“Are you in training as second footman now, Sophie? I wasn’t aware there was an opening on the household staff.”
“Please, my lord,” she begged. “There’s a letter from Clifford Park…”
“From Sir Thomas, the man who’s asked permission to court you?” He said nothing more but sorted through to the letter she was anxiously awaiting. He ripped open the object of Sophie’s concern and settled spectacles at the edge of his nose. “It appears the indefatigable Captain Bellingham is on the mend, but Dr. MacCloud and the captain’s mother are trying to convince him to rest a few more days before attempting the trip back to London to join the rest of his men.”
He peered over his spectacles. “I’m sure you’re really waiting for Sir Thomas’s endearments directed to you at the end of the letter. ‘Yours very truly, etcetera and so on, Sir Thomas James.’ The postscript says simply, ‘Please advise Miss Brancelli I await her thoughts per our last conversation at Clifford Park.’
“And, have you decided, Sophie?”
“Yes, my lord. I’ve made a decision.”
“Are you ready to share that decision with me?”
“Not at this time, but soon. Soon. There are a few things I need to attend to first. If you’ll excuse me, I must get to them right away.”
With that she ushered herself out of his study and climbed the stairs toward her chamber. If Arnaud was on the mend, she had to move quickly. She knew what she had to do.
As soon as Sophie left the room, Howick yanked at one of the bell pulls behind his desk. He did not trust Sophie to stay safe. Although the young woman was very self-sufficient, there were limits to what she could bring to bear against the dark forces gathering against her right to her grandmother’s inheritance.
In a few moments, his valet, Sergeant Randall, quietly let himself into Howick’s study and stood awaiting orders.
“We need to follow Miss Brancelli.” Howick spoke slowly and clearly, facing Mercer’s former artillery sergeant who suffered deafness after Waterloo but had taught himself to read lips. “Do not let her out of your sight. I think she knows more about this sorry business than she wants to tell us. Take one of the footmen with you.”
“Yes, sir,” Randall said and vanished back through the doorway.
Sophie had Lydia help her get out of her fine muslin morning dress. The dress sprigged with bouquets of violets would never do for what she faced now. Instead, Lydia pulled Sophie’s old mourning dress out of a trunk, along with a plain black bonnet with a dark net veil. For extra courage, she plucked the shawl her father had given her from the trunk at the foot of her bed. She lifted it from the protective tissue and lavender and draped it around her shoulders.
Sophie and Lydia were so familiar with the routine of Arnaud’s fellow squadron members, they knew exactly when Captain Neville went to the kitchen for a cup of tea before turning over his watch to Lieutenant Bourne. A few minutes after he disappeared down the back stairs, Sophie sneaked down the same steps, knowing he would be kept busy for a few minutes by Cook’s fussy ministrations with tea and her bottomless supply of ginger biscuits. She darted out of the lower level tradesmen’s entrance and headed straight to the walk through the park at St. James Square. There were usually a few hackney carriages for hire at the entrance to the circle around the wooded park.
She had utterly no fear or indecision over what she had to do. None of the men in her life who cared for her and had tried to protect her deserved her uncle’s ire, least of all the man she loved. She would not allow the duke to destroy Arnaud and his men or, God forbid, Lord Howick.
Once in the carriage, she gave the driver the address of the elegant mansion on Piccadilly her uncle made his lair when he was in town. She knew he was there, because she’d bribed young John to question some of her uncle’s servants on his day off. Members of the House of Lords were still tying up loose ends in the sad matter of the queen, and, of course, Wolford needed to stay in town all the better to control her life.
She was tired of all the cat-and-mouse attempts to ruin her. She’d face her odious relative. He could kill her and get it over with if he so craved his mother’s inheritance, he would commit high crimes to keep the funds for himself. The people she cared about had to stop suffering for his endless greed.
Lost in thought, she realized too late the shabby carriage had made too many turns to the left, and now, by her calculation, they were headed south and east toward the river, not toward Wolford House on Piccadilly.Jupiter.
“Christ, you’re a stubborn bastard. You’ve lost your mind. Maybe that thump on your head was worse than I thought.” Cullen sat on the top step of the entrance to the house at Clifford Park. He gave the several days’ beard stubble on his chin an angry rub and then stood, hung his head and extended his hand out toward Arnaud. “How many times have you argued the merit of keeping injured crewmen a few extra days in the surgery to make sure they were full ready for service?”
After a long, loud argument, Arnaud lowered himself out of his saddle, walked back, and pulled his longtime friend and surgeon into a bear hug before re-mounting the horse. “It’s only a dozen miles, Doc. I’ll be fine.” With that he pulled on the reins to turn the horse Sir Thomas had lent him and trotted down the lane.
Cullen turned to Honore Bellingham. “Did ye know he’d be this stubborn and wrong-headed when ye birthed the swab?”
“I knew his father and my father. Both of them were extremely difficult men. I had no reason to expect a reasonable son.” She gave him a sunny smile. “He will be fine. He’s on his way to claim the woman he loves. He doesn’t care how much money she has, or how many villains he has to fight for her.”
Cullen shook his head.
“And you should have known me as a young woman. My father used to have to take me out sailing for hours off Martinique to calm my temper. I was responsible for every single silver hair on my mother’s head.” She shaded her eyes and stared at the clouds of dust stirred by Arnaud’s horse for as long as she could, and then took Cullen’s hand to lead him back into the house.
“Physician, heal thy whiskers,” she admonished with a chuckle. “I’ll have some hot water sent to your room. You’ll want to look your best when you chase him back to London.”
Sophie did not need to see where the hack carriage was headed. She could smell the docks - the foul, earthy scent of the muddy silt of the Thames mixed with the smell of decay - fish and other things she didn’t wish to consider too closely. But there was also the scent of exotic goods being unloaded from faraway ports, fragrant, spicy, and pungent.
She and her father, Paolo Brancelli, had sailed once to Venice when she was about fourteen. He’d lucked onto a particularly wealthy woman’s patronage and wanted to show Sophie the home of her once-wealthy, noble ancestors. All that remained of the Brancelli relatives were an elderly couple who lived in a small apartment in the former family palace on a tiny street near St. Mark’s Square. If she leaned a certain way from the terrace, she could look out over the Grand Canal. The scent of the sea had been especially pungent in Venice. Her father had completed many poems while they were there but had been forced to return to London, the greatest source of income from his work.
The smells at the dock brought back many bittersweet memories. Her father had died a year after their return.
Sophie set aside her bonnet and fingered two of the four hat pins she’d hidden inside. Another set lay in one of the pockets of her mourning gown. Her parasol lay close by on the seat.
