Page 19

“I’m sorry.” She moved her hand to the door. “I forgot your wound.”

“Go,” he said again through gritted teeth, unreasonably stirred by that hand on his knee.

Lady Melforth’s door opened and the footman hurried down the steps to help Viv. She accepted his hand and descended. “How is Lady M?” she asked him.

“She needs you, miss,” he said.

Lark stuck his head out of the carriage door. “Tomorrow,” he said.

She gave him one last exasperated glance. “You’re impossible,” she said, and turned away.

He watched the door close behind her and stepped down to the pavement. He thanked the coachman, waved the man off, and headed for his own neighborhood, the little moleskin book, tucked inside his waistcoat.

*

In the upper drawing room, Viv found Lady Melforth drowning in a sea of silk cushions on the Aubusson sofa. The drapes were drawn. The air was close and heavy with the medicinal scents of vinegar and tisane, signs of one of her ladyship’s headaches.

“Oh dear.” Viv crossed to the windows to let in light and air. “You’ve had a dreadful day, I take it.”

“Why did you stay away so long? I expected you hours ago. I could have died, you know, alone here, unable to reach the bell.”

“I’m sorry. I thought the Strydes were with you.”

“Well, I suppose there are some things worse even than being seized and fitted for one’s coffin.”

“No one is fitting you for a coffin yet. Let me fix those cushions and you won’t feel so low. Can you lean forward?” For a few minutes, Viv arranged and fluffed pillows to give Lady Melforth’s back more support. She righted her ladyship’s sagging coiffure and rang the bell for Jenny to take away the old teacup and the vinegar-soaked cloth and bring one of her ladyship’s cordials.

When all had been done to make her ladyship more comfortable, Viv drew a chair near her employer and settled. “What would you like to hear first?” she asked. It was their usual practice for Viv to tell some story of the day and to read her notes, letting Lady Melforth pass judgment on how to shape the material, where to start and what to emphasize. Viv marveled at her ladyship’s way of spotting the details that gave a scene vivid life. Later Viv would make revisions. She reached for her notebook and realized she didn’t have it.

The thought left her momentarily confused. She always had her notebook with her, but she couldn’t remember bringing it into the house. She had simply needed to get out of that carriage, away from Mr. Larkin. In a flash she saw her awkward stumbling over his knees and hurried rush to the door. With effort, she could picture her bonnet and bag on the hall table, and her flushed face in the mirror, but not the notebook. She must have left it on the bench of the carriage. She drew in a calming breath. Tim Coachman would no doubt find it and return it to the house.

Lady Melforth sipped the cordial.

“The Strydes suspect your young man of being a swell, you know.”

“You don’t think him one, do you?”

“In my day we called them dandies. The thing is…what could I tell the Strydes? I really should know who his people are and where he got his education. You know how Eustacia can go on with her Anti-Vice blather about the decadence of London’s youth. You mustn’t leave me at such a disadvantage.” Lady Melforth’s right hand began to tremble.

“I hardly think he’s either a swell or a dandy. He seems to care more about clean linen and good cloth, than fashion excess.” Viv didn’t know why she was defending him, but she hadn’t seen any personal vanity in him.

“Apparently he reads novels.” One of Lady Melforth’s red brows quirked upward. “The Spanish Brothers?”

Viv recalled the book she’d left in the hall. “You won’t fault him for that, will you?”

“The point is, Viv, I thought you’d got over the folly of being in love, in Bath, before I hired you. Yet, here you are again. I suppose he made sheep’s eyes at you and flowery speeches.” Her ladyship put down the cordial and subdued her shaking right hand.

“Not at all.” Viv thought Mr. Larkin would be much easier to manage if he were the sort to make speeches. As it was, he was quick and he distracted her, as he had from the first when he stepped between her and the fleeing pickpocket. Until today, she’d never forgot her notebook.

“But if you marry him, can you be sure he will let you write? For you must write, Viv. I’ve not spent my time on you to have you throw away my good instruction so you can pin nappies around babies’ bottoms and haggle with servants over your husband’s comforts.”

Trust Lady Melforth to reduce marriage to its spirit-killing demands. Viv was quite sure that her ladyship had never pinned a nappy on a bottom. Viv wanted to say that she would not be marrying Mr. Larkin, so there was no need to worry, but for the moment the charade must be preserved. “Shall I have the lawyers put it in the settlement papers—Mr. Larkin’s wife must have a desk and a private corner and be permitted to write no fewer than a thousand words a day?”

“Yes. But, Viv, it’s not just his income you must be sure of. Or his willingness to have a scribbling wife. As a writer, you must be seen to be a lady, the granddaughter of an earl. I dare say, half of the secret of my writing success is not in the word traveling, but in the word viscountess. If you must marry, you must marry well. What are this man’s origins?”

“I haven’t checked the peerage for his family, but …”

“Invite him for tea tomorrow evening. I must question him.”