Vanity Read online

  She dressed before the fire in the deserted bedchamber. The highwayman had said that he would await her in the parlor where breakfast was ready and had left her to herself. She was grateful for this unusual consideration from a man who hitherto had shown little or no recognition of a need for personal privacy. Indeed, after such a night of intimacy, she’d expected him to offer to lace her corset at the very least.

  Octavia felt very peculiar as she retied the leather pouch around her waist, its weight a comforting reality. She was confused, dismayed, and yet curiously excited, as if she’d crossed some boundary and entered uncharted territory. Her body was thrumming and her skin felt acutely sensitive. Surely she must look different after such a night. She gazed at her image in the spotted cheval glass on the dresser, but only her familiar face stared back at her. There was a deeper glow to her skin, perhaps; maybe her eyes seemed larger; and her hair was springing out around her face in a dark unruly halo as if it had been vigorously combed with a thousand fingers.

  She took up the comb on the dresser and dragged it through the tangling waves. Her hairpins were still in the parlor where she’d taken them out to dry her hair yesterday afternoon. Just yesterday!

  Octavia sat down abruptly, staring into the fire, trying to connect herself with the person she’d been yesterday … before she’d stolen the highwayman’s watch. She was different this morning, but time would distance the memories of that fantastic dream. She would return to Shoreditch, to the drear poky lodgings above the chandler’s, to her father’s self-obsessed world of the mind, to the daily struggle to maintain some sense of pride as she negotiated with the pawnbroker and the grocer, the butcher and the baker, and darned her stockings and mended her gowns, and went out on the streets to risk her neck whenever there was nothing left to pawn.

  She jumped as the door suddenly banged open to admit Bessie, who stood with arms folded, leaning against the doorjamb. “There’s some of us as ’as work to do,” she announced. “Can’t lie abed all day like some bleedin’ lady muck. You goin’ to get yer breakfast, or shall it be cleared away?”

  Octavia stood up and fixed Bessie with a cold stare. “If you’d tell me what my shot is, I’ll pay it directly, my good woman.”

  Bessie raised an eyebrow. “Hoity-toity! I don’t want yer money. Nick takes care of us. And you’d best make ’aste. He’s got work of ’is own to do this day.”

  “If he has something to say to me, he can come and say it himself,” Octavia declared. “I’ll join him in five minutes. Perhaps you’d like to pass that on.”

  The air stilled as she stared fixedly at the woman with all the hauteur of Miss Morgan of Hartridge Folly. Bessie stared back and then sniffed, spun on her heel, and marched out, banging the door behind her.

  With a little smile Octavia returned to her dressing, arranging the repaired fichu at the neck of her gown. She felt much better after that little show of assertion. Gathering up her cloak, gloves, and muff, and leaving her hair loose around her shoulders, she made her way to the parlor.

  The passage was chilly, and there was a reek of stale beer and pipe smoke wafting up the stairs from the taproom. She could hear the thumping and dragging of furniture, a splash and slop of water as a bucket was emptied over the dirty flagstones, the thunder of a full barrel being rolled over the cobbles in the yard outside. The Royal Oak was preparing for the new day.

  At the door to the parlor, she unconsciously squared her shoulders before raising the latch. The highwayman was sitting at the same round table addressing a platter of sirloin. Again she had a shock as she took in his costume, the strong lines of his face, the broadness of his brow, accentuated by the high-piled powdered wig, his eyes somehow more piercing, their gray deeper and darker.

  He rose with a courteous bow as she entered. “My dear Miss Morgan, I trust you passed a pleasant night.”

  The mischievous undercurrent to the formal pleasantry took her breath away, and she was momentarily speechless. Then she saw the laughter in his eyes, the twitch of his firm mouth, the air of complicit enjoyment.

  “Phantasmagoric, I believe, sir.”

  Something—a touch of discomfort—flickered across his eyes and then was gone. “Pray come to the table, ma’am.” He moved to draw out the chair for her. As she sat down, he swept the loose mass of cinnamon hair from her neck and bent to kiss her nape.

  Octavia shivered; her skin prickled beneath the warm pressure of his lips and the cool rustle of his breath. No, she thought, she was not at all the same person who’d entered this room yesterday. Her head dropped beneath the pressure of his mouth and she yielded to the delicious sensation, her body responding as if to a familiar stimulus … only her mind didn’t recognize it in the same way. Her mind had not been in her body during the long, joyous hours of the night, and only her flesh knew this for what it was.

  How had it happened? How could she have been both waking and sleeping through such a pivotal experience?

  But she could find no answer. It had happened, and her body now was telling her it wanted it to happen again, only this time with the participation of her mind.

  As he straightened, she jerked her head up abruptly, shaking her hair loosely over her shoulders again. “What turns Lord Nick into Lord Rupert Warwick?” she asked with an assumption of carelessness, wondering if he was aware of her reaction to that caress. One glance at his smiling expression told her the answer.

  “Business,” he said, returning to his own seat. “I have different kinds of business to deal with and so different roles.” He passed her a slice of ovenwarm bread, as white and fragrant as any to be found in the most exclusive establishments. “Coffee?”

  “Thank you.” She took the slice and watched as he poured coffee from a pewter pot into a deep china mug. “And what business is it that requires the role and costume of a courtier?”

  “Court business, I should imagine,” he said dryly, lifting the lid on a chafing dish. “Bacon, Miss Morgan?”

  “I beg your pardon, I didn’t mean to pry.” Octavia’s mouth thinned at this implicit reproof. “No, I don’t care for bacon.”

  “Mushrooms, then?” he inquired with a solicitous air, gesturing to another dish. “Or perhaps a slice of ham? I’m sure Bessie would prepare you eggs if you would prefer.”

  “I doubt very much that Bessie would give me the parings of her nails,” Octavia declared with vigorous vulgarity, digging the spoon into the platter of mushrooms.

  Lord Rupert—for so she decided she must call him in his present guise—merely laughed and sat back, one hand curled around a tankard of ale. “She’s not one for the niceties of polite discourse, I grant you.”

  “Her impertinence is insufferable,” Octavia snapped, buttering her bread. “And I would prefer to pay my own shot, Lord Rupert.”

  Her companion frowned and said in the tone she’d heard so often since the previous day, “No, I don’t think so.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t think so?” she demanded in irritation. “That is what I wish to do and I intend to do it. So perhaps you would inform Bessie of that fact, since she wouldn’t hear it from me.” She speared a forkful of mushrooms and carried it to her mouth.

  “No, she wouldn’t hear it from you,” he agreed. “You see, she is not accustomed to taking orders from anyone but me. And she’s well aware that you’re my guest. I trust you have no fault to find with my hospitality,” he added gently. “I should be very sorry to think so after we’ve had such a pleasant time together.”

  Octavia’s cheeks warmed. Was he saying that he was paying for her favors? That, after all, he did see her as a whore?

  And dear God, why shouldn’t he? She’d behaved like one.

  Abruptly, she pushed back her chair and stood up. “I bid you good day, sir. I trust Lord Rupert Warwick’s business will prosper.” She stalked to the door, flung it wide, and allowed it to bang shut on her departure.

  Her feet flew down the stairs, and she burst out into the bitterly cold sunsh
ine, breathing deeply, drawing the icy air into her lungs, enjoying the sharp, cleansing pain. Everything was white and pristine under its fresh carpet of snow, the usual filth and squalor of the narrow streets buried a foot deep. The sky was a brilliant blue, and her boots crunched across the snow as she turned to the side of the inn in search of the stableyard. They would presumably have some kind of vehicle for hire that would carry her back to London.

  The only vehicle in the yard, however, was a carter’s dray drawn by two massive shire horses. Ben and the gangly lad were unloading barrels. Ben glanced up at Octavia and then carried on with his work as if she weren’t there. She stood awkwardly, looking around. The stable buildings were all closed up, and she knew that one horse, at least—the highwayman’s roan—was stabled within. Maybe, if they didn’t have a carriage or gig she could hire, they would have a riding horse. She wasn’t dressed for riding, but that was the least of her worries.

  She walked up to the dray. “Your pardon, innkeeper, but I wish to hire a carriage of some kind … or a horse, if that’s all you have available.”

  “Not a livery stable, miss,” Ben said shortly. “Don’t ’ave nuthin’ like that.” He was less rude than Bessie, but no more helpful.

  Octavia slipped her hand into the slit in her skirt, feeling for the pouch. Maybe a little gold could persuade Ben to change his mind. She shivered, realizing for the first time that in her dudgeon she’d abandoned her cloak, gloves, and muff, in the highwayman’s parlor. It was a damnable nuisance. Apart from the fact that she’d freeze to death between there and Shoreditch without them, they were her only decent outer garments, essential to her appearance as a respectable young woman of good family, and she couldn’t afford to replace them. But the prospect of trailing foolishly back to the parlor after such an exit was insupportable.

  “Death and damnation!” she exclaimed, stamping her foot in the snow in frustration.

  “Forgot something, Miss Morgan?”

  Lord Rupert’s suave tones came from the back door of the inn. He stood in the doorway, a dark velvet cloak lined in turquoise silk hanging from his shoulders, a black tricorn tucked beneath his arm. Over his other arm he carried Octavia’s cloak, her muff and gloves in his hand.

  “I’m afraid you really will catch your death of cold if you persist in running around in just that flimsy gown,” he said, coming toward her, shaking his head in reproof. “It’s really not at all sensible, you know.”

  Octavia ground her teeth as he carefully placed her cloak around her shoulders and fastened the clasp at the neck.

  “Gloves,” he said, taking her hand and manipulating her fingers into the right holes as if she were a toddler who couldn’t manage to do it for herself.

  “For heaven’s sake, I can do it!” Octavia jerked her hand away and pulled the glove on before snatching the other from his hold. “I wish to hire a carriage to take me home, but the innkeeper says they don’t have such a thing. I suppose they might find one on your authority,” she added bitterly, drawing the hood of her cloak over her hair. “Well, I daresay I can walk.”

  Lord Rupert sighed. “You are a most obstinate and perverse girl. I said I would convey you home this morning, and I will do so.”

  “I have no wish to be beholden to you any further, sir. I am not for sale!” To her fury she could hear tears in her voice, and even the knowledge that they were tears of anger rather than hurt didn’t make such weakness easier to bear. She turned from him with a rough gesture as if she would push him away.

  “You are not beholden to me, Octavia. If anything, the shoe is on the other foot.” He laid an arresting hand on her arm. “I told you yesterday that you were given to extravagant language and distempered freaks, and I must confess I begin to find them irritating, not to mention insulting in the present instance. Whoever said anything about buying you?”

  “You want the phaeton, Nick?” Ben called before Octavia could reply to Lord Rupert’s exasperated question. “Freddy’ll ’ave it ready in a trice.”

  “My thanks, Ben.”

  “So they do have a carriage,” Octavia exclaimed. “I knew it.”

  “As it happens, it’s not for hire,” his lordship said. “It belongs to me, you see.”

  “You own your own carriage?” Incredulous, she forgot her earlier distress. “A common highwayman owning a carriage!”

  “Ah, but you see, Miss Morgan, I am no more a common highwayman than you are a common pickpocket. I thought we’d established that.”

  He drew an enameled snuffbox from his waistcoat pocket and flicked the lid. Taking her hand, he turned her wrist upward and delicately dropped a pinch of snuff onto the blue-veined skin. Raising her wrist, he took the snuff, his eyes smiling at her as he did so. “The scent of a lady’s skin enhances the delicacy most powerfully.”

  Octavia was again at a loss. She had the conviction that no lady would permit a gentleman such a liberty, and yet she wanted to meet his smile with her own.

  She was saved from having to respond by Freddy, who appeared from one of the stable buildings leading a pair of chestnut geldings harnessed tandem between the shafts of an elegant phaeton.

  “’Ere y’are, Lord Nick. Shiny in’t they? I groomed ’em for an hour last even.” The lad beamed proudly as the horses clopped over the cobbles. “Fresh they are, too,” he added.

  “They haven’t been out for several days,” Lord Rupert agreed, running a flat palm down the nose of the leader before going to the side of the carriage. “Miss Morgan, permit me to hand you up.” He held out his hand.

  Octavia could see no sensible alternative, although pride was a hard nut to swallow. She climbed into the phaeton, disdaining the proffered assistance.

  Lord Rupert followed her with an agile leap. “Let go their heads, Freddy.” The lad obeyed, and the chestnuts leaped forward toward the entrance to the stable.

  Octavia huddled into her cloak, covertly watching her companion’s profile as he steadied the horses and took them neatly through the narrow gates. She was disinclined for conversation, and, fortunately, Lord Rupert seemed content with his own thoughts until they’d crossed London Bridge and were once more in the town streets familiar to her.

  Her companion spoke as they drove up Gracechurch Street. “You must help me now, Miss Morgan. We came over London Bridge because I remembered Shoreditch, but I’m at a loss to know which direction to take from here.”

  “If you would take me to the Aldgate, sir, I can find my own way from there,” Octavia said. Regardless of the intimacies they’d shared in her strange trance, regardless of the knowledge that he too pursued a crooked course in the world, she didn’t want him to see the poverty of her dwelling. The highwayman’s life seemed far removed from the grim realities of her own daily struggles; indeed, he appeared to lead a life of luxury and authority in whatever guise he chose to present himself, and the contrast with her own circumstances was too mortifying.

  “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “I believe I will take you to your door.”

  “And if I choose not to direct you, sir?”

  He cut her a sidelong look that to her chagrin was brimful of amusement. “Then I should be obliged to take such steps as to ensure your compliance, my dear.”

  Octavia wondered vaguely what such steps would entail. Whatever it was, she didn’t think she would enjoy it. She told herself firmly that she had no reason to be ashamed of her circumstances; the man was a highwayman, a common felon. She sat up with an air of determination. “Very well. But you won’t object to stopping first at the pawnshop on Quaker Street, I trust. I have some things to redeem.”

  “Not at all,” he said politely. “And anywhere else you please. I am quite at your disposal, ma’am.”

  She directed him through the maze of East End streets, admiring his skill and the way he appeared oblivious of the stares and catcalls that greeted such a magnificent equipage in such an area. Ragged children huddled on street corners, beggars paraded their mutilations, coming dan
gerously close to the phaeton when Lord Rupert was obliged to draw rein for some obstacle in his path. A young woman darted out in front of the horses, clutching a baby to her breast. She raised her haggard eyes in pitiful appeal and thrust out her hand, clawlike, over the side of the carriage as they slowed and swerved to avoid a tribe of mangy, starving dogs in pursuit of a squalling cat.

  Lord Rupert barely looked at her, but he reached into his pocket and tossed her a coin. She fell back, scrabbling as it tumbled to the cobbles. “She’ll only spend it on gin,” he said with a cold indifference that made Octavia wince, although she understood the helplessness that lay behind it.

  “Perhaps,” she said. “But it might make her more patient with the babe.”

  “And when she’s killed herself with gin, what will become of the child?” The same detachment was in his voice, but Octavia had the feeling that it was a mask for his true feelings. She’d learned her own ways of dealing with the horrors that lived and breathed on these streets, and she knew that if one didn’t cultivate a certain detachment, one would be driven mad with the knowledge of one’s own powerlessness.

  She made no answer to the rhetorical question, merely directed him to Quaker Street. He drew up outside the sign of the three golden balls and beckoned an urchin who was standing in the frozen gutter, his bare feet wrapped in a piece of sacking.

  “Can you hold the horses, lad?”

  “I’ll go in on my own,” Octavia protested. “I’m quite accustomed to doing so.”

  Lord Rupert ignored this, merely jumped from the carriage and held up a hand to assist her to alight. The urchin had hold of the leader’s bridle, a grin splitting his filthy face as he contemplated his amazing good fortune.

  Octavia shrugged and stepped down, aware of the curious eyes at windows, their less inhibited neighbors staring openly out of their doors at the extraordinary sight of Mistress Forster’s lodger riding in an elegant carriage in company with an exquisitely dressed gentleman. Her companion opened the door, the bell tinkling merrily. He held it for her, and she stepped into the crowded, dark, and frowsty interior, where thé smell of old clothes and dust and mold dominated.