The Bad Baron's Daughter (12 page)

“Your nose is adorable, darling,” said Linden. He dropped his hand and turned to his younger brother. “My dear Drew, there’s really no need to gaze at me with that irritating expression of vacuous bewilderment.” Linden touched Ciaffa’s flank lightly with his heel. “Well, children, this stretch is deserted so I think it would be suitable for us to canter. Would you like that?”

Katie returned to Laurel’s with her cheeks flushed from the exercise and attention. It was the last of both she would receive for several days. Linden did not come again, and Laurel was mostly out. As before, Katie had nowhere to direct her thoughts other than toward her own problems, which seemed curiously unsolvable. A worrisome idea occurred to Katie: that her father might contact Zack and Zack might fail to relay the message to her. After all, Zack didn’t know where she was now and it was hardly likely that he would send her word through Lord Linden, considering the deception he’d practiced on him. This idea took hold of Katie’s mind and she began to brood on all kinds of fanciful contingencies. She imagined that her father had given Zack a ticket for her to travel to meet him in America; or perhaps a message that he had fled to the Continent and she was to come to him at a certain fashionable address in Paris. She became so agitated by these thoughts that she was moved to interrupt Laurel during her preparations for a ball to ask her if she would invite Linden to come so Katie could discuss these fears with him.

“Is this some kind of a jest?” demanded
la
Steele, leaning into the mirror to spread the rouge artistically over her wide cheekbones. “If you have forgotten the perverse reply I received the last time I sent Linden a message on your behalf, I have not! And if you think I’ll do it again,” she snapped, “you’re out of your mind. Linden will come in his own good time.”

Katie’s strategy in life had heretofore been defensive; her rearing had taught her to float astride the wave of events rather than shape them herself, but she was beginning to realize the pitfalls of allowing her life to drift, rudderless. She was imposing on Laurel, who owed her nothing, and on Linden, to whom she herself owed much. She would never be able to repay either of them now or in any foreseeable future, and this thought gnawed uneasily at the corners of her consciousness. If only she could find her father.

It was on the fourth morning after the day she had ridden with Linden and met Andrew that Katie resolved to visit Zack at
The Merry Maidenhead
. Even if Zack was ignorant of her father’s whereabouts, she could inform him of her new domicile, so he could contact her if the need arose. Any bitterness she felt toward Zack for his infamous plans for her was overshadowed, though not erased, by her need to locate her father. Katie had no confidence that the Bow Street Runners would find him. Zack was right; if her father was so much in debt, it was unlikely that he would let himself be found.

Katie donned a willow green walking dress, a dashing chip straw bonnet and a pair of kid boots, and left a note saying that no one was to worry, but she was off to
The Merry Maidenhead
to talk to Zack. Laurel was still abed and the servants were occupied with their morning tasks, so there was no one to see her as she slipped out the fan-lit doorway into the street. She could have taken a hack, as she had the fifty pounds that Zack had given her on the night he had taken her to Linden’s, but she had a strong repugnance toward the idea of spending it, as she had a very firm suspicion as to its source. She had never quite nerved herself enough to ask Linden if he had indeed paid Zack fifty pounds for her, though she decided ruefully that it was only too likely.

A tight, puffy fog groped through the streets, disguising the thoroughfares and lanes that were not very familiar to her in clear weather, so Katie was forced to stop often to squint at street signs and strain to make out landmarks that rose hollow and featureless from the fog. It was far to the Maidenhead, but not outrageously so to someone who was used to tramping mile after mile through the country—the gray billows kept Katie feeling hidden and protected until at last she arrived, damp but exhilarated, at
The Merry Maidenhead
,

The door to the Maidenhead was closed. Katie looked through the window, past the film of greasy dust and the streaking water droplets, to see Zack sitting inside, his elbows leaning on a rickety oak table. He was engaged in a lethargic conversation with Winnie and a husky young man with untidy, shortish hair and wire-rimmed glasses. Katie pushed open the door and went in.

Zack’s chair gave a sharp, rending squeak as it was pushed back hurriedly and then he was standing before Katie, taking her tiny chin into his hands and studying her face intently. “Katie?” he asked, his voice quiet.

Katie took a quick back step and pushed his hands away. “Yes, it’s me, you arch-traitor! I may as well tell you that I’ve come on a matter that’s strictly business and from now on you can call me Miss Kendricks and desist from any kind of touching.”

“Ho ho!” said Zack, with a credible expression of outraged integrity. “Is that so, Miss Kendricks?” Zack laid heavy emphasis on the Miss. “You come here, spruced up like St. Jacob’s goose and looking for all the world like you’ve landed in clover and then get mad at me for arranging it for you! Little ingrate! I suppose it would have suited your maidenly imagination better if I’d left you to Nasty Ned—you could have died martyred and pure and then maybe in three hundred years the church would have made a saint of you. You can’t humbug me into thinking you’d have liked that arrangement better than where you are now, Mouse-meat, no matter how many saucy names you call me!”

“You,” said Katie, simply and with a great deal of dignity, “don’t understand me.”

Zack rolled his eyes and tipped his head to the left. “That, at least, is God’s own truth! What did you come here for?”

“I wanted to see if you’d heard anything from Papa,” said Katie.

“Well, I ain’t,” he replied. “But since you’ve come, you might as well sit and take a glass of stingo with us. Winnie here’s been worried about you. Oh, this,” Zack gestured toward the young man with the wire-rimmed glasses, “is Patrick-Pat’s a damned radical crony of Winnie’s—they’ve been kidnapping together.”

“Kidnapping?” gasped Katie, her mind fastening on the word. She sank into a low bench that Zack had tugged forward for her. “I’m glad to see you, Winnie, but oh, never say you’ve kidnapped somebody?”

“Well, oi ‘ave,” confirmed Winnie stoutly. “Or, leastwise me radical cell ‘as. We’ve taken one o’ ‘is majesty’s admirals as a political ‘ostage ‘n we don’t mean ta give ‘im up ‘til our demands is met!”

Katie took a modest gulp of the strong beer Zack had slid onto the table before her. “What kinds of demands are they?” asked Katie, torn between sympathy for the unfortunate victim and an abounding curiosity.

Winnie shrugged. “Usual sorts o’ demands. Loike Westminster Abbey oughta be split into apartments fer war widows.”

“Oh,” said Katie, her face awash with doubt. “That sounds like a good thing, though I should think the widows would find it a trifle drafty. Has the government responded to your demands yet?”

“Na, they’s been ignorin’ ‘em,” admitted Patrick, entering the conversation. “But they’s bound ta cave in. Oi means, an admiral ain’t nobody.”

Katie had to admit this was true but could not forbear to ask anxiously what they intended to do with the admiral if the government remained adamant.

“Don’t be bird-witted, Kate,” recommended Winnie, “we’ll let th’ fellow go, o’ course. We can’t spend th’ rest o’ our lives guarding some rascally admiral. Couldn’t afford it neither. The fellow drinks loike a German ‘n it’s costing us a fortune ta keep ‘im in grog.”

“He must be a queer sort of admiral,” said Katie, disconcerted. “What’s his name?”

“Um…” said Winnie, “oi forgets. Calls ‘im ‘The Admiral’ mostly. ‘E’s Admiral… Entail… Entangle… no, I mean Enfield. Admiral Enfield.”

Zack shook his head derisively. “War widows, indeed! Bugger ‘em! The two of you will be lucky if you don’t end up adorning Tyburn Tree. You’re an odd pair of dogs.” He turned to Katie and looked her over closely, as if performing mental calculations as to the cost of her costume. “Linden’s got you decked out fine as a heifer on fair day. I’ll say one thing. The man ain’t pinchfisted.”

“He’s not,” said Katie, regarding Zack with dislike. “But it’s not he that has the dressing of me.” She leaned forward with the air of one who was about to make a momentous announcement, the trace of a small expectant smile beginning on her lips. “You’re the one who’s been dished, Zack. Because Linden didn’t seduce me, I haven’t become his mistress, and these aren’t his clothes. I’m living with a friend of his, Miss Laurel Steele, and these are her clothes.”

Zack stared at her for a moment, speechless. Then the blank look left his eyes and one side of his lip curved into a wry smile. “Dished, ditched and dinged! Laurel Steele? Queen of the Fashionable Impures? Are you going to tell me the tale or should I let my imagination fill in the details?”

She hastily sketched a picture of what had happened since Zack had left her on Linden’s doorstep.

Zack looked skeptical. “Well, I’ll never be moved from the opinion that you’ve made a rare muddle of a golden opportunity. And why Linden is helping you now is more than I can figure out; there’s nothing in it for him.” A light dawned in his eyes. “I suppose he’s decided to take his time with you. A slow seduction is more amusing for him than a quick rape.”

Katie flushed and jumped to her feet, upsetting the tarnished tankard she had been resting on her knees. A golden shower of frothy beer spread in all directions. “Zack, are you incapable of understanding that someone might do something out of kind motives?” she asked angrily. “Lord Linden isn’t like that. He’s…”

“They’re all like that,” interrupted Zack. “Don’t deceive yourself, darling. You don’t like what I’m saying, but I’m being honest with you.”

“Like you were being honest with me when you took me to Linden’s house and said he was a friend of yours? And said I would be safe there?” exclaimed Katie wrathfully. “Zack, I’ve trusted you since I was a baby and you turn around and sell me like a slave at auction! I can’t hate you for it because I understand you; I’ll probably even be able to forgive you someday. But not,” said Katie, jerking open the door, “for a while.”

She hunched against the penetrating damp, her running footsteps smacking the pavement.
The Merry Maidenhead
disappeared into the fog, but she heard Zack calling behind her. It was the closest she had come in her life to having a fight with someone, and she was shaken. Her shoulders ached and her stomach felt cold. Irregular shapes of passersby materialized and disappeared in the fog: a pieman, a group led by a link-boy carrying a flambeau. She hurried on and had nearly reached a cross avenue when a gruff voice hailed her.

“ ‘Ey, where ya goin’ in sech a ‘urry, missie?”

Katie hoped the voice was not directed at her and quickened her step.

“Say, wot’s th’ matter wi’ ya? ‘Avent ya got time fer a poor sailor ‘ome from servin’ ‘is country?”

Katie turned. Bearing down on her with some speed was a jolly old tar dressed in a seacape and pegging agilely along on one good leg and one wooden. Sailors and admirals, thought Katie, feeling that her day had been cruelly overset by the navy.

“Can I help you with something?” she asked, trying to recall her best gin shop form when dealing with querulous customers.

“Can she ‘elp me wi’ somethin’,” growled the tar, not unfriendly. “Methinks when she sees th’ color o’ me money, mebbe she can ‘elp me wi’ somethin’.” He walked up beside Katie, flashing a fistful of pound notes. “Mebbe she’ll ‘elp a lonely old sailor ta find a little ‘appiness in this cold world, I says. ‘Ow about duckin’ into one o’ these establishments along in ‘ere, lassie? Mebbe we both be thirsty fer some Blue Ruin… or somethin’ else.” He wiggled his eyebrows expressively.

Katie groaned inwardly. “Oh, dear, I’m afraid not, sir. You see I have to get home now or they’ll be getting worried.”

“Well, them at ‘ome will be right ‘appy when ya bring ‘ome one o’ these, won’t they?” snickered the sailor, trying to push a pound note into Katie’s palm. “‘Ey, come on ‘n take it now, wench. Ya’ll be earnin’ it from me soon, won’t ya?” The man chuckled, made a suggestive gesture with his fingers, and clutched Katie tightly by the arm.

“No! Sir, you quite mistake things, I assure you. I don’t want your money and there is no one who would be the least happy if I brought it home,” said Katie, trying resolutely to disengage her arm from his clinging fingers.

“Well, ain’t we th’ fine talkin’ little chippy!” gasped the sailor indignantly, his good nature vanishing. “Wot’s yer problem, eh? Not enough money fer ya? Ya can name yer price then.”

Katie was becoming alarmed by the strength in the sailor’s grip. “F-fifty pounds,” she stuttered, hoping fervently that she had named a figure beyond the sailor’s resources.

Traffic on the through street moved carefully in the fog; the approach of a vehicle could be heard before seen and now the smart trot of a high-stepping thoroughbred heralded the arrival of a sleek high-perch phaeton. Katie’s eyes dilated in amazement as she saw the rakish driver, who was accompanied by a slender youth with peach-blond hair and lively pale brown eyes who clung easily to the stepping-board behind. The phaeton pulled to a sharp halt beside Katie and her would-be cavalier. Its driver set his bicorne to the back of his head, pushed his fog-dampened ebony hair away from his eyes, and looked down at the sailor.

“Has this young lady been accosting you, my good fellow?” inquired the driver, in a tone that might have been civil.

“Lord Linden! Andrew!” cried Katie. “Oh, how glad I am to see you!”

The sailor seemed to wax increasingly offended. “Oh, it’s lord’ is it, now. Do ya mean ta tell me, my fine buck, that ya know this ‘ere piece o’ goods?”

“Never seen her before in my life,” said Lord Linden ignobly. “What’s she done?”

The sailor perceived at once that he had captured a sympathetic masculine audience. “Why, oi offer this article ‘ere a decent bit o’ business ‘n she tells me she’s not ta be ‘ad fer less ‘n fifty pounds! Fifty pounds!” The poor old salt was fairly staggered by the enormity of Katie’s demand. He waggled his finger emphatically at Lord Linden. “By all that’s ‘oly, it’s a crime, that’s wot it is. ‘Ow’s an ‘onest workin’ man like meself ta ‘ave a little tumble ‘n tickle if that’s th’ way prices is? Seems ta me that th’ London bawds ‘as gotten right out o’ ‘and, so it does.”