The Marrying Season (37 page)

No doubt Elora hoped to bring about a favorable report of her to Myles, Genevieve thought sourly. The best thing about the past few days had been not having to see Lady Dursbury flirting with Genevieve’s husband.

Elora wasted no time in plunging into Genevieve’s problems. “You must have been so shocked, Lady Thorwood, as was I, to hear of the rumors about Lady Genevieve. Of course, anyone who knows her, as I do, would never believe such a thing of her. I trust you will endeavor to pay them no attention whatsoever.”

If Elora had hoped to be urged to expound on these problems, she had little success, for Lady Julia simply smiled. “Indeed. I do not acknowledge such unfounded nonsense. Do you live in London year-round, Lady Dursbury?”

“Yes, since the death of my dear husband. While he was alive, we spent most of our time at home on his estate. I have not had the fortitude to go back there yet because of the memories.”

“Ah, of course. I have always found I am comforted by my memories of my husband.”

“Indeed. Indeed.” Elora nodded. “No doubt in a bit, when the pain has faded.” She smiled wistfully and turned to Nell. “And you, my dear, are you enjoying your visit to London?”

“Oh, yes. We’ve been to the Tower, and Myles has promised to take us to a show at Astley’s. One of the maids said that Bartholomew Fair is in town the next few days, and it has amazing things to see. There are wire walkers and jugglers and puppet shows, as well as a man who swallows swords. But I have not convinced Genevieve to take me,” she added regretfully.

“Oh, my! I have not dared to go myself,” Elora said. “No doubt you will think me a poor thing indeed, but I am certain it would be much too exciting for me. I have heard that women have fainted from the suspense in the theatricals.”

“Really?” Nell looked doubtful. “I wouldn’t faint.”

“No, I am sure you would not. But you must not go to it alone, you know,” Elora added needlessly, since Nell had not suggested that she was about to. “ ’Twould be most naughty. And I am sure you would find it much too shocking for one of your tender years.”

Elora could not have said anything more likely to
make Nell determined to go the fair, Genevieve thought with disgust. Now Genevieve would have to wheedle Myles into taking her and Nell, for Nell would be obsessed with it. Genevieve had little interest in going, but she had to admit, with an inner smile, that she would not mind convincing Myles to escort them.

Genevieve lifted the curtain a
fraction and peered out the carriage window. The street in front of the print shop was quiet today. As the days had passed with nothing to show for it, she and Myles had gradually stopped keeping an eye on the visitors to the newspaper, especially now that her social duties had picked up. But this morning, feeling restless after Myles had left the house, Genevieve decided to spend an hour or two by herself in the carriage, keeping watch.

Genevieve sat a little straighter as a woman came into view, walking toward Genevieve’s vehicle. Something about her was faintly familiar. When she turned into the print shop, Genevieve’s interest was piqued even more. Picking up the collapsible spyglass Myles had left in the side pocket of the carriage after their earlier expeditions, she pulled it out full length. As the door to the shop opened again, Genevieve put the glass to her eye and trained it on the door.

The woman stepped out of the shop and glanced down the street before turning away and starting back in the direction she had come. Genevieve stared after her, her heart racing. She was positive that was the woman
who had run from her and Damaris and Thea. The maid who had given Genevieve the false note from Myles.

Genevieve leaned out the carriage window and called up to their driver, “Follow that woman. There, in the brown dress.”

He lifted his hat in acknowledgment and called to the boy to release the team’s heads, then started forward. He kept a slow pace, maintaining a distance behind the woman, though once or twice he had to pull the horses to a halt to let her get ahead again. Genevieve’s mind raced, wondering what she should do when the woman reached her destination. If Genevieve got out to confront her, she might well run again, and while this time Genevieve felt sure her vehicle would not desert her, it was not always easy for a carriage and team to follow a person, particularly if they wound up in the narrow, crooked streets of some of the older parts of the city.

The woman got on an omnibus, and the carriage rolled after it. Genevieve hoped the driver would be able to maintain his view of the woman. To her surprise, the carriage headed toward Mayfair. She reasoned that the woman had probably gotten employment again in the area. The woman exited the omnibus and began to walk up the street toward a small, unenclosed park, where she turned in. The driver passed the park, pulling to a stop just beyond the entrance. Genevieve lifted the curtain a crack and peered through it. The maid walked over to a bench, where another woman sat. The woman on the bench lifted her head.

Genevieve’s jaw dropped. She knew that woman. It was Miss Halford’s personal maid.

So it
had
been Iona Halford who had arranged for Genevieve’s problems! It made sense, and though Genevieve would once have said the girl was too meek to do something so outrageous, she had seen the fire Iona was capable of bringing up where Lord Dursbury was concerned. The young lady who had accosted her in Gunter’s might well be capable of setting out to ruin Genevieve.

Genevieve waited as the two women talked briefly. Iona’s maid handed the other girl a small pouch and a folded note, both of which she quickly pocketed. Then both women left the park, the woman Genevieve had followed turning to go back the way she had come, and Iona’s abigail walking quickly toward Genevieve’s carriage, her head down.

Genevieve opened the door and slipped out of her carriage. When the maid grew close, Genevieve stepped directly into her path. Startled, the girl raised her head and came to a halt, eyes widening. Whipping around, the girl took off at a run.

Genevieve ran after her. If this chase came to light, her grandmother would flay her alive, but Genevieve was not about to let this opportunity slip out of her fingers. Lifting her skirts almost to her knees, she pounded down the sidewalk, her much longer legs eating up the distance between them. Behind her, the coachman made a startled noise and the carriage began to rumble down the street after her.

Genevieve was afraid she would have to launch herself at the girl and send them into an undignified heap on the ground, but the maid made the mistake of glancing back at Genevieve, and she caught her foot on a paving stone and went tumbling to the ground.

Genevieve was on her in an instant, wrapping her hand around the girl’s arm and yanking her to her feet. “Oh!” Genevieve exclaimed loudly, in case anyone was watching. “What a nasty fall you took. Here, let me help you.”

“Let go of me!” The maid twisted and jerked, but she could not break Genevieve’s hold. “Why’re you chasing me? I din’t do nothing wrong.” Her voice settled into a whine.

“Really? Then why did you run?” Genevieve cast a glance around and saw that they were still alone on the street except for her driver, so she dropped her pretense of help and said harshly, “Don’t even think of running. Now, get in the carriage. If you tell me what I want to know, I won’t hurt you.”

After a last desperate look up the street, the girl slumped and went to the carriage, her hands clenching together. Genevieve pushed her in and climbed in behind her.

“You are Miss Halford’s maid, isn’t that right?”

The other girl nodded. “Yes, miss.”

“What’s your name?”

The girl looked troubled, but she finally mumbled, “Tansy Mullins, miss.”

“All right, Tansy. I think you know what I want to learn from you.”

“I can’t tell you, miss. I swear I can’t. She’ll turn me out without a recommendation.” Tears welled in the girl’s eyes.

“Miss Halford need not know I heard it from you,” Genevieve told her encouragingly.

“Miss Halford!” The girl let out a harsh laugh. “I’m not talking about Miss Iona. It’s her ladyship!”

Genevieve stiffened. “Do you mean Lady Dursbury? Elora?”

“Of course, miss! You don’t think it’d be Miss Iona who’d do such things!”

“What things?” Genevieve asked quickly.

“No, miss, please don’t ask me. I can’t! You don’t know what she’s like!”

“I think I have a fairly good idea,” Genevieve said drily. “But it is Miss Halford for whom you work. You said she’s not like Elora. Surely she won’t turn you out for telling me.”

“Oh, no, miss, it’s her ladyship as hired me, not Miss Iona. Miss Iona was his lordship’s ward, and it was her ladyship set me up as Miss Iona’s abigail.”

“Still, I think it must be Miss Halford who pays you. She would not allow Lady Dursbury to let you go.”

“She wouldn’t go against her ladyship.” Tansy shook her head vehemently. “She never would.”

“Well, there is no need for either one of them to know.” Genevieve decided to try a different tack. “I certainly won’t tell them where I got the information.”

“But she’ll know! I know she will!”

Genevieve felt a pang of sympathy for the girl, who looked stricken with fear. However, she could not let pity get the better of her. Right now she had to be a Stafford through and through. She straightened to her full height and fixed the maid with the full force of her icy gaze. “Do you know who I am, Tansy?”

“Yes, miss.” She nodded. “You’re the lady what was going to marry his lordship.”

“I am far more than that. I am Lady Genevieve Thorwood, and my brother is the Earl of Rawdon. We are not a pleasant lot to cross. My ancestors used to put their enemies to the sword, and I can promise you that if you do not tell me what I want to know, I will make certain you regret it for the rest of your life.”

Tansy gulped, staring at her with wide eyes.

Genevieve relaxed a little and smiled, offering the maid the carrot after the stick. “Now, Tansy, I assure you that I can find you another position. My grandmother and I know a great many women who are frequently hiring new maids. If you want to leave that house, whether Lady Dursbury discovers you told me or not, I will see that you get hired somewhere else. In the meantime”—Genevieve reached into her reticule and withdrew her coin purse, holding up a bright gold coin—“I can give you something to ease your way.”

Tansy’s eyes grew as large as the coin in Genevieve’s hand. She looked from it to Genevieve, clearly torn between hope and fear. “Oh, miss . . . do you mean it?”

“I do indeed.” Genevieve held out the coin to her.

Tansy chewed at her lower lip, looking away from the lure of the gold and then back. Finally, she reached out and grabbed the coin, sticking it inside her shirt in a furtive motion.

“Did Lady Dursbury hire the other girl as well? The one you just met in the park?” Genevieve hoped that a question a bit removed from the maid herself might get her talking.

“Yes, miss.” Tansy nodded. “That’s Hattie, me cousin. Her ladyship asked me to find another girl, someone working at the Morecombes’, so I sent Hattie to try to get hired on for the party, see. I figured she might as well make the money as anybody else.”

“But why did Elora use you? Why not her own maid?”

“Her? She’s a foreigner. French, now, isn’t she? She don’t know anybody round here. Won’t even talk to the rest of us, thinks she’s too good. And her ladyship knew she could get me to do it. She—she’s been having me spy on Miss Iona ever since she hired me.”

“Spy on Miss Halford? But why?”

“I dunno.” Tansy shrugged. “She never does anything her ladyship don’t already know about. Miss Iona’s under that one’s thumb, isn’t she, just like the rest of the house. So I never had to tell her nothing that . . . that hurt Miss Iona, really. I just told her how Miss Iona moons about over his lordship and how she worries about what to do about this or that. Or what hat Miss Iona admired in the milliner’s window. Like that. Then maybe her ladyship’ll
buy that hat for Miss Iona, make her grateful to her. Like her ladyship knows her so well and is so kind and all. And if she knows Miss Iona’s scared of something, then her ladyship uses it, you know, to get Miss Iona to do something she wants.”

“How diabolical!”

“How what?” Tansy looked at Genevieve blankly.

“How cruel.”

“Yes’m, she is.”

“So she hired you to do this thing to me because she was already using you.”

Tansy snorted. Now that she had gotten started, she seemed eager to talk, the words rolling out with the force of long-held resentment. “She didn’t
hire
me. Not that one. She don’t pay me extra; I don’t make as much as that fancy French maid of hers. She knows I won’t quit—where would I go? If I don’t do what she wants, she’ll tell Miss Iona how I’ve been spying on her for years, and she’ll let me go. She won’t give me a recommendation. More than that, her ladyship will tell any other lady that hired me that I was wicked, that I stole from her and such. She told me she would. Whenever I balk at doing something she wants, that’s what she says. I daren’t not do it. Miss Iona’d be that hurt, and she’d hate me. She wouldn’t keep her from tossing me out.”

“We’ll see about that.” Genevieve’s eyes were bright with a cold, hard light. “Don’t worry. I think Iona might feel differently if she knew the whole of it, and even if she
does not, I’ll see you get hired by someone much better than Lady Dursbury.”

“Wouldn’t be hard to be better than her,” the girl muttered.

Genevieve chuckled. “There. You’ve got some spirit. That’s good.” Genevieve smiled at the girl. “Now, tell me, why did Lady Dursbury set up the scene in the library?”

“It was to help Miss Iona get his lordship. Her ladyship didn’t, well, she didn’t much like you.” Tansy cast a worried glance over at Genevieve.

“So Elora didn’t want me marrying her stepson?”

“She liked being the queen bee. His lordship let her go on running it after his father died. Her ladyship figured he would marry Miss Iona. Only then they went to that wedding, and he wanted to marry you instead. You outshine my poor miss, you see. But her ladyship wasn’t going to let that happen. If my miss married him, she’d still let her ladyship run things; that’s just always been the way of it, you see. But you, now . . .”