The Second Shot (The Dueling Pistols) (7 page)

Then there was Charles.

"Is that man as rude as the banker man?"

"What?" Felicity quickly shook her head. "No, why did you think he was rude?"

"You looked at him like you look at me when I say something wrong." Charles shrugged. "You looked at the bank man that way."

"Charles, love, I was mad at the banker because he didn't want to talk to me about business."

"Why does that matter?"

"Some men, lots of men, think ladies aren't intelligent enough to run businesses."

Charles tapped his finger against his lower lip. "Perhaps they are afraid women will run them better than they can."

Felicity's grin broke across her face. "Why, that may be it. That is quite astute of you, Charles." However, she couldn't let Charles ruin necessary relationships out of loyalty to his mama. "But then, it may be difficult for a woman to concentrate on running a business when she is raising children. So you mustn't hold it against your banker. We shall have to work with him a long time, and you will be working with him when you are older."

"Are you going to have more children?"

"I should have to get married first, and I don't plan to do that."

"Grandpapa says that is why we are here in town."

"No, we are here to get Diana married, not me." Unfortunately Felicity's parents thought her too young of a widow to respectably live on her own and had come to town with her. They might have a point given her reaction to Tony, but that was barely enough reason to tolerate their interference. On the other hand they were good with Charles when they weren't overindulging him. At least they spent time with him while she mended the businesses, so she didn't feel entirely horrid about how little time she had to spare for her son.

"So why were you mad at that man with the dog?"

Felicity closed her eyes and considered her options. She could tell Charles the truth about his paternity and be done with it. Except how shocking would it be for her son to learn that his father was someone who angered his mother, someone he called "that man"?

"His dog liked me, but I don't think
he
did."

No, and that was the unfair part of it. "Major Sheridan doesn't know you well enough to know if he should like you."

"Is that the man Grandmama says you should marry so they can go home?"

Felicity rolled her eyes. "I shall have to have a talk with Grandmama."

Charles ducked his head down and looked guilty. "I suspect I shouldn't have listened."

"I suspect not. You know it is not proper to eavesdrop."

"I know. Can I still get toy soldiers and toy animals?"

Felicity gave a rueful shake of her head. She couldn't keep saying yes to his every whim or she would end up with a horrid brat. "Yes, you may."

"May I get a dog?"

"No, we have dogs at home. We don't need one in London."

"I want a dog."

"I don't."

"Grandpapa says I can afford anything I want."

"That is neither here nor there." He looked eager to protest her decision. She cut him off before he had the chance. "No dog, Charles, and that's the end of it."

Her bright cherub settled against the squabs, in a snit. He wouldn't stay that way long. Raising him with a proper appreciation for his wealth and what he might do with it was not easy. Really, they could afford to have a dozen dogs with a footman assigned to the care of each, even rent a fully staffed town house just for dogs, but she worried that Charles's character would be ruined by his wealth before he had a chance to learn responsibility.

Her indulgent parents were not helping. Perhaps the only thing she could do to get them to leave her alone was to agree to marry someone.

* * *

Over dinner, she learned her mother had quite preposterous ideas about that.

"So our Captain Sheridan is a major now." Lady Greystone took a sip of her wine.

"He isn't our anything," objected Felicity.

"I hear he called this morning, and wouldn't it be a fine thing if he married you now, after all these years?"

"He doesn't want to marry me, and I don't want to marry him."
Or anyone else.
Felicity barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes.

Lady Greyston's set her wine glass down with a thump. "You aren't considering him for your niece."

"No." Wouldn't that be lovely: the father of her child, married to her niece. The thought was too bizarre to contemplate.

"Other than Major Sheridan, I don't think you spent time with any eligible gentlemen last night."

"No, I spent time with the hostesses, whom I hope will issue other invitations. One gets excluded by forgetting the niceties."

"Well, you should let me worry about that."

"I would, if you would remember that Diana is to be included in the invitations."

Lady Greyston pursed her lips.

Felicity's parents were going to drive her berserk in a fortnight. They were absolutely convinced she should be seeking out a future husband for herself. "I know you don't know my niece or even care if she should have a season, but it shan't be as easy for her to secure entree into the ton as it was for me."

Diana's father, like Layton, had been in trade, and in spite of being raised as a lady, Diana would find some doors eternally shut.

"Well, I don't understand a bit of it. We have dropped everything in our lives to see you through this season so that
you
might find a husband."

Felicity closed her eyes. If she had known that was what her parents thought, she would have refused their company, or better yet, never told them she was going up to town. "There was no need. I did not want or expect you to leave home. Nor do I intend to find another husband."

Her mother's response was an impatient hiss. "We couldn't very well let you attend the season alone. It would be quite improper. You are far too young and..." Her mother let the sentence dangle, her meaning made clear by her lifted eyebrows.

What her mother left unsaid was that a girl who was foolish enough to get pregnant during her first season was not to be left to her own devices at any age.

That Felicity had triumphed over her stupidity by finding a decent man to marry her, albeit one who had a little less than desired in the matter of breeding, was conveniently forgotten. That she had learned from her mistake and had no intention of repeating it didn't count at all.

"You should consider Major Sheridan."

"Why? Six years ago you found my acceptance of his suit ludicrous."

Her mother replied with great patience as if Felicity were still as foolish. "He was a careless young man with no way to support you as a wife."

"Yes, I understand a captain's wages are inconsequential in comparison to a major's. What do you suppose the difference is? A farthing a week? I suppose I could actually afford tea on that."

"No, Felicity, you could support him now with your dower portion of the estate."

Felicity laughed. The idea of Tony allowing himself to be dependent on her tickled her. As if that would ever happen. "He and all the other fortune hunters. I swear, I could do better. Don't you suppose there is a penniless earl or two? Maybe a duke. Why, perhaps one of the foreign princes. I hear the Coburgs have pockets to let."

"You are not
that
deep in plump current, Felicity."

"Mmm," agreed Felicity. What her parents didn't know couldn't hurt her. "Quite unseemly of us to speak of something so vulgar as the blunt at the dinner table. I must have been married to Layton for far too long."

She glanced toward her father who was content to pile slice after slice of the savory roast on his plate. She did have a good chef, but really she could have used his backing.

"Which is why you should consider Major Sheridan. He has excellent breeding to recommend him above all else," replied her mother, quite missing the point that Layton, for all his immersion in trade, had never talked about money.

Felicity feared that if she mentioned the irony of her mother's using the very argument Felicity had used nearly seven years ago, her mother wouldn't appreciate it. Having a great-grandfather who was an earl didn't make Tony anything other than a younger son of a younger son. "And far too much pride, I fear."

"Is pride a bad thing?"

Not as long as it kept him from marrying her. She smiled. Now if she could just figure out how to avoid the pushy, protective presence of her parents, all would be well.

* * *

Meg Brown leaned her elbows on the rail of the ship and stared at the inky water at the mouth of the Thames. She was coming back to where she started. The thought made her desperate. She would not—could not—return to what she had been.

The twinkling stars seemed to laugh at the notion that she could become something, someone better.

She rubbed her hand over her forehead and looked underneath her arms to either side. Not seeing anyone, she turned around and surveyed the darkened deck. She had to be sure no one was about. The creak of a mast made her start, although the sound had become familiar to her.

The slapping of sails, which she had also grown used to hearing while on deck, was curiously absent. Instead, the cloth was lashed to the spars and the ship drifted only as far as its anchor allowed it to move. On the morrow they would navigate upriver when the sun illuminated the shore and the tide was right. It was now or never.

She couldn't decide if the death of the young woman below was a godsend or just the culmination of a disastrous trip in which she had resorted to tactics she'd hoped never to use again. But that was what one was left with when one was born to a ha'penney whore. No matter that her father was an earl. She was nothing and certainly not respectable. No matter how many times she tried to rise above the circumstances of her birth, she got knocked back down again.

She'd done her best to act the part of an officer's wife, albeit one who couldn't seem to locate her husband. Now the young woman who had the good fortune to be born into the right class had up and died. Meg shook her head. It was a sad thing.

Was it any wonder the thought, as dangerous as it was, had popped into her head in the lonely hours of the night?

She walked across the deck to the open hatch. Gripping the rope railings, she descended the stairs. She moved as quietly as a church mouse through the narrow passageway to Miss Fielding's cabin.

Who would know if Meg became Diana Fielding? Who could possibly be the wiser? Who would be hurt?

Certainly not Diana—she was dead. Not the dead girl's relatives—they hadn't seen her in years.

From now on Meg would be Diana, but what she was to do with the real Diana's body made her squeamish. Yet she couldn't leave the body to be found after she left the ship, or her charade would be over before it started.

Inside the cabin, Meg lifted Miss Fielding's body as she had done a dozen times before. This time it wasn't to help her to the bulkheads or to the galley. This time Miss Fielding didn't cooperate. In fact, for a moment she seemed to resist, but it was just that the corpse had begun to stiffen.

Meg had to hold the body like a dancing partner as she made her way through the narrow hall. Meg was sure every passenger could hear the thumps along the walls, the awkward, macabre dance the two of them performed.

Meg reached the stairs, and what had been a wisp of a girl became a lead weight. Climbing up as she held the body wouldn't work. Their similar heights made it impossible for Meg to get her burden high enough to reach the next step. She struggled, lifting and straining. For ten long seconds, she didn't think she would get Diana's body up the steep, narrow stairs.

Desperation made Meg curse silently—and rudely enough to make a sailor blush. She succeeded in getting the body balanced on the second step, only to tangle her feet in her skirts and Diana's lawn nightgown, sending them toppling forward. Trying to break the fall and muffle the sound, Meg clutched at the rope and pulled the body close as they landed. She stifled a scream as she came to rest face to face with the dead girl's mottled face.

How loud? Oh, God, how loud had that been?

Ignoring the shooting pain in her shoulder and knee, Meg scrambled over the body. She grasped under Diana's arms and yanked her up the stairs. Diana's head thumped on a riser, and Meg froze.

Was that louder than the fall?

When no one came out to investigate the noise, she resumed her grim task. She bit back the hysterical apologies that rose to her lips as Diana's head bounced on each stair.

Sweat streamed from under her arms and trickled down her sides. She tugged and strained, sure that she would be discovered any second.

Blowing like a hard-ridden horse, Meg finally wrestled her charge to the deck. Even though she hadn't spotted a night watchman, there could be one. Wrapping her arm around the dead girl's waist, she tugged her toward the stern.

She hardly looked as she pushed the torso over the railing and heaved the legs up. The body balanced on the rail, like a street-performing acrobat. Meg shoved with all her might.

Diana's body tumbled down the stern of the ship, thumping and rolling until the sickening splash at the end. Meg tried to think a prayer, but she could only will away her panic and attempt to breathe normally. Sweat clung to her skin and made her sticky, while the sea breeze chilled her damp face.

"Mrs. Brown?"

Meg whirled around to see the captain, buttoning his breeches and with his shirt hanging open over an ale-swollen belly. His momentary confusion at finding her wouldn't last long.

Her heart thundered in her chest. She spun around, trying to see down in the water, sure that Diana's body would float near the ship until daylight. Visions of the corpse, tangling in the anchor's chain and being pulled up while Meg stood by shackled and bound, crowded her thoughts.

She'd made too much noise. She should have figured out a way to lower the body. There were ropes all around. Ropes she could have tied around the corpse to guide its descent into the water. Ropes they could use to hang her from the creaking mast.