After many minutes of companionable silence, Cullen spoke first. "Do you think our encounter with Lord Howick went well, or are we worse off than before?"
"We are certainly not worse off than before. I'm pretty sure he gave his consent to guard Sophie and Lydia during the Season, but I'm also dead certain he will have our hides if we make a mull of it." Arnaud kicked the carcass of a dead rat from the pavement into the refuse-littered street. "Does that answer your question?"
"Close enough. That's what I thought I heard.” Cullen tipped his hat to the night watchman when they passed. "Do you have any absinthe left?”
"A little, I think. Why?" Arnaud gave him an odd look through the mist sifting between them.
"We need to fortify ourselves when we get to your rooms, so we can compose a list of any and all outcomes under which Lord Howick might consider we’ve bollocks’ed up protection of those young women.”
Chapter Six
Sophie pacedseveral times through the Howick townhouse ground floor foyer, peering at the empty silver tray on the round, polished mahogany table in the center. Though she took on a bored look of nonchalance, on her third trip through, the butler, Joseph, stopped her.
"Miss Brancelli, is there something I can help you find?"
"No. Not really. That is…"
"Were you perhaps looking for this?" He drew a cream-colored envelope from a tray he carried. A calling card fell from beneath the envelope, and he stooped to retrieve the card from the floor, dusting off the small rectangle with his pristine, white cotton gloves before presenting it to her as well.
She stashed the card inside her sash, but ripped open the envelope before remembering where she was. "Oh, I'm so sorry," she said, and stuffed the letter into a pocket of her green muslin morning dress. "Thank you for bringing the letter."
“Is there anything else?"
“Er, no, of course not,” Sophie said, and swept up the staircase to the second floor. Although Joseph, and all the others in the unseen Howick army of servants, were cool, professional, and distant, she felt as much of a kinship with them as she did with Lord Howick, Lady Howick, and Lydia. Lydia, who had led her down the shameful path of reading the cards the night before. Another secret she had to keep. If anyone in thetonsuspected she practiced the gypsy art, that would be the end of her prospects for an alliance with a respectable gentleman.
Lydia. Sophie loved her friend dearly, but she’d grown up in a household where no one could deny her anything. Her saucer-blue eyes had always flashed at the sounds of “shouldn’t” or “cannot.”
Good Lord, Grandmama. Why did you leave me with such a difficult, perhaps impossible task?
She continued to work her way down a long, marble-floored hallway and stopped at the first alcove, sinking to a low bench. She pulled the letter from her pocket, taking her time and holding her breath.
Her heart plummeted. The return address on the envelope made her heart sing, but the greeting and rest of the letter turned her breakfast to lead.
Dear Miss Brancelli,
Although your poems are of the highest quality, I fear they are unsuitable for our publication. It has come to our attention that you have misrepresented your identity. According to our source, you areMissBrancelli, notMr.Brancelli. Although your poetry is publishable, our subscribers would not read the work of a previously unpublished female.
Very Sincerely,
Arthur Chamless, Editor
Who would have betrayed her to the publisher? And why? She knew no one in London besides Lydia and the rest of the Howick family. She wanted to cry, but was too angry, so she jumped to her feet and paced. The forgotten card dropped from her sash.
When she swooped down to retrieve the wayward rectangle, she saw a name that made her heart give a little hiccup - Captain Arnaud Bellingham. Captain Bellingham represented everything forbidden to Sophie. He made her feel as if reading the gypsy cards the night before had been the most natural, appropriate thing in the world. He’d encouraged her and promised to protect her. But he did not understand. She didn’t have the luxury of choosing her own life.
He was a man who honestly believed there was nothing he could not fix. In her case, some things would have to stay broken. Captain Bellingham was surrounded by a loving, normal family and friends. He couldn’t possibly understand her situation.
After another tortured look at the rejection letter, she balled up the proof of failure and stuffed it back inside her pocket.
Arnaud and Cullen walked along Piccadilly toward the Admiralty, their boots clicking a staccato beat against the cobblestones. Arnaud had forgotten how hard and solid London streets could be after so many months navigating the danger-fraught estuaries along the west coast of Africa. The heightened awareness that naval duty had given him made a jarring appearance on the early morning fog-shrouded street.
His ship’s surgeon paced in silence next to him
Arnaud gave him a sideways glance. “Are we being followed?”
Cullen kept his head down but nodded, adding in a low voice, “Those three swabs have been behind us ever since we left your rooms at Albany.”
Arnaud concurred. He could swear the last few times he'd glanced behind, the same men had continued to trail them. They did not narrow the gap, but instead kept the same distance, even stopping once to purchase a paper of roasted walnuts from a street vendor.
