Authors: Escapade
“Well, here comes a story I’ve already heard,” the squire said, slapping his beefy hands on his knees before standing up and turning to look down at Imogene. “Would you care for a turn around the block in the boy’s fine rented carriage, my lady? I’d like to see a bit of London whilst I’m here, and I’d be honored to have your company. Besides, it’s not good to have the horses standing too long, the way I see it.”
Simon covered a laugh with a cough as he watched his mother do her best imitation of a maidenly simper—and a woman built less for simpering he’d yet to encounter. “Why, I’d be delighted, kind sir,” she said, hopping to her feet with such alacrity she nearly stepped on the man’s toes before he could move away and offer her his arm. “We’ll just have Roberts run off upstairs and get Kathleen to fetch my shawl and bonnet.”
Tall
, Imogene then mouthed silently to Callie and Lester as she turned her head back over her shoulder on her way out of the room, her grin wide and pleased—but not half as wide and satisfied as was Robert’s own grin as he stood just in the hallway, a bonnet already in one hand, a paisley shawl in the other.
“Could I interest you in a glass of claret Sir Camber? Anyone else?” Simon asked, then said that he hoped they could dispense with formalities while the four of them spoke, an offer of friendship and camaraderie with which both gentlemen readily agreed.
“I never made it to India, actually,” Justyn said a few minutes later, once all of them were seated in comfortable chairs in the center of the room. “My last post to you was from Italy, wasn’t it, brat? Yes, I thought so. I wrote that letter while still aboard ship, then went ashore, posted it, and met my destiny—all within a day.”
“Your destiny, Justyn?” Callie asked, sitting forward, on the edge of her seat both physically and with her obvious eagerness to hear everything he had to say. Simon watched her face, believing the love for her brother he saw there made her even more beautiful than she had been before. If he had ever wondered why a young girl would go to such lengths to avenge her brother, he would wonder no more. There was a very special love between this brother and sister, and Simon felt suddenly excluded, and rather slighted in not having been blessed with a sibling or two of his own.
Justyn took a sip of claret before answering. “Yes, Callie, my destiny, melodramatic as that may sound. It was on the docks that it happened—and I’ll do my best to keep this short and simple, as Papa has already heard the story. The ship was being unloaded and a young boy had broken away from his nurse and wandered onto the docks. There was a shout and I turned to see the boy in danger of being knocked into the water by a whacking great load of swinging cargo. Without really giving it much thought, I ran over to him, snatched him up—and met my destiny. Actually, I didn’t meet her until I’d been unconscious for a few days, as the cargo that missed the boy gave me a glancing blow on the head that rattled my brains for a while.”
“You could have been killed!” Callie exclaimed, then frowned. “Justyn, did you say
her
?”
He nodded, smiling “Signorina Bianca Alessandra di Giulia, daughter of Conte Alessandro Antonio Giacomo di Giulia, the most sweet, beautiful, wondrous creature in the entire world—and my wife. She’s waiting for us in our father’s house, for she’s increasing, and the trip from Rome was marred by more than one storm, so that she told me she couldn’t face any more travel right now.”
“I—I—you have a—and there’s going to be a—oh, Justyn!” Callie exclaimed, throwing herself into his arms. “I can’t believe it. Why didn’t you say anything last night? You must have been dying to tell me. That’s above everything wonderful.”
“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” he said, smiling at Simon over an armful of Callie. “Unless you choke me to death, brat, leaving my poor Bianca a widow.”
“Oh! Oh, I’m sorry,” Callie said, retaking her seat and smiling her thanks to Simon, whose only function thus far had been to offer her his handkerchief so that she might wipe her moist eyes. “There’s more, isn’t there, Justyn? I can see it in your eyes. Tell me the rest of it.”
“Like my friend, the squire, I’ve heard all this before. And, happy as I am, I think I’ll get myself another drink, if nobody minds, and take m’self off to that corner over there,” Sir Camber said, rising. “Didn’t sleep a wink all night, I didn’t, on that lumpy mattress at the Pulteney. Might just take you up on your offer to stay here in Portland Place, Your Ladyship, just for the good night’s sleep it might gain me.”
Imogene, who had returned to the room to fetch her reticule, appeared ready to drool at this dose of good fortune. “That would be wonderful, I’m sure. The three of you, all sharing our humble roof? Yes, yes indeed. Above all things wonderful. I’ll just go tell Emery before the squire and I are off.”
“Justyn?” Callie prompted, as Imogene minced away again, doing her best not to look at the sight of the woman in a feminine simper.
Her brother spread his hands almost apologetically as he looked to Simon. “What else? Well, I’m waist deep in money, as luck would have it. For one thing, Bianca’s father settled a ridiculously large fortune on me for having saved her little brother,” he said. “I thought to turn him down, as I wasn’t planning on being a hero or anything like that, but he made me see the sense of the money, as Bianca is accustomed to wealth. Bianca’s papa is a great believer in not standing in the way of true love, but he wasn’t about to see his only daughter living in poverty. And so I’ve come home, the prodigal returned as it were. To have you all meet my dearest Bianca, to have our first child born in England, to pay back Papa for all the heartache I have caused him—and to get some of my own back from one Noel Kinsey, Earl of Filton. Do you know him, my lord?”
“Oh, dear,” Callie breathed, also looking at Simon, her eyes more filled with apprehension than interest. Apprehension, and warning.
“I’m vaguely acquainted with the man, yes, and a more unlovely fellow would be difficult to find,” Simon answered carefully. Then he asked, “What do you have planned for him?”
Justyn smiled at his sister. “I met a man aboard ship, brat, a most wonderful old fellow. You would have adored him. We spent all of our time talking together and playing at cards, weeks and weeks of playing at cards. Oh, the things that clever man taught me! And do you know something?” he went on, his eyes narrowed. “Filton
cheats
.”
“Imagine that,” Simon breathed quietly, earning himself a swift, killing look from Callie.
“Yes, my lord,” Justyn said feelingly, “imagine that. I don’t know how I could have been so green, so easily duped. But I’m the wiser for it, let me tell you, and now I’m going to seek Filton out and win back every penny I lost to him, and then some. I want to bring him low, destroy him if that’s possible.”
Simon looked to Callie again. “Imagine that,” he repeated. “You know, the more I look at the two of you, the more I can see the resemblance between you and your sister,” he then added, wondering how long it would be before Callie threw something at him.
Just then there was a commotion in the hallway and Roberts ran in to say that her ladyship had made it down the stairs well enough, then sat down on a bench in the foyer, waiting for the carriage to be brought round—and fainted dead away into the squire’s arms... and would Miss Johnston please come right away, as the squire is starting to open her ladyship’s buttons and that couldn’t be at all proper, could it?
“We ought just to leave her,” Callie complained, hopping to her feet. “Fainting’s the only rest she’s been getting this past week or more, to hear her tell it. Now, not a another word until I return, you hear me,” she warned tightly. Then she followed after Roberts, who was telling her that two of the other footmen were supporting Her Ladyship and all that was needed until the poor dear roused was a woman present, to make things “proper.”
“Of course,” Simon promised. Then, waiting until he heard Callie’s heels clicking on the marble staircase, he leaned forward and began quietly, so that a near-to-dozing Sir Camber didn’t overhear, “I think, Justyn, my very new but soon to be very good friend, that you and I should meet privately at White’s at, say, one o’clock today, to join with two other friends of mine, and to have ourselves a small talk...”
—Francis Beaumont
Chapter Fifteen
C
allie was yawning into her hand as she heard the door to Simon’s chamber opening, signaling his return from his long day and evening spent gambling with Noel Kinsey. She sat up straighter where she sat, cross-legged and at her ease, which happened to be in the very center of Simon’s high, wide bed.
“It’s about time you found your way home,” she announced baldly, arranging her white-muslin dressing gown, which covered her from throat to toe and was, she believed, about as alluring, and seductive, as an empty grain sack.
Simon stopped where he was, lifted the small brace of candles he carried, and peered in the direction of the bed. “I must be slipping. I should have known she’d be here,” he said quietly, and to nobody in particular, or so it seemed as he then approached the bed and set down the candlestick. “Just champing at the bit to know everything that’s going on with Filton, aren’t you, brat?”
“On the contrary,” Callie responded, stung. As if she’d stoop to
begging
to find out what she wanted to know! “Tomorrow will be soon enough for me, at which time I’ll quite easily pry it all out of Justyn. Unless you want to tell me first?” she added, for that was the reason she was there. She wanted to hear everything about their encounter with Noel Kinsey. About Justyn’s behavior when confronted with the man.
Not that she’d admit that to Simon. Especially after he was so correct in knowing why she had dared to invade his bedchamber.
“I’m only here to report to you about my day since you spirited my only brother out of Portland Place and left me here to fend for myself,” she continued firmly, her chin held high, when he remained silent to her suggestion.
He arched one eyebrow at her, provocatively, maddeningly. “Really?”
“Yes,
really
.” How strange it was to care for somebody so much, and yet want to box his ears at the same time. “You may have taken me out of the plans for Noel Kinsey, but that doesn’t mean I’ve got nothing to do but sit here and twiddle my fingers while you play at conspirator and Imogene makes a cake of herself with the squire. Your lies have set me up as an heiress, remember? You’ve introduced me to Society,
foisted
me on Society, as it were. Ah, you look surprised. As well you might, sir. Noel Kinsey is not your only problem at the moment, and mine, for once, aren’t the only fibs that must be maintained, perhaps confessed. However, even though this does present a problem—for
you
—I must admit I’ve had a vastly entertaining day, to say the least.”
“How gratifying for you. Entertaining, you say? In what way? Pardon my informality, but I’ve felt I’ve had my neck in a noose all night.”
She watched Simon lift his chin so that he could begin untying his intricate cravat, then slide the snowy white muslin from his throat. It amazed her, how at ease she felt here in his bedchamber, how at ease he himself seemed to be, with her sitting in the middle of his bed. There was something to be said for first crying friends with the man you loved. And she did love him. Madly. Not that she’d tell him. Oh no. That admission was going to have to come first from him. He owed her that much after tricking her about his plans for Filton, for making her feel the gullible fool.
“Are you going to tell me about your day, or make me guess? In what way was it so entertaining?” Simon prodded when she didn’t answer. He sat down on the edge of the coverlet Silsby had turned back hours ago, before Callie had given the valet permission to retire early—or go chase Scarlet around the carving table in the kitchens, whichever suited him best.
She stretched out her legs on the bed, allowing her bare feet to poke out from the hem of her dressing gown, and leaned back against the mound of full, soft pillows. “Well,” she began, then took a deep breath and went on quickly, “it would appear that I am a smashing success, if you must know. The drawing room, the music room, the breakfast room, and my bedchamber—all are filled to the brim with flowers from my devoted admirers. Nosegays, bouquets, even a potted palm—why on earth would anyone send someone else a potted palm?—began arriving almost the moment you and Justyn did your flit.”
“We did not do a
flit
, brat. We left. Men do that. Women entertain callers, and men go to their clubs.”
“Whatever,” Callie said, shrugging, then peered up at him from beneath her lashes.
“Ah, the flirt is back! You can’t wait for tomorrow, can you? You can’t wait for Justyn to feed you everything you want to know. Is Filton pockets-to-let yet? Was he devastated to have missed his chance to meet the great Johnston heiress, crushed to discover that her brother Justyn, also demmed deep in the pockets, has finally learned his way around a fuzzed card? Is the man destroyed, broken? Have I, just to please you, then gone and shot him in the knee, to bring home our lesson? Oh, the questions that must be buzzing around in that inventive head of yours.”
Callie bit her lip, refusing to be baited. “Wrong, wrong, and
wrong
. I couldn’t care less. Truly. The world doesn’t revolve around you, you know. Now, if I might continue with my story?
Thank
you. Where was I? Oh yes. Imogene was highly put out that only five gentlemen chose to bring me candy, but she’s manfully making do with one particularly large box crammed with chocolates she had sent up to her rooms. We then learned that the squire cannot come within ten paces of a room holding roses or else go into a fit of sneezing likely to blow out the windows. He and Papa took themselves back to the Pulteney dining room, leaving your mama to lament the loss of ‘dear Bertram’ all the afternoon long—
that
was mightily depressing, I can tell you, much as I adore your mama. It’s very lowering, watching a strong woman go all soft and mooning and simpleminded. I mean, all he did was undo her buttons.”