Well?” John prompted.

“She wasn’t wearing much more than a shift, her hair was nasty-looking, and her feet were bare, but Papa snapped off a string of figures, and she added it all in her head.” His cousin’s eyes closed again. “Papa wouldn’t let her ride in the carriage because she had lice, so she walked behind the carriage all the way home.”

Lord Ragsdale shook his head. The Emma in his best sitting room this afternoon was a woman with an unmistakable air of elegance, no matter how shabby her clothes. What a strange day this was. “She was your father’s clerk, then?” he prompted.

Robert was a moment replying, and Lord Ragsdale resisted the urge to give his shoulder a shake. “No. Mama wouldn’t hear of it. Said it was indecent for any female, servant included, to tote up figures and do bookkeeping in the tobacco barn, and besides, she wanted a maid for Sally. So there you are. She’s been with us five years. I could check her papers, but I think she has two years to run on her indenture.”

Lord Ragsdale chewed on those facts for only a few moments, but it was long enough for Robert to begin the steady, even breathing of sleep. His questions would have to wait. “How odd,” he murmured out loud as he watched his cousin another moment and then snuffed the candle with his fingers. He sat there another moment and then left the room quietly.

Lasker, keys in hand, met him in the hall. He bowed. “Good night, my lord. Is there anything else you will be needing?”

Lord Ragsdale shook his head. He almost asked the butler where they had found room for Emma but changed his mind. Such a question would seem presumptuous, as though Lasker didn’t know his own business well enough to make arrangements, no matter how cramped things were belowstairs. And if Emma ended up sleeping next to the coal chute, what concern was it of his?

He retired to his room, tugged off his boots, and settled on the bed with a full bottle of brandy in his lap and another on the night table. He avoided even a glance at his overflowing desk, hoping it would go away. The late hour, followed by a swallow or two of brandy and then another, permitted philosophy to override misanthropy. While he could not overlook entirely the desire to bolt the metropolis, he decided that he could tolerate the remaining few months of this London Season.

There was no question that he owed his mother and cousin the favor of an escort, he thought as he drank steadily. And while he was doing his duty, he could peruse the females who frequented Almack’s and other venues of quality, find a lady not wanting in too many particulars, and make her an offer. He had money enough to make Croesus a loan; barring his absent eye, his parts were all present and easy to look upon; he was healthier than most of his acquaintances. “Ah, yes, I will do well enough in the marriage mart,” he told the ceiling. “I doubt this will require overmuch exertion.”

He took another swig or two from the brandy bottle and then set it carefully on the floor. To his surprise, the bottle fell on its side; to his further surprise, nothing spilled out. He leaned off the bed and regarded the bottle. I must advise Lasker not to be taken in by the vintner , he thought. It seems that he is buying smaller bottles than he used to.

The next bottle went down faster than the first. Lord Ragsdale considered an expedition down the stairs to the wine cellar for more but discarded the notion. The room seemed to be shrinking, and he did not think he could get out of the door before it disappeared altogether. Such an odd phenomenon , he considered as he unbuttoned his trousers, loosened his neckcloth, and closed his eye.