style="font-size:15px;"> Violet Augusta Juliet, the Dowager Viscountess Addington, should never have encouraged the Honourable Alfred Bigglesworth to air his opinions on horseflesh because all night she had been forced to pay attention to them. No, she should have smiled nicely and moved on when he first waylaid her at the Barringtons’ ball, but there had been something in his expression that looked rather desperate and so she had listened.
It was both her best and worst point, she thought, this worry for other people’s feelings and her need to make them...happy. She shook her head and turned to gaze out of the carriage window and into the darkness. Happy was not quite the word she sought. Valued was a better one, perhaps. Frowning at such ruminations, she removed her gloves. She’d never liked her hands wrapped in fabric and it was a nightly habit of hers to tear off the strictures as soon as she was able. Her cap followed.
‘Mr Bigglesworth seemed to have taken your fancy, Violet?’
Amaryllis Hamilton sat beside her in the carriage, dark eyes observant, and Violet felt a spurt of guilt for she’d meant to leave earlier as she knew her sister-in-law had only recently recovered from a malady of the chest.
She continued, ‘He is said to be a sterling catch and those who know him speak highly of the family.’
Her tone was playful and dimples showed plainly, but Violet hoped Amara might have said all she wanted to. However, she was not yet finished.
‘You deserve a good man to walk in life beside you, Violet, and I pray nightly to the Lord above that you might yet find one.’
This was a conversation that had been ongoing across the past twelve months between them, but tonight Violet was irritated by it. ‘I have attained the grand old age of twenty-seven, Amara, and I am not on the lookout for another husband. Thank goodness.’
That echo of honesty had her sitting up straighter, the wedding ring on her left hand catching at the light.
She remembered when Harland had placed it on her finger under a window of stained glass and beside a vase filled with lilies.
She’d never liked the flowers since, the sheen on waxy petals somehow synonymous with the sweat across her new husband’s brow. Avaricious. Relieved. A coupling written in law and not easily broken. Her substantial dowry in his hands and her father standing there with a broad smile upon his face.
The carriage had now slowed to pass through the narrow lanes off Brompton Road and then it stopped altogether—which was unusual given that the traffic at this time of the early morning should have been negligible.
Pushing back the curtain, Violet peered out and saw a man lying there. A gentleman, by the style of his clothing, though he was without his necktie and was more than rumpled looking. Unlatching the window, she called out to her driver.
‘Is there some problem, Reidy?’
‘It’s nothing, my lady. Just a drunk who’s fallen asleep on the throughway. The young footman is trying to remove him to a safer distance as we speak. We shall be off again in a moment.’
Violet glanced down and saw the half-truth of such a statement, for the Addington footman was a slight lad who was having a good deal of trouble in dragging the larger man to safety. The glint of dark blood caught what little light there was and without hesitation she opened the door and slipped out of the carriage.
‘He is hurt and will need to be seen by a doctor straight away.’ A heavy gash in the hairline above his right ear had spread blood across his face and there was a bandage wrapped about the top half of his left arm. His eyes opened at the sound of her voice, but she had no true picture of his visage in the midnight gloom.
‘I...will...be...fine.’ It was almost whispered, irritated and impatient.
She bent down. ‘Fine to lie here and die from loss of blood, sir, or fine to simply freeze in the cold of this night?’
Her driver had brought forth a light and the stranger’s smile heartened her. If he was indeed dying, she did not imagine he would find humour in anything. Laying one hand across his own, she felt it to be frozen.
‘Bring him into the carriage. Owing to the lateness of the hour and the falling temperature, I think it wise to deliver him home ourselves without further ado.’
With a struggle the servants righted him and Violet saw that he was tall, towering a good way above her own five foot six.
He swore in fluent French, too, a fact that made her stiffen and take in breath. Then he was sick all over his boots, the look of horror on his face plain.
‘Find the water bottle and sluice him down.’
Her driver’s frown was heavy. ‘It seems the man might be better left to go his own way, my lady.’
‘Please do as I say, Reidy. It is cold out here and I should like to be inside the warmth of the carriage.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
The water soaked her own silken slippers as it tumbled from the man’s Hessians on to the icy street. As the stranger wiped the blood from around his mouth with the fabric of his sleeve, a scar across the lower part of his chin was much more easily detected.
He looked like a pirate dragged in from battle, dangerous, huge and unknown, his dark hair loose and his eyes caught in the half-light to gleam a furious and glittering gold.
‘Where do you live, sir?’ She asked this question as soon as she had him settled, instructing her driver to wait and see which direction he required.
But even as he coughed and tried to speak his eyes simply rolled back and he toppled against the cushioned leather.
‘We will make for home. He needs warmth and a physician.’
‘You are certain, my lady?’
‘I am. Mrs Hamilton will see that I am unharmed and the young footman can join us inside. If there is any difficulty at all we will bang loudly on the roof. In his state, I hardly think that he constitutes a threat.’
As the conveyance began to move, Violet looked across at the new arrival. She thought he was awkwardly placed, the stranger, his good arm caught in an angle beneath him. He held a weapon in his pocket and another in the soft leather of his right boot. She could see the swell of the haft of a blade.
Armed and unsafe. She should throw him out right now on to the street where another might find him. Yet she did not.
He was wounded and the strange vulnerability of a strong man bent into unconsciousness played at her heartstrings.
It had begun to sleet, too, the weather sealing them into a small and warm cocoon as they wound their way back to her town house. Soon it would snow hard for the storm clouds across the city last evening had been purple. Further off towards the river, bands of freezing rain blurred the horizon. She shivered and then ground her teeth, top against bottom with the thought of all that she had done.
Impetuous. Foolish. How often had Harland said that of her? A woman of small and insignificant opinion. A woman who never quite got things right. Amara was observing her with uncertainty and even the footman had trouble meeting her eyes. The price of folly, she thought, yet if she had left him he would have died, she was certain
