They made their way instead to the Honourable Mr Francis Nightingale’s former chamber and shut themselves in. The bed-hangings had been taken down and the feather mattress removed, and all the rest of the furniture was shrouded in Holland covers. There was no danger of encountering him here, or of any other sort of interruption, because Meg’s half-brother no longer lived in Grosvenor Square and rarely visited. She hardly recalled ever having seen him in her childhood, and was aware that, despite her years in London, Maria knew him scarcely better. He’d been a schoolboy when his father had married for a second time, and although he’d apparently had a cordial enough relationship with his stepmother before her departure, Meg had been told that his ties to his father had never been strong, and their paths rarely crossed. He was a grown man of thirty or so now, the clothes he’d left behind had been abandoned here for years, presumably, and surely nobody would know or care if some of them went astray.
Hannah went through to the small dressing room that adjoined the main chamber and opened the wardrobe, surveying its contents with her hands upon her hips. The heady scent of lavender was almost overpowering. ‘Most of these things must be from when Master Francis was just a boy,’ she said. ‘He did come home from school sometimes, though he spent his summers with his late mother’s family, as I recall. Your mother tried her best to be good to him, in place of his poor mama, but things were never as they should have been between her and your father, and that made it difficult. If the boy showed any sign of responding to her kind overtures, let alone growing fond of her and taking her part, his father made him suffer for it. You know how he is. Well, talking pays no toll. At least Master Francis is tall, that’s one blessing. Try these…’
They picked up armfuls of clothing and took them back to Meg’s chamber, where she would be able to try them at her leisure. ‘There’s different sizes here, you can see, from when he was still growing,’ Hannah told her. ‘I’m sure we’ll be able to find something that’ll do well enough for a few hours.’
Meg had put on pantalettes for her driving expedition with Sir Dominic, as any sensible woman did when a passenger in a high-perch carriage that was exceedingly difficult to clamber up into with grace and modesty. And so it was an easy matter to step out of her muslin gown and layers of petticoats and try Francis’s breeches and coats on for size. Some of the garments were too large and some too small, some of them looked so ridiculous that Hannah was forced to mop her eyes and stifle laughter, but at length they settled on something that served the purpose. It wasn’t a suit of clothes – the unmentionables that fitted Meg’s long legs had jackets in the same fabric that were far too wide in the shoulder for her, while the jackets that fitted her well enough had matching breeches that were tight to the point of indecency, especially about the posterior. But she ended up, after a half-hour or so of trying, with a sober black coat and a pair of grey knee-breeches. A waistcoat was easier, as it could be adjusted in the back, and shouldn’t be too close-fitting to the chest in any case, for reasons sufficiently obvious. It would be idle to deny that Meg’s own figure was hardly boyish. But nobody would be looking at her at all closely, she hoped.
‘I suppose,’ said Hannah, surveying her critically, ‘you’re not meant to be a young man of fashion, after all. Because there’s no denying you don’t look anything like one.’
‘No,’ responded Meg, dropping into a chair and sprawling in it, enjoying the familiar freedom and striking what she flattered herself to be a convincing masculine attitude with a touch of careless swagger. ‘But what am I, then? What’s my story? I’m serious, Hannah. How old do I look and what sort of person am I? I need to know, if I am to be a proper young man!’ The storyteller in her could not help but start to weave an identity for the person she was pretending to be.
‘I suppose you must be a sort of overgrown schoolboy in hand-me-downs.’
Meg sat up straight. ‘Oh dear. I must be a schoolboy, I suppose, or a very young man. And that rather begs the question of why I’m going to… to such a place, doesn’t it?’
‘Well, no, my dear. That it doesn’t, I’m sorry to say, boys being what they are. But it might beg the question of why you’re going there with Sir Dominic!’
Meg giggled, pleasantly shocked. ‘Hannah Treadwell, you horrify me! Are you implying that they’ll think…? I don’t know quitewhatyou’re implying!’
‘I’m not sure I do either, if it comes to it,’ Hannah said, her cheeks rosy. She bustled to clear away the discarded clothing and would no longer meet Meg’s eye. ‘I can’t tell if people will know straight away that you’re a girl – I know you, so I can’t properly judge how convincing you look. But you be careful, that’s all I’ll say. It’s all very well to do this for your sister’s sake, but make sure you don’t lose your head and enjoy it too much! There’s a reckless streak in you that could lead you into all sorts of danger. I hope to heaven that your mother never gets to hear of this, never mind anyone else. What she’d say to me if she heard I’d helped you, I don’t like to think!’
‘She’d thank you, and say we need to do everything we can to rescue Maria,’ replied Meg stoutly. She was confident that this was true.
‘Maybe,’ Hannah replied, unabashed. ‘And maybe she’d say that if you’re not careful you’ll need rescuing too, and then where will we be?’
13
It was close on eleven on a moonless night, and Sir Dominic De Lacy, accompanied by his silently amused groom Jack Fishwick, was waiting restlessly in the shadows at the end of the mews behind Lord Nightingale’s house in Grosvenor Square. There was, at present, nobody else about, for which he was devoutly thankful, since he knew himself to be lurking in a highly suspicious manner. Should the patrolling Watch happen to pass on their nightly rounds, he would no doubt be questioned, and possibly apprehended as a dangerous criminal and threat to the King’s peace. A housebreaker, or worse. Or, perhaps, the escaped lunatic he’d earlier accused Miss Margaret Nightingale of resembling. The boot was on the other foot now, and such an eventuality seemed all too likely. He ought to have some plausible story prepared to account for their presence in case of being questioned by officers of the law, but his mind was blank and his mouth unaccountably dry. He didn’t imagine that the arrival of Miss Nightingale, in masculine attire, would help matters much. Most likely, it would make things worse. And that was before they went anywhere at all, least of all attempted to gain entry to the dubious establishment in Henrietta Street that was the objective of their crazy journey.
A few weeks since, before he’d been so familiar with the name of Nightingale, his life had been peaceful and ordered. Rational, predictable. Safe. He had his friends, his sporting life – riding, driving, boxing, raising and training thoroughbred horses. If there was any excitement in his existence, he found it there, in the exhilaration of speed and physical exertion. More sedately, he looked after his extensive estates and the people who depended on him for a living, conscious that it was a heavy responsibility that merited being taken seriously. He read a great deal, enjoyed the opera and collected pictures in a modest way. Drinking to excess and gambling, the pastimes of his wilder youth, had begun to bore him long ago, and he’d never been promiscuous by the (admittedly lax) standards of the day. His physical, sexual needs were a small part of his life now, attended to – such a cold phrase, but undeniably accurate – by a woman he’d known for years who lived discreetly near Russell Square and welcomed a select few gentlemen as visitors. Sukie. To call her his mistress seemed inaccurate: yes, he gave her generous financial gifts, but they didn’t flaunt their relationship nor make demands of exclusivity on each other; it was none of his affair what she was doing when he wasn’t with her, as long as she was careful of her health, which he knew she always was. He thought of her as a friend as much as anything else, someone he could be at ease with, but the prospect of parting ways with her upon his marriage, as he’d intended, had caused him little distress. He’d have given her a suitable final present; she’d have smiled and understood and wished him well… It was a while since he’d visited her, he realised. He couldn’t imagine doing so now; he had not the least desire to see her. His relationship with Sukie, if one could call it that, seemed a long time ago; like something that had happened to a different person.
As for his needs beyond the physical… it wasn’t at all the thing to think about them, or even to admit having any. He’d certainly never discussed such a thing with any of his friends, or with anyone else at all. One did not speak of such matters. He wasn’t sure, after the turmoil of the last few days, if he’d ever expected or hoped that such needs might be fulfilled in marriage, or, at any rate, in the kind of marriage he’d come to accept he would make. If challenged, as Meg had challenged him the other morning when they rode together in the park, he’d have struggled to explain in a convincing manner why he’d agreed to his mother’s suggestion of Miss Nightingale as his bride. To say, Whynother? and shrug, was surely unsatisfactory. Meg had clearly thought it so, had told him he was strange. Perhaps he was. It was certainly strange, to put it no more strongly, to have been so quick to fulfil his father’s wish – which might after all have been some casually expressed fancy rather than a deeply felt desire – when his father could never know of it, or give his approval. Or perhaps he’d just been tired of looking for something he’d come to believe didn’t exist, or didn’t exist for him. He needed to sit down and think seriously about all this, but now was hardly the moment. His life a few weeks ago had consisted of nothing but days that had had to be filled; now, there never seemed to be any damned time.
And it was hard to say, returning to the immediate hour and its most pressing concerns, why he had agreed to this preposterous scheme. Perhaps he hadn’t. He couldn’t remember now; that is to say, he recalled perfectly well all his strong and reasoned arguments against doing this mad thing, and Meg’s ridiculous responses, and he recalled nearly giving in to temptation and kissing her, but after that everything was rather a blur, and here he was, nonetheless.
And here she was, coming along the mews towards him, swaggering with what she no doubt considered to be a masculine gait. It was quite dark here, and he couldn’t see her very well. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. He groaned softly, and his companion suppressed some sound that might have been a cough, but was more likely a snort of ribald amusement. ‘Are you laughing at me, Jack, or just at the universe in general and the fickleness of destiny? Because I know there can’t be anything in the least amusing about this fine young fellow who’s coming to join us, or the prospect of the evening ahead. Nothing at all fucking funny about any of that, as far as I can see.’
‘Just clearing my throat, sir,’ Fishwick replied impassively. ‘Phlegm, I dare say. This night air isn’t good for a man. Dangerous, it is.’
‘Isn’t that the truth?’
She was upon them now, and all other deeper concerns were banished. Her borrowed clothes fit her far better than they should, clinging to and revealing her long legs in a way that did little for his peace of mind. But as if to balance that, she had a horrible, shapeless excuse for a hat set at a jaunty angle on her crisp curls. What little ambient light there was allowed Dominic to see that her eyes were bright with anticipation. ‘Shall we go?’ she said eagerly.
Dominic was relieved to move away from his lurking post, although he dreaded passing into better-lit areas. There would be a greater chance of them being seen, and also, he’d be able to see her properly. But he wouldn’t be distracted from their mission. He wouldn’t. He needed instead to distract himself, urgently, from looking at her, from lingering on the lines and curves that were normally concealed… ‘I loathe your hat with a passion,’ he said with an effort at lightness. ‘It’s the worst hat I ever saw in my life.’
‘It can’t possibly be the worst hat you ever saw. This is London. Horrible hats must be ten a penny. Isn’t there even a man who goes around with a model of a ship on his head?’
‘Yes, Joseph Johnson, an old sailor and ballad singer. I’ve met him and spoken with him, and he wears a cleverly contrived model ship, not an ordinary hat. And it still looks much better than that misshapen monstrosity.’
‘Really? I quite like it. I think it gives me an air.’
‘An air of being deeply disreputable, certainly. An air of having found it in a gutter in a low part of town, and picked it out directly from the mire and put in on your head.’
‘Nonsense. It belongs to Robert – he’s loaned it to me, and warned me that I’ll have to replace it if I lose or damage it, which is quite fair, because it’s his second-best one.’
‘I hate to think what his other hats must be like, then. I will compensate him – in fact, I’ll pay to destroy it. Pounding it back into the dirt where it belongs would relieve my feelings nicely.’
‘Perhaps later,’ she said, ‘when our business is done. I am sure a guinea or two would reconcile Robert to his loss, and God forbid that a dandy’s tender sensibilities should be offended.’ He could hear the laughter bubbling up in her voice, even though he was trying hard not to look at her and mostly succeeding.
