The Solitary Envoy, page 11
He wore the dark suit of a working gentleman. His topcoat was of fine material. He wore a frilled shirt, sparkling waistcoat, pressed dark trousers, and polished boots. He was merely one of many such men milling about the docks. Perhaps he was more handsome than most. He possessed the sharply defined features of one accustomed to harsher realms than mere parlor life. But that was not what caught her attention.
She had seen him before. Erica recognized him instantly.
Perhaps if his appearance had not been preceded by the military’s passage, she would have required more time.
He glanced her way. His clear green eyes clouded over. Clearly he felt he should know her.
Erica felt such revulsion the word was clawed from her throat. “You!”
Recognition dawned in his eyes. “The lady in Washington. Can it be?”
Erica wanted to turn and fling herself away. Where did not matter. What worse collection of portents could she have imagined for her arrival in England?
But the sailor interrupted her anguish. “I’m glad to see you, sir,” he shouted above the din. “Didn’t have a hope of finding a carriage for the lady.”
“A carriage? Here?” The man was still having difficulty adjusting to Erica’s appearance. “Today?”
“What I said exactly, sir.” The sailor was puffing from still holding the luggage aloft. “But I dursn’t leave the lady’s things just sitting here.”
“No, of course not.” The unspoken request was what the man seemed to have required. He turned and pointed behind them. “Third coach in line. There’s a good man.”
“Right you are, sir.”
Erica’s mouth was so filled with bile she could scarcely shape the words. “I would rather die.”
“If you stay here today, that is precisely what will happen,” her would-be rescuer shouted back. He took a step toward her but halted when she drew back. “The riots threaten to cut us off from the city proper.”
“What?”
“Riots!” the man repeated. “Bread and blood, they’re called, for that’s the crowd’s rallying cry.” When Erica continued to shy away from him, he cried impatiently, “Look about you! The place is a half step away from full alarm!”
It was true. She saw a man wave a sheaf of bank notes in the face of a carriage driver. Three women clutched one another and wailed pathetically. Drivers cracked long leather whips and shouted at horses and people alike. Panic was a palpable force in the air.
This time, when the man stepped forward, she did not retreat farther. He stood very close and spoke loudly to be heard. “You can spend the rest of your life hating me, miss, but only if you first survive this day!” He gripped her upper arm. “We must fly!”
Erica flinched. “Unhand me, sir!”
He did no such thing but instead pulled her roughly through the crowd to a carriage, where a driver took her valises and lashed them to the upper transom. “Pay your man!”
When she clearly did not understand, he shouted, “Your sailor. Give him a coin!”
Erica fumbled for her drawstring purse, handed the sailor a coin she did not see, and allowed herself to be bodily lifted and inserted through the open carriage door.
The man leaped up behind her, slapped the carriage’s side, and shouted, “Make haste, Daniel!”
“Right you are, Major!” The driver settled into his seat, raised the whip from its stand, and released the carriage brakes. “Heyah!”
The streets of London closed in about them. After weeks of frothy waves as the only interruption to endless sea and sky, the tightly compressed walls with their coverings of soot were grimly claustrophobic.
Erica and the officer sat facing forward. She looked at the other passengers. Across from them was a young woman, perhaps a year or so older than herself, and an older woman. Both looked gray from fear.
The officer was never still. He scouted the streets fore and aft, slipping over to glance out the windows on her side. Twice he trod on Erica’s toes, but she stifled her protests. The carriage rocked and jounced upon rough-hewn cobblestones, and the horses’ metal-shod feet clattered and echoed back from the walls to either side, as loud as military drums.
The older woman winced when the man’s boot came down upon her instep. “I do wish you would seat yourself, Gareth.”
“Forgive me, Aunt. But I must remain vigilant a while longer.” Even so, he lowered himself to perch upon the seat’s edge.
“The least you can do is introduce our traveling companion.”
“I beg your pardon. My aunt, Mrs. Clarissa Bellows, and my cousin Karity. This is a young woman from America, Miss Langston—”
Erica’s face registered her surprise. She had not expected that the man would know her name. But he was still speaking.
“—although I fear we have never been properly introduced.”
Now it was his aunt’s turn to look startled. “Then what—”
A faint rush of noise rose ahead of them. Gareth cried, “Down on the floor, all of you!”
The two women opposite Erica flung themselves down in a swirl of petticoats. Erica was not so speedy, however. As a result, she found herself staring out the window at pandemonium.
A crowd larger than the one portside filled a gigantic square. Two of the buildings at the square’s opposite end had been set ablaze. The throng was so noisy it was impossible to make out more than a single word, one shouted over and over: Blood.
As soon as the carriage raced into view, the crowd bayed. Fists and staves and farming implements and a few rusty swords were lifted into the air. The multitude swarmed toward them. The driver whipped the horses and shouted so loudly he could be heard over the baying throng. The horses, as frightened by the raging surge as Erica, sprang forward. They managed to outrun all but the fastest. One man scrambled onto the carriage’s nearside door. He wrapped his arm about the stanchion, then poked his head and thrust his other hand through the open window. The hand held a knife as long as Erica’s forearm. It was stained with something dark and glinted like a taste of death itself. The assailant opened his mouth to reveal a great maw of rotting teeth and roared at them. Erica might have screamed back. Someone in the carriage certainly did. She could not be certain it was she who had made the sound.
Gareth responded with cool precision. He ducked beneath the slicing blade and hammered one solid fist directly between the attacker’s eyes. The assailant blinked very slowly, and his knife clattered to the carriage floor. Then Gareth did something that amazed Erica as much as anything that had happened that strange and terrifying day. Just as the assailant’s arm began to unravel from the stanchion, Gareth reached out and gripped the man’s collar. “Steady on, chap.”
He pushed the man’s head and arm back through the window, then leaned so far out the window he seemed almost to topple from the racing carriage. He lowered himself, supporting his own and the unconscious attacker’s weight by propping his knees against both carriage seats. Then he dropped the man into the street.
He glanced fore and aft, then called, “All right topside?”
“Aye, sir,” the driver sang out. “One tried to climb aloft, but we saw him off right smart.”
“Excellent. All right, Auntie. You can rise up now.”
“Are you quite sure?”
He helped the two women rise from the floorboards. “We are almost to Parliament. The crowds don’t dare come this far.”
Erica looked at Gareth. Why had he gone to such lengths to keep their assailant from slipping beneath the carriage wheels? She couldn’t keep her astonishment to herself. “That man wanted to kill us!”
“Yes. He was also starving.” Gareth leaned forward for another scouting ahead and behind. “‘Blood and bread’ is their rallying cry for good reason, I’m afraid. The enclosure laws have forced thousands of stout British farmers off their land. The fortunate ones are doomed to working sunup to sundown in the new mills, spinning flax and cotton and wool. The others …” He waved out the window. “You see how desperate the others have become.”
Erica took a moment to slow her breathing and observed how the two women watched Gareth. More than family ties bound these people, of that she was certain. The aftertaste of terror and danger left her able to see the carriage’s interior with a crystal clarity. “Desperate,” she repeated.
It was the older woman who answered. “Were you to see your children starve before your very eyes, a rage such as what we have just witnessed might be forgiven.”
“Forgiven but never condoned,” Gareth said, rising for another check out the window. “Not violence. Never violence.”
Erica turned in amazement to the young man. “That is quite a remarkable comment to hear coming from a soldier,” she snapped.
Gareth said nothing but wore a look of very deep sorrow. The older woman was clearly affronted. “That seems a rather strange tone to take with a man who has just saved your life.”
“Is it indeed?”
Gareth continued to stare into her face, his look so poignant she felt it in her very marrow. It would be so easy to like this man. The sudden thought left her dizzy with a conflicting surge of repulsion and appeal.
He said very softly, “It’s all right, Aunt Clarissa.”
“Really, Gareth. You just saved the young lady’s life.”
“Twice,” her daughter added.
“Quite so. There at the harbor, had you not come to her aid, she might still be stranded.”
The lane they followed had opened into one of the grandest panoramas Erica had ever seen. The tall spires of Parliament rose into the cloud-flecked sky. She observed the fine parade of carriages and well-dressed people, the carefully tended green at the square’s center, the utter calm. The scene was a world away from the chaos they had just left behind but which remained so close that her heart still stuttered and her breath caught in her throat. She felt herself ensnared by the carriage and these watching eyes. “Let me out here, please.”
“I am quite happy to take you wherever—”
“I demand that you let me out!”
“Very well.” Gareth leaned out the window. “Pull up to the line of coaches, Daniel!”
“Right you are, sir.”
The two women watched as Erica opened the door and alighted before the carriage had come to a full halt. “I must say your behavior astonishes me, young lady,” said Mrs. Bellows.
“Aunt, please.” Gareth got down and said to the driver, “Give me a hand carrying the lady’s valises.”
But Mrs. Bellows would not be dissuaded. “I think the young lady owes you some expression of gratitude.”
“Do you?” asked Erica. “Tell me, madam. If a gentleman stood by and watched as one of his soldiers felled your father with a blow from his rifle, what do you feel would be the proper response?”
The woman’s mouth worked but no sound came out. It was the daughter, Karity, who responded, “No doubt he had good reason.”
“Oh, most certainly. My father was rushing across the street to fetch a pail of water. You see, these same soldiers had just set our family’s business on fire. So my father rushed for the water trough carrying buckets for weapons. One of this gentleman’s soldiers struck my father so hard he fell and never rose again.” Her eyes burned from the telling, such that she might as well have been fighting the flames anew. “I am unfamiliar with the British concept of proper etiquette. No doubt the gentleman’s response was most fitting under those circumstances.”
When neither of the women chose to respond, Erica nodded. “I thought as much. Good day.”
Gareth and the driver handed her valises up to the carriage’s driver. Gareth’s man turned his back on Erica’s offered coin and returned to his carriage. Gareth, however, stood upon the emerald square and waited as she boarded.
Erica said to the driver, “I wish to go to the United States Embassy.”
“Very good, miss.”
The driver clicked once and flicked his reins, and the horse drew away. Erica glanced back, then immediately wished she had not. For Gareth remained as he was, standing foursquare upon the green, watching her. There was a defenselessness about him, a proud man brought low through his own willingness. A man who would neither defend himself nor deflect her verbal attack. A man who seemed to apologize just by his stance.
Erica set her jaw. Why should she feel such regret over having spoken nothing but the truth?
Chapter 12
Erica’s carriage took a series of broad lanes leading north from Parliament Square, past grand plazas and impressive buildings. They entered Piccadilly Circus, which was not home to any festival as she had once imagined but was simply a name derived from the frilly collar called a pickadil and the Latin word for circle. A spider web of lanes spread out in all directions. Innumerable carriages made their way around the central fountain, while the sidewalks were packed with well-heeled pedestrians.
The circus opened onto a boulevard named Piccadilly as well. The street was lined on the south by a well-tended park and on the north by shiny new mansions. The United States Embassy occupied a manor about midway up the grand boulevard.
Erica gave her name to the porter stationed by the gate lodge. The man tipped his hat in recognition and scurried to help the driver unload her cases. She paid the driver and followed the porter, extremely grateful for the escort. The manor’s drive was filled with gentlemen, nearly a hundred of them she guessed, standing in tight clusters and smoking their long clay pipes.
Still more gentlemen lined the broad staircase leading to the tall entrance doors, as well as the building’s front foyer. Four doors led off this vestibule, three of which were shut. A secretary’s desk was stationed before each door. Men hovered about the three desks, talking in urgent whispers. The foyer’s rear double doors were open, revealing a large open room very similar to the one in which the Langston clerks once worked. Embassy officials rushed back and forth, important and urgent in their manner and speech.
Erica found herself strangely reassured by the air of tension that surrounded the entire ground floor. Clearly these were men of power and wealth. They would only give their time to stand and wait here if they felt that there was something to be gained. The idea gave her hope that her mission too might result in her obtaining justice for her family’s cause.
The porter led her up a sweeping circular staircase to yet another set of double doors. These were quite new, Erica realized, because she could still smell the fresh-cut timber and paint. The doors were very heavy, and the wall both solid and thick. The porter shut the door behind her, and the atmosphere abruptly changed. Gone were the noise and the tobacco smoke and the huddled conversations. In their place were the smell of fresh-baked bread and the sound of a child’s laughter.
“I’ll just go see to your other cases, miss.”
Erica took that as a signal and reached for her purse. “Wait just a moment, let me see …”
“That won’t be necessary, miss.”
“But I insist.”
“Mr. Aldridge doesn’t permit such, miss.” He touched the rim of his bowler. “Won’t be a moment.”
A new voice piped up from behind her. “Hello. Are you my new governess?”
Erica turned to face a young redheaded girl of perhaps eight. She had a lively expression and the poise of one born to rule … and she looked so much like Abigail Cutter that Erica found all hint of reserve vanishing. In the midst of so much turmoil and strangeness and fear it was so good to see a familiar face—even if it did belong to a total stranger.
It seemed the most natural thing in the world to drop to her knees so that she was at the same level as the child. “No, I am afraid I am not. But I must say it would be my great pleasure to teach a young lady as poised and intelligent as you.”
The child did indeed have Abigail’s pointed chin, as well as the same abrupt cut of her nose and the keen blue eyes. “My mother says I am far more trouble than any two girls should ever be.”
“I’m certain she would not say any such thing.”
“But she does. She says I’m the reason why our first governess ran away to get married. She says if I were not such a handful, our life here would go much smoother.”
A woman’s voice interrupted. “You have said enough, Abbie.”
“But I was just explaining to the new governess—”
“I said that was enough,” she said gently.
Erica stood up to greet the woman she presumed to be Abbie’s mother. “Mrs. Aldridge?”
She was a tall woman, comfortably padded by recent childbirth. Her day dress was high-collared and elegant but liberally dusted with flour. She offered her hand. “Yes. Miss Langston? We have been looking forward to your arrival for well over a month now.”
“The journey was endless and horrid.”
Abbie piped up, “Ours was as well. Sixty-one days. I kept a record in my little book. Mama was sick the entire way. She was carrying my baby brother, Horace. Mama would eat because Daddy insisted, but it never stayed down very long. Then—”
“I think our guest understands exactly what transpired, Abbie.” But there was no scolding to the words. “I see you have met my daughter.”
“I have indeed. She is a wonderful child,” Erica said and meant it sincerely.
Abbie looked pleased. “I could show you to your room.”
Her mother asked, “Do you know which one it is?”
“I heard you and Daddy talking about it. She is to have the one beneath the stairs at the back of the house, where the butler would live if we had one. Which we don’t.” She caught her mother’s eyebrows rising and added hastily, “Mama says we need to remember how we have been raised, as proper Americans who don’t need a houseful of servants at our beck and call.”
“I think that is a splendid principle.”
“Oh, good.” The little girl made an effort to heft the largest of Erica’s cases but was relieved to allow Erica to take it from her. She then selected the smaller square traveling case. “Mama is ever so busy, and that worries Papa. She has the new baby and all. I’m not quite certain the baby is worth keeping. He wakes us up at all hours and frets ever so much. But Mama says once a baby arrives we can’t give him back to God. No matter how much bother he is in the middle of the night.”
