The Hourglass (25 page)

Lord Cormack put his arm around his wife. “We have our boy. We will do what we can for this woman. She will be out of jail and in our keeping before sunrise.”

“But what should we do with her?” Lorraine wanted to know. Everyone could tell she was praying not to have the woman in her house.

“Bring her to Ardeth House. I’ll leave instructions for the staff. Someone can drive her to the docks and Vinross can get her on a ship to the Americas, if she wants to go where her past will be unknown. But hurry. She deserves better than even one night in prison for ridding the world of the scum she killed.” He took another piece of paper from Genie, where she had written
ship, colonies.
“I will take care of the rest if you get her released. It might take a sum of money.”

“I have it.” Roger kissed his wife and left.

“I must go, too,” Ardeth said.

“I am coming.” Genie snatched the papers from his hand and grabbed up another stack of blank sheets, plus a pencil. “You need me to take notes, send messages home, et cetera. And you need me to help if you have to accomplish so much in so short a time. You already look exhausted, after staring down death.”

“No, I smiled at him.”

She smiled, too, at his nonsense. “Well, I am sure your smile is enough to melt the hardest heart. But I already had Campbell come with the carriage to take us home, so you have no excuse not to take me. One of Roger’s grooms can walk Black Butch home. Unless you wish me to go by myself to rescue the cat?”

“No, that is in an unsavory part of town. I will go. Lud knows what I am to do with it, since Olive would—”

The crow showed what he would do, on Ardeth’s shoulder.

They stopped at home for money, maps, and kippers, with hurried instructions to Vinross and Miss Hadley and the Randolphs. They were to prepare rooms, hire additional carriages, cook more food. He did not know for how many. Oh, and they should plan a funeral.

Then they set out. Genie and the crow drove in the carriage. Ardeth chose to ride his stallion ahead, looking out for danger. Luckily sunset came later at this time of year.

Their first stop was at Lady Wickersham’s house at Russell Square.

“But the hatchments are up,” Genie said as Ardeth handed her out of the coach. “They are in mourning.”

“They are in mourning, but they are not grieving. Furthermore, we are not calling on the family.”

He asked for the companion, who came to the drawing room, red-eyed and trembling. “Miss Calverton?” Effe had been right: The fifty-year-old female looked desperate enough to drown herself. “I am Ardeth. This is my countess.”

“Yes? If you are here to pay condolences, the family is in the front parlor.” Dividing up Lady Wickersham’s valuables.

“No, we came to see you. We are sorry for your loss, of course. But some good has come of it. Before she died Lady Wickersham took a chance at the lottery we set up for the widows’ and orphans’ fund.”

“We did?” Genie stared at him.

He stepped on her foot.

“Right, we did.”

“She did?” the companion asked, staring at both of them. “That does not sound like Lady W.”

“Oh, my husband can be very persuasive,” Genie said, rubbing her toes together under her skirts.

“Yes, you might have heard we are collecting money. Anyway, she put the ticket in your name, perhaps out of gratitude for your years of service, for your caring.”

The woman clutched her hands to her bony chest. “She truly did think of me?”

“Yes, and you won.”

“I won?”

The earl handed her a leather purse, a heavy leather purse. Money did not always cure a heavy heart, though, so he added, “There is also a cottage as part of the prize, near our estate in the north. We will be traveling there within the week, but we invite you to stay at our town house until then.”

The faded companion might not have trusted a tall, severely dressed gentleman, but his red-haired wife was smiling and seconding the invitation. They needed Miss Calverton’s help, Genie said, in settling all the other prizewinners. “Please come.”

“What about Lady W.’s funeral?” Miss Calverton was expected to be gone from the house, the only home she had had for the last thirty years, an hour afterward.

“We are holding a funeral in the morning,” Ardeth told her. “It is not necessarily your mistress’s, but you can say your prayers then. She will understand.”

The old nipcheese had not understood about pensions or bonuses. Miss Calverton went upstairs to pack. She had so few possessions, she was back in minutes, while Ardeth and Genie were discussing their next destination, the home of the soldier with the orphaned infants.

“Do you like children?” Ardeth asked, handing the companion into the coach.

“Oh no, pesky, dirty little devils.”

“So much for Effe’s plans to kill two birds with one stone,” Ardeth muttered. Olive squawked at the saying, and again when the earl announced they would fetch the cat first.

“There is no help for it.” He opened the hamper at Genie’s feet, the smell turning her already-uncertain stomach. “Here, have a kipper.”

Miss Calverton daintily reached for the fish. He’d meant the bird.

Ardeth rode ahead, out of Mayfair into narrower streets, with houses leaning against one another and garbage in the road. He ordered Campbell to stop at a rickety house at the corner that showed no light, no activity.

“Stay here,” he told the women.

Genie did not. Neither did Miss Calverton.

Ardeth found the abandoned, hungry, mewing cat. So did Genie. So did Miss Calverton. They took them all, in case. Olive hid in the folds of Ardeth’s cloak.

The retired schoolteacher in Kensington thought the Devil himself had come to call at his one-room flat, with his black cape and crow. He had a hard time believing the fellow was an earl, much less handing him a lottery win.

Genie showed his name on her scrap of paper. Ardeth showed him the gold. “Your wife must have bought the ticket, but it has your name and address.”

“Damn fool woman always was one for taking chances. If she hadn’t been such a deuced gambler, I would have my savings still. Serves her right that I can’t even pay for a decent funeral. Good riddance, I say.”

So much for Effe’s concern that the man would be lonely.

“Well, you need not worry about that now. We will hold a service in the morning. Another part of the lottery win is a cottage at Ardsley Keep if you want it. We will be starting a new school there, and need help hiring instructors.”

The man collected his books before his cat—a striped one—could lick its ear. He and Tiger took a seat in the coach beside Miss Calverton.

Olive took to shaking.

The shoemaker’s widow wept at her winnings. She did not recall her husband purchasing the ticket, but she raised her eyes to Heaven, where the dear man was cobbling for the cherubs, she insisted. Now she did not have to worry about keeping the shop or trying to earn a living on her own. She blessed Ardeth and Genie and Campbell, for carrying her trunks out to the extra carriage Ardeth had hired.

They stopped back at home to deliver the new guests into the waiting arms of the Randolphs before proceeding to the vicarage in Chelsea.

“Gambling?” the widow exclaimed, handing back the leather purse. “Oh, no, my husband would never purchase a lottery ticket.”

“Oh, yes, he would, Mother,” one of her daughters shouted.

“For a good cause,” the middle daughter added. The youngest girl even remembered her father purchasing the ticket.

The widow looked at her three daughters, all of marriageable age, all dowerless, all dressed in castoffs from the congregation, all without a roof over their heads after tomorrow. Then she looked at Ardeth. “Rufus did always say how the good Lord would provide.”

Another carriage and wagon were hired, with men to help them move their belongings to Ardeth’s house. Meanwhile he asked the two older girls to come along with Genie to help their next and final winner, the soldier who had inherited his sister’s five little orphans.

The man looked like he’d rather face the French again. The small flat looked like the French had marched through it. The children were dirty, hungry, and distraught—for the ten minutes it took Ardeth to convince the man that his sister had taken a lottery ticket, that he could hire proper nursemaids (unless he proposed to one of the vicar’s daughters) and take up a position at Ardsley Keep, where the children could go to the free school.

Everyone carried an infant out to the waiting hired coach, even Ardeth. His burden, naturally, was the only one not crying. Genie thought he looked wonderful with a babe in his arms, except for the crow she could swear was laughing on his shoulder.

Now everyone was at Ardeth House, including Daisy, the killer, whom the other women avoided. The men did not. They all—except for the children, who were being fed, bathed, and put to bed by Mrs. Randolph and the maids—listened to Ardeth offer them choices. He would be back to hear their decisions as soon as he completed two more errands.

This time Genie stayed behind. These people were her guests, for one thing, and she had no desire to visit the morgue and morticians, for another. He took James Vinross to help with the details.

When Ardeth returned, hours later, everyone was upstairs, sleeping or counting their coins, except his wife. He told her about his successes; Genie told about hers.

Daisy wanted to go to Canada.

The young soldier wanted Daisy.

The shoemaker’s widow wanted the children, the grandchildren she never had, so they were all going to the colonies to start a cobbler’s shop.

The retired schoolteacher thought he wanted Daisy, too, but knew his heart was not up to it, so he chose a cottage, a place at the new school, and the cats. Miss Calverton was afraid of ships, Red Indians, and being on her own, so she thought she’d keep the cats, and the gentleman, company.

The vicar’s wife and daughters decided they would also teach in the country for a year of mourning, unless they found husbands with their lottery dowries first.

Everyone was to set out in the morning, after the funerals. Ardeth and Genie stayed up another two hours making lists and plans, sending messages, issuing invitations. With hard work and a fortune in bribes, Ardeth was gathering all the dearly departed for one grand send-off: the vicar, the shoemaker, the soldier’s sister, the schoolteacher’s wastrel wife, and the flower seller who had no family that anyone knew of. Only two of Effe’s pickups would not be celebrated in the morning: Lady Wickersham,
whose heirs were too arrogant, and Predlow the Pimp, whose demise was too deserved.

“And I could not have done it without you, my dear,” Ardeth said as he kissed Genie good night outside her door.

Marie was still working in Genie’s room, cutting black ribbons, sewing hems on black shawls, adding a black veil to one of Genie’s bonnets for Daisy so no one would recognize her. She helped Genie into her night rail, then left with her mending basket and the promise of a salary increase.

Genie brushed out her hair, thinking about her husband, as usual. She touched her lips where he had kissed her. For once he had been the one to initiate the touch, and not a mere peck on the cheek, either. She wanted more.

This day proved to her what a wonder the man was. She wanted more of him, too. Genie had no idea how he had selected these people to rescue—perhaps he found their names in a newspaper while he sat in Peter’s room—but his actions proved his goodness, his strength, his nobility of spirit. This immediacy of giving, of seeing the results, was far more satisfying than allocating funds or selecting architecture, although schools and hospitals would benefit greater amounts of people.

She wanted to help him do more. He’d seen what a capable assistant she’d been, once she caught on. And she had not turned a hair, having a yellow-haired harlot in her drawing room. And it was her idea to hire a band to accompany the funeral procession, which reminded her that she had not asked him about the music, which led to another excellent idea of how she could spend another few minutes in his company.

Without pausing to think, she knocked on the adjoining door and opened it before he could refuse her entry. She stepped in, saying, “I was wondering about the—”

He was half-naked, his back to her, unbuttoning the fall of his trousers. By the fire’s light she could see broad shoulders, a narrow waist.

He quickly reached for his dressing robe before turning, slipping his arms in the sleeves, and sashing it closed in front.

Genie sighed.

“About the…?”

“Hymn.”

“What him, or whom?”

They were beginning to sound like Olive, who was sleeping with Sean Randolph and his dog, Helen, until the cats left.

Genie forced her eyes away from the vee of curls starting under his collarbone. “Not him, a hymn to be sung at the chapel. Do you have a favorite?”

He was staring at her in her thin bedgown. That one, his baser emotions roared, where he could see the darker nipples through the sheer fabric, and the dark triangle between her legs. This was his favorite. And her hair was down, a sunset all by itself, setting across her shoulders. Heaven help him. “Hymn?” That was all he could manage.