“No, Miss, he is staying with friends, not wishing to compromise you in any way by staying here.”
If Mavreen thought that was a bit absurd, she didn’t say so. She said instead, “Do you know what will happen to me, Mr. Pottson?”
“Don’t worry your head about it, Miss. Lord Harry will inform me as to your future plans on the morrow.”
He received his summons to call upon Miss Hetty in Grosvenor Square very early the next morning. As he sat opposite her in the small back parlor listening to her unfold her plan for Mavreen’s future, he felt his respect for her grow to impressive heights. He readily applauded her solution, thinking to himself that kin of Master Damien would undoubtedly behave toward Mavreen with a great deal of kindness. Thus, it was with a light heart and a wide smile on his leathery face that he assisted Mavreen onto the mail coach that same morning.
“Now, be careful, Miss, not to lose your letter of introduction to Sir John and Lady Louisa.” He lifted her gloved hand and pressed five guineas into her palm. “It’s a gift from Lord Monteith. He said, Miss, that self-respect doesn’t have anything to do with money, but it helps in many other ways.”
She returned his smile, but felt a large lump rise in her throat. “Please thank his lordship, Mr. Pottson, and tell him that I shall never forget all he has done for me.”
Mavreen’s gratitude to Lord Harry made Pottson uneasy. He hastened to say, “Don’t forget that you know only Miss Henrietta Rolland. It is she who is your benefactress. It won’t do at all for you to ever mention Lord Monteith. You won’t go forgetting, will you, Miss?”
Mavreen sighed and shook her head. “No, Mr. Pottson, I shan’t forget.”
When Pottson returned to Grosvenor Square before noon to give Hetty an accounting of what had happened, he found her looking much like the cat who had swallowed the cream.
“It’s done, Pottson?” she asked, looking up.
“Yes, the poor little mite was so grateful, Miss Hetty. Said she’d never forget you.”
“Never forget Lord Harry, you mean.”
“There a nab of the truth in that. I’ll ask you not to be going to any brothels again, if you please.”
“As a young gentleman with no mistress in keeping, it is what one does. Ah, don’t fret further about it, Pottson, for we did manage to scrape through unscathed and did a good deed in the bargain. I have devised a plan that will, I trust, keep me away from such establishments in the future.”
He was afraid to ask but he did. “What plan?”
“When I see Sir Harry and Mr. Scuddimore later today. After I endure a recital of their exploits at Lady Buxtell’s, they will undoubtedly want to know how I fared. I shall tell them that I found Mavreen to be just what I require, and have set her up as my mistress. It will do marvelous things for my reputation.”
Pottson groaned.
“I shan’t tell them where I’ve installed her. That, I am convinced, will only add to my consequence as a confirmed young man of the world.”
Pottson groaned louder.
“You know, Pottson, Sir William Filey was at Lady Buxtell’s. He is really a vile man. Just the story Mavreen told me about him made my blood run cold. I can’t believe that Sir William ever intended to marry Elizabeth Springville. I suppose if Lord Oberlon did marry her, his intentions, at least toward the lady, were honorable. Of course, we need have no doubts whatsoever as to Damien’s intentions.” She rose, becoming suddenly brisk. “Well, I must get back to business. I will lunch shortly with Sir Archibald, then Sir Harry and Mr. Scuddimore and I will be doing something doubtless naughty this afternoon. Then, tonight, there’s a rout at Blair House. As to Lord Oberlon being in attendance I will make no more predictions. The wretched man continues to unwittingly evade me.”
Chapter Eight
Jason Charles Cavander, Marquess of Oberlon, sat comfortably in the reading room of White’s, his long breeched legs stretched out toward the fire. He had been reading a rather involved article in the Gazette that recounted in grisly detail a recent murder on Hounslow Heath. But now, he was just staring into the flames, and rising every once in a while to kick the embers again into life with the toe of his boot. His thoughts were black, but then again, for well over a year his world had been black, filled with hatred and malice and pain. And here he was now, sitting in White’s, quite at his leisure, any number of servants about to do his biding, and there was nothing he really wanted to do. He was becoming a melancholy bore, he thought, and that would surely never do, at least not for him. He had to get a grip on his life again, take a good hard look at the man he’d become since that fateful night some sixteen months before. He looked deeply into the flames and sighed. He was beginning to enjoy his melancholy and that would never do. When he heard a hummph beside him, he looked up to see Lord Melberry, namely his Uncle Mortimer, at his elbow. His surprise held him silent for a moment, for his staid uncle, the very cornerstone of the Tory party, hadn’t to his knowledge, stepped through the portals of White’s in many a long year.
The marquess dropped the paper on the smooth mahogany table at his side and grinned engagingly at Lord Melberry. As humorless as he found the old man, he nonetheless held him in some affection. Melberry had never said a single word of sympathy at Elizabeth’s funeral or afterward. He’d been there, standing by him, like a rock. Jason suspected that his uncle hadn’t really been aware of what had happened, all his powerful intellect completely focused on politics, but
