10. Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

She was officially a spy.

Practically a spy.

Kind of like a spy. Doing things very much akin to the type of things that a spy might do.

Just because it was something she had undertaken a dozen times before didn’t make it any less spy-esque.

Because today, she had a purpose beyond gossip and making small talk with the guests. She would ask questions in the hopes of finding answers within the answers. Layers of meaning. Nuance.

Phineas had been very specific with his instructions. Find out how he’s spending money on her. Does she have her own accommodations? How often do they travel? Any new jewellery, special gifts, has he been visiting a little less than she’d expect? Then we’ll know if what they’re up to is making money. Are they here for a short stay or for longer? Who else does he meet with? That should give us a place to start.

Mother had never liked to mingle with the guests, but Rosanna had relished the invitations at every opportunity. When younger, she’d convinced her father to allow her to accompany him to work. She had always chosen her best dress, kept her shoes clean on the journey across town, and scrutinised her nails in the hopes that the guests would ask her to join them in the dining room. She’d been something of a little doll at their tables—the trussed-up daughter of the man who made their London stays so comfortable. She could recite short poems, tell innocent jokes, and would often be invited for tea or a cup of hot chocolate so that she could revive stale conversation between people who’d been in one another’s company for too long.

At these gatherings, she had learnt the essential manners of being a lady in a way that no governess could teach. She’d learnt how to hold a false smile and how to deliver a quip with a sincere expression. How to file a criticism away for another day, and how to shift a conversation on behalf of another when words touched a delicate memory. Finishing school had given her manners. The Aster’s dining room had taught her how to wield them as both a shield and a weapon.

The Aster fronted a wide boulevard opposite the sprawling parklands. In a flip on the general order of things, guests entered through a small, discreet foyer on a quiet side street, rather than through attention-seeking front doors. This way, Father said, he could more easily control things—keep the path free of mess and manure, tend to the trees so that they always looked healthy, ensure his own lighting was both warm and welcoming. Other places trumpeted their guests as an extension of the advertising. Aster made them feel like they were special, more like a family member returned home.

The dining room to the left of the entrance shone with mid-afternoon light from the arched windows which ran along the wall facing the main thoroughfare. Guests loitered in here, ordered a second pot of tea, or in the evenings, brandy. Lunches extended into the afternoon. They watched the world go by and made comment on those they could see from behind the refuge of ivy and roses which framed each window. This was a place where they could see and not be seen, unless they chose otherwise.

Rosanna moved to the arched entrance in front of the dining room, and patrons turned in her direction. Conversations shifted to whispers. A few people threw covert glances in her direction, then huddled into discussion. She had chosen her dress with care in the hopes of emanating the same image of status and fashionable elegance that she’d crafted since she’d entered society, but now she wavered in her decision. Perhaps the red velvet bows over black and white gingham were too much for the wife of a clerk, even one who was the daughter of a successful businessman. Perhaps she should have chosen something simpler and more in line with who she had become. But who had she become? And who was she going to be?

‘Use it.’

Rosanna startled and shot a quick side glance at Phineas, who had sidled up beside her. ‘Where did you get a waiter’s uniform from? How did you find a waistcoat with the hotel crest—’

‘Not important.’ Dressed in the simple black and white uniform, his hair combed slick, and one hand crooked behind his back, almost everything about Phineas’s stance and appearance mirrored that of a member of the Aster waitstaff. Only his eyes betrayed him as he scanned the room as if searching for something instead of merely observing.

‘Someone will recognise you,’ she whispered.

‘No one in this room looks beyond the waistcoat.’ Phineas gestured with a movement that could have formed part of a general conversation between an employee and their senior. ‘The whispers, the rumours. They are curious about you. Use it to your advantage.’ Phineas nodded at a table by the central window on the opposite side of the room. ‘In Edinburgh, Mr Redgrave had a finger in every untoward contract that went bad. Men at clubs complain about him constantly, but those he targets lack both the courage and the funds to challenge him. The woman claiming to be Mrs Redgrave is having tea with Miss Summers, who is new to town. They are awaiting Mrs Vincent. What do you know about her?’

‘Miss Summers? Nothing. But Mrs Vincent has been staying with us for years, although the Mr Vincent that she dines with each day is not her husband but his brother. Her husband passed away three years ago. The staff are always gossiping. They say they rarely make up his bed.’

Phineas nudged her with his elbow. ‘They have secrets. Give them breathing space from the fear of making a slip. Your own circumstances will be a welcome distraction.’

‘Miss Hempel? I mean, Mrs…’

Rosanna extended her hand towards the newcomer. ‘Mrs Babbage. Good afternoon, Mrs Vincent.’

‘It all happened so fast! We barely had time to catch the fortunate groom’s name,’ Mrs Vincent replied.

A twist of anxiety sparked in her stomach. Gossip. She had become fodder for gossip.

‘ Use it ,’ Phineas muttered.

Use her embarrassment? Her humiliation? The abrupt alteration in her life’s trajectory? She wanted to growl at him like he did at her most mornings. But instead of his patronising scowl, she found him regarding her with a slight curve to his lips that could have been the beginning of a smile, with the hint of a dimple on his cheek. Could she turn the middling opinion of others to her advantage, like he seemed to think she could?

Rosanna turned to Mrs Vincent. ‘Given that we live beside one another, once we decided, there was no reason to wait.’

‘Not even for the banns to be read?’

‘I’m sure you felt the same about your own dear husband, may he rest in peace.’ Rosanna pinned her sweetest smile to her lips. ‘You must miss him terribly. Is that why you’ve come to town? In memory of past pleasures?’

Mrs Vincent’s stare narrowed, and she glanced at Rosanna’s waistline, as if searching for some hint of a scandalous explanation. Her curiosity unsatisfied, she turned to the dining room. ‘Would you join us for tea? We’d love to hear your story of impatient love.’

Rosanna looked at Phineas, bemused.

He winked. ‘Allow me to seat you,’ he said.

With a deceptive glint in his eye, Phineas led the way across the dining room to a circular table with room for six. It was currently hosting two ladies, one holding a champagne flute, the other sipping a cup of tea. Phineas pulled out the chair beside the woman who claimed to be Mrs Redgrave, and once Rosanna had settled, she leant back so that he could flick a serviette across her lap. Starch and soap, the familiar scent of the hotel laundry, invaded her next breath, along with the slightest tinge of his sweat and sternness. Leaving the seat beside her vacant, he moved to the next place and pulled out the chair for Mrs Vincent. Mrs Redgrave—or the dark-haired beauty claiming to be her—tapped at her glass, then sniggered. Phineas took a bottle of champagne from a stand and began to fill Mrs Redgrave’s glass, but before he could finish, she swiped it from the table. A few drops spilled and slid down the stem to land on the cloth, unnoticed by Mrs Redgrave, who took an energetic sip.

‘Do you know Miss Summers?’ Mrs Redgrave asked in a coarse whisper. ‘She’s tremendous fun, although she doesn’t look it.’

‘You are telling stories again, Mrs Redgrave.’ Miss Summers blushed and twisted her cup on its saucer. She glanced at Rosanna, her blue-grey eyes holding Rosanna’s for the briefest moment before she looked back to her tea. ‘We have not met, but I have heard of you. Congratulations on your nuptials. You must be so happy to be married.’

Mrs Redgrave leant back as Phineas poured her another glass. ‘Tell us all about your new husband. How are you finding married life?’

Phineas attended to her champagne flute next. He tilted it to the perfect angle, then began to pour. His mouth twitched the smallest bit before settling back into a thin, expressionless line.

‘My husband is so grumpy,’ she said as she lifted her glass from the table. ‘He cares entirely too much about small things like dirt from shoes or if I am using the same knife for jam and then marmalade. From day to day, I never quite know who he might be.’

He placed the bottle into the stand, gave an unacknowledged bow, and moved away. At the next table, he caught a napkin before it dropped to the floor. The guest thanked him, and he nodded in acknowledgement.

‘We’ve lived beside one another for years, yet it seems that until recently, we didn’t really know one another at all…’ Rosanna’s voice trailed off as she watched him work. All this time, she’d lived next to a man who carried out small, unacknowledged kindnesses like investing in Iris’s business and helping Arley and Vivienne… even feeding the cat. All while grumping at and baiting her father. Rather than bland, he was a conundrum.

‘I meant, what did you think about it ?’ Mrs Redgrave leant in close, her champagne-soaked breath rolling in a slurred whisper.

‘It?’ Rosanna asked.

‘You know. It . The one-eyed snake. The shifty pirate.’ Mrs Redgrave squinted one eye, wiggled her head a little, then sniggered before taking another gulp of champagne. ‘His appendage . Did it horrify you? My mother hadn’t told me what to expect, and I was completely bewildered when I dared to finally open my eyes in my marital bed.’

Rosanna fidgeted with discomfort at the memory of Phineas stripped to his waist, of the little stray droplet of water that caressed the lean lines of his chest. She had not been raised in an ignorant household—she was the eldest of ten children, after all. Her parents were pragmatic about such information, especially when it came to their daughters. But her knowledge of married life was exceedingly theoretical, consisting of anatomical descriptions and a lesson on the creation of babies. She understood what went where, and how a life began, but beyond that… What would the experience entail? Pleasure or horror? Would Phineas, all hard edges and rough skin, reveal all his secrets to her and treat her tenderly? Would he take care with an intimate education as he pressed his firm body against her? Or would he be rough and roguish and use her as it pleased him?

Heat crept along her neck. ‘I… I… Uhm… He’s very… and I was…’

Mrs Vincent laughed. ‘Leave her be. Mrs Redgrave is too brash. Look at her, still in the flush of early marriage. She’s likely still lying stiff, knees akimbo, counting down until it’s over.’

‘Counting?’ Rosanna asked. No one had ever mentioned mathematics being involved.

‘Try it.’ Mrs Redgrave took up her flute and chuckled. ‘I can’t imagine intimacies with a clerk are overly inventive.’

‘Should he be inventive, or should I be?’ Her face burned hot, and warm needles ran along her back. All three of the ladies at the table laughed, loud and unabashed. This was worse than being scandalised. They pitied her.

‘We all thought you were going to make an agreement with the Marquess of Hanley’s son,’ Mrs Redgrave said through the last of her laughter. ‘Such a lovely young man. Here he is now. Lord Richard!’ Mrs Vincent half stood and waved across the room. ‘Join us.’

Thoughts of bodies, thoughts of married life, thoughts of anything else evaporated. Rosanna’s next breath shuddered through her as Lord Richard exchanged the usual etiquette across the table, then occupied the vacant chair beside her. Pleasantries and small talk bounced and hummed through the air, and Mrs Redgrave downed the last of her champagne. Rosanna could only try to breathe.

‘Mrs Babbage. It is Mrs Babbage now, isn’t it? How pleasant to see you.’ Lord Richard balanced his hat on his knee and twisted in his seat. He spoke with the same intimacy, the same comfort and companionship as he had the night when they’d walked through the park. When he had told her she was interesting and that he thought her family charming, when he had squeezed her fingers with one hand and reached into his pocket with the other. When her life had been dazzling and bright and her own.

Lord Richard placed a small white box tied with a pink ribbon onto the table before her. ‘I was going to leave this for you at the desk. I suppose you should think of it as a wedding gift.’

Rosanna stared at the little box. What would it be? Another flower or an animal or something surprising, like a dragon or a gondola? A kitten or a pair of scissors? How she longed to pick it up. To tug the ribbon, remove the lid, and feel the delight of being a young woman with a future opening before her. To feel fresh and new and fawned over. As she reached for the box, her wedding band glinted, and her fingers trembled.

Those days had been a lie. He had not helped her when she’d needed him. Phineas had.

Rosanna tucked her hands into her lap. ‘I am a married woman. I cannot wear jewellery gifted from a man who isn’t my husband.’

‘I hoped that maybe we might remain friends.’ He leant in a little closer, and his hand brushed against her knee, then withdrew, like it was an accident. He lowered his voice. ‘Or perhaps, something more? Despite the injury you made against me, I do think of you fondly.’

‘Against you? You left me,’ she accused. At the park, with him running, she’d been vulnerable and weak—what she hated most. Like some damsel who had to be rescued, and not by a prince but by the grumpy clerk next door. When she spoke, her voice cracked, and the sting of his rejection filtered through, bitter and too loud for polite society. ‘You just ran . Everyone thought I had been compromised. I had no choice but to marry.’

‘I tried to contact you. Did you not receive my letter?’

‘I didn’t want a letter. I wanted you to call on me!’ All her indignation at being made a laughing stock, at having her dreams snatched away, cascaded through her. ‘I needed help then . That man hit me, and Mrs Crofts and her society were all pointing at me.’

‘Mrs Babbage. There’s a message for you at the desk.’

Rosanna kept her stare straight ahead as she tried to tamp down her frustration and her fury. ‘It can wait.’

Phineas maintained his blank expression, but fury blazed in his eyes. ‘It’s from your husband.’

Rosanna shook her head. ‘I will collect it later.’

‘The messenger was most insistent.’ Phineas’s jaw clenched. ‘You absolutely must come to the desk and read it.’

Rosanna flung her serviette onto the table. ‘Fine. Let me see this message.’

Once out of view of the dining room, Phineas grasped her arm and tugged her down the service hallway leading to the laundry and drying rooms. With an irritated shove, he pushed her into an alcove. Rosanna spun and pressed her back to the decorative glass panel. Phineas’s normally stoic expression had turned dark with fury. ‘What was that?’

‘He blamed me for everything. Said I slighted him when he was the one who ran off! That no-good, lying—’

‘What about Mrs Vincent? What did you learn?’

Rosanna stopped, horrified. Apart from their brief discussion on snakes and pirates, she hadn’t spoken with the woman. She’d been too worried about herself.

Phineas swore under his breath. ‘This is why I work alone. This is why I shouldn’t even have tried to help you. I should have just left you—’

‘Why didn’t you?’ she shot back, all her anger at Lord Richard still roiling in her blood. ‘I didn’t ask you to help me, I didn’t—’

Phineas pushed her deeper into the alcove, pressing her hard against the wall, and covered her mouth with his palm. Rosanna squawked, but he held her firm, his tension and sternness stronger than her indignation. He hushed in her ear, then, low and coarse, muttered, ‘Shut it, Hempel.’

Ire roared through her, but in the tense moment between Phineas removing his hand and Rosanna drawing a furious breath, a thump came from nearby. She turned to the glass through which the indistinct shape of dark suits and tall men moved fuzzily, their bodies stark against the light walls.

One man grunted, and another swore. Phineas squashed closer. His chest, his thighs, every part of him aligned with her, his body all tight with frustration and disappointment. Her heart lurched before her memory caught up. One voice belonged to Lord Richard, and she’d bet her monthly allowance that the other came from the man from the park. The angry man who had hit her.

‘I’ll get the money,’ Lord Richard stammered. ‘I swear it—’

‘Mr Pennington don’t like being lied to. He likes to be paid. You said the chit had your money.’

‘Not with her,’ Lord Richard snapped. ‘Young ladies don’t carry their dowry with them when they go courting. I needed to marry her, but she turns everyone down. I was about to create a scenario where she couldn’t say no when you interrupted and botched it—’

‘And then you said,’ the man from the park’s voice became louder, ‘that you had her in the palm of your hand and that she’d be begging for an affair. That you’d convince her to sign some money over. But she doesn’t seem swayed by your charms.’

He hadn’t meant to propose—he’d meant to force her hand. That’s why he had led her into the garden. Not for some romantic gesture but to create a scandal. The realisation burnt bitter in her throat. All her fretting and care, all her attempts to show she was worthy of being the wife of a lord—and more, worthy of love—had been unnecessary. The pounds that were rumoured to be attached to her name were all he saw. All any of them saw.

Phineas pressed closer. His cheek touched hers, and their shallow breaths bloomed across the glass. His body softened as if, instead of interrogating her, he might create a cocoon.

‘Who’s her husband?’ the man from the park asked.

‘No one. Some bank clerk who lives in the next townhouse. Landed in a goldmine just for walking through the park at the right time.’

‘He smitten? If she was to go missing, would he pay to get her back or keep the money?’

‘You’ve seen her,’ Lord Richard said, his tone edged with innuendo.

Rosanna glanced at Phineas, but his expression remained impassive, his stare hard. As if he himself might pay the men to take her.

‘New plan. You’ll nab her one day when she’s out and send him a note. Her money for her. You said she was too uppity and didn’t care for rules. Won’t take long. This is just a roundabout way of getting the same coin.’

‘I am a gentleman. I cannot go about kidnapping young women—’ Lord Richard’s voice strangled, then squeaked.

‘Do it, or it’ll be your family getting the note about you .’

One last thump echoed through the hallway as the man from the park pushed Lord Richard against the wall, then left him to slide to the floor. His shadow shifted, a confident blur through the patterns in the glass. Lord Richard stumbled to his feet, bent in half, gave a strangled sob, and followed.

Rosanna clenched her teeth to tamp down tears. Her pride was still shattering into miniscule shards of foolishness.

‘Don’t leave the house unaccompanied,’ Phineas growled. ‘Take the groom when you go riding. Any other time you leave the house, it’s with me or your brother.’

‘Johannes wouldn’t hurt anyone. He’s strong because of his work, not because he’s a brute.’

Phineas stepped back and straightened his waistcoat. ‘Really, Hempel. I thought you above anyone would know that, in this city, appearances are all that matter.’