“I believe you have cured my headache.”
He laughed. “I’ve never had my kissing described as medicinal before, but I’ll take it as a compliment. Come on, let’s go.”
They made a cautious way through the servant’s wing out to the stables. The horses she had earlier selected were saddled and waiting in the care of a young groom. Ned mounted, then noticed Cecilia staring unblinkingly at her stirrup.
“All right there?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said in sterling British fashion, meaning that she was either fine or on the verge of complete internal catastrophe. She shook her head, regaining focus, and threw him a look that did not quite reach his face. He saw vulnerability in it, but mostly danger, and he rather wished he’d waited for a garden after all—if only so he could press her into a hedge afterward and kiss her again, and again, until her eyes were all softness and languor, with no suggestion of knife-edged revenge in them.
She hoisted herself up into the saddle, and Ned tossed a few coins to the groom. “We were never here.”
“Who are you anyway?” the groom asked in bemusement.
Ned laughed. “No one.”
“No one was not here,” the groom said obediently, pocketing the coins.
“Wait! Stop!”
The shout came from the hotel’s side door. The groom gasped. Ned and Cecilia turned, expecting to see one of several possible people. It was, however, Jacobsen, Morvath’s officer. His scarred and pitted face contorted with emotion beneath a rough scrabble of gray hair. In his hand was a pistol.
“Go!” Ned shouted, and they urged their horses forward at a run as bullets screamed past their heads and somewhere nearby a rooster, announcing the day in high, proud notes of majesty, squawked and fell abruptly silent.
12
the woman in black—candy from a baby—the queen’s silverware—ned plunges into the pit of horror—the problem with men these days—lady armitage’s fortress—tally ho!
If all else perished, and she remained, Lady Armitage should be content. And if all else remained, and Jemima Darlington were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty heaven, and Lady Armitage would become a source of visible delight to all around her!
But in the meanwhile, she walked the Cobb.
Day after day she walked, awaiting Signor de Luca. She had received an invitation to the Society gathering in Ottery St. Mary but could not tolerate the notion of sitting at a table with That Darlington Woman. Once Cecilia had been removed from the picture, they might meet again for tea and cakes. Red velvet cakes. Poisoned tea. And a knife in the back, in the manner of well-bred ladies.
Lady Armitage could not be easy until then. Life rubbed grittily against her skin. She could not even pick the pockets of her fellow pedestrians, so out of sorts did she feel. Instead, she paced the longharbor wall, black-cloaked, mysterious, her hair bending in the breeze as she stared wistfully out to sea—
Although the bright skies and calm waters rather detracted from the romance of it.
The man selling ice creams from a wheeled cart did not help.
And the breeze was so warm and gentle, she might as well have worn pink and stuck a bow on her hair.
Nevertheless, Lady Armitage sighed mournfully (and ate a small ice cream). Any moment now, Eduardo de Luca would stride toward her, his greatcoat flaring in the—er, his greatcoat hanging heavily about him, his blond head wickedly bare. He would grasp her hand with all the raw manners of a desperate-hearted rake, kiss it, and beg most pathetically to be her servant. That is, he was already her servant...but he would beg to be the servant of her heart, not just her purse!
And then, rising from his knees (for he had knelt in honor and devotion), he would present her with a small velvet bag containing the finger or ear of a young woman who had once given her a beloved toy dog because she thought Aunty Army might be lonely.
And so the great lady lingered beside the sea, until at last on Saturday she became bored (not at all troubled by gout, an affliction she certainly did not have) and retired to her sitting room with its windows overlooking the waters. A footman kept her supplied with tea, digestive biscuits, cocaine pastilles, and the delicious sight of his legs in tight breeches.
Still she sighed and lounged restlessly, albeit Vikingly, in an armchair. She was employing a pygmy leg bone to scratch beneath her starched wing of hair when the butler unexpectedly entered.
“Excuse me, ma’am. A gentleman is at the door. With which particular violence would you like him sent away?”
Signor de Luca at last! Lady Armitage sat up, tossing the bone aside. “Let him in. And, Whittaker, bring more tea.”
“The special tea, ma’am?”
“No, no. At least, not yet. Some of that new Earl Grey concoction, I think.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
