At Trafalgar Square, James deserted me. He’d paid the cabbie already, he said, with coins his dad had given him, and all I had to do was alight at Miss Townsend’s. James waved as he disappeared into the crowd milling before the National Gallery, and was gone.
The cab clopped through Haymarket to Piccadilly and up through Regent Street past the building where Mr. Thanos had rooms. We turned at Hanover Square, passing beside Hanover Church, and so to Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, and Upper Brook Street.
I gave the cabbie an extra penny for a tip, which he took gratefully. Miss Townsend’s butler, spying me, helped me descend.
“They’re upstairs in the studio, Mrs. Holloway,” he told me as he ushered me into the cool, quiet house and closed the door behind me.
The butler treated me no less respectfully than did Mr. Davis, though he must wonder at Miss Townsend dressing me like a doll and sending me off to Surrey. He seemed to take Miss Townsend’s eccentricities in stride, including her invitation to Bobby to live with her.
I climbed the polished staircase to the top of the house, my feet in the high-heeled shoes aching somewhat, and entered the studio, which was flooded with light from skylights and large windows. Stacks of canvasses lay everywhere, and finished paintings leaned against the walls.
The sharp smell of varnish assailed me. I found Miss Townsend in a smock, gliding a large brush over a finished painting. Cynthia and Bobby lounged on the far side of the room, reading newspapers.
A strange blatting sound emerged from the wall, and I jumped. Miss Townsend coolly reached for a speaking tube without looking up and applied it to her ear.
“Mrs. Holloway has returned.” I heard the butler’s voice hollow and small inside the tube.
Cynthia and Bobby came to their feet, Cynthia tossing aside her paper. Miss Townsend turned, a drop of varnish splashing to the paint-splotched floor.
“Why are you back so soon, Mrs. H.?” Cynthia sang out. “Everything all right? Or were you found out?”
They surrounded me, Cynthia’s light blue and Bobby’s and Miss Townsend’s brown eyes avid, the three wanting to know everything.
I set down the reticule and unpinned the hat. “My visit was cut short because your father turned up, Cynthia.”
Cynthia blinked in astonishment. “Papa? At the Duke of Daventry’s? Papa doesn’t know him—I’d have heard him boast of acquaintance with a wealthy duke. Jove, I’d have warned you if I’d known. Did he recognize you?”
“I do not believe so.” Again I felt that fleeting touch of Lord Clifford’s gaze, and I had to wonder. If he had recognized me, he could have easily exposed me then and there, which would have exposed Daniel as well. I shuddered to think of what Daniel’s guv’nor would say if Daniel was betrayed because he’d brought me to the duke’s house.
“What the devil was my father doing there, do you know?” Cynthia asked me.
I told her what I’d seen and heard, and how her father had handed the duke a diamond necklace. “The transaction does not seem to be complete. Lord Clifford told the duke to contact him when he was ready, I suppose to purchase the necklace . . .” I trailed off as Cynthia covered her face. “Whatever is the matter, Lady Cynthia?”
Cynthia shook her head, still buried in her hands, and groaned. “Oh, not the diamond necklace. Not again. He promised.”
18
Miss Townsend, Bobby, and I regarded Cynthia in bafflement.
“What are you going on about, Cyn?” Bobby demanded. “What necklace?”
Cynthia raised her head. Her cheeks were flushed, tears standing in the corners of her eyes. “Something my father trots out from time to time. Did he arrive there with anyone, Mrs. Holloway? Besides my mother, I mean. Or did you see him speaking to anyone else?”
“Only the duke,” I answered. “Why?”
“He needs a partner, but I didn’t think he had many cronies left in London. I’m sorry, Judith, I must go. Good-bye, Bobby, Mrs. Holloway. I will speak to you later.”
This last Cynthia said to me as she hastened out of the studio. We heard her clatter down the stairs, calling out to the butler below.
Miss Townsend raised her brows but held up a hand as Bobby started forward. “Best to leave her be, I think. It’s none of our affair and will be a family matter she needs to face alone. Was the gown suitable, Mrs. Holloway?”
Neither Bobby nor I protested her change of subject, though Bobby was as curious as I.
“Indeed.” I was loath to part with the gown, though I knew I could not wear it to Cheapside to visit my daughter. “Please give your friend my thanks when you return it.”
“It is yours,” Miss Townsend said. “She had planned to send it to a secondhand shop, as she was finished with it anyway. Now that it fits you, you might as well retain it.”
I paused in the act of tugging off the gloves. “Good heavens, if Mrs. Bywater found such a gown hanging in my room, she’d think I was some man’s fancy piece.”
Both Miss Townsend and Bobby laughed, thinking me joking, but I did not exaggerate. Mrs. Bywater so far had not stooped to searching her servants’ rooms, but if any of the maids or Mrs. Redfern saw it, and Mrs. Bywater heard of it, I would be hard-pressed to explain.
“Never mind,” Miss Townsend said. “I will keep it here for you. Whenever you wish to wear it—perhaps Mr. McAdam will take you dining—send word, and you may don it here.”
I touched the skirt, the smooth fabric cool to my bare fingers. “You are very kind, but—”
“No buts, Mrs. Holloway. You have earned this. You gave up your day out to help Mr. McAdam on one of his hunts, and you ought to have something for it. I will keep the gown, and we’ll say no more about it.”
She could do as she liked, of course. I gave Miss Townsend a nod, then I took myself downstairs to her bedchamber to change into my own clothes.
I felt much more myself in my plain corset and brown dress, years out of fashion by now. But this was the frock I wore to visit Grace, and donning it always made me lighter of heart. No beautiful gown with a dozen frills could compare to that.
Miss Townsend and Bobby walked downstairs with me, Miss Townsend’s butler having procured another hansom.
Bobby pulled a coin from her pocket. “For your daughter,” she said, handing me a shining copper penny. “She can buy whatever toys she likes with it. You are lucky, Mrs. H.”
She looked wistful. I realized that Bobby, though she eschewed the dress, manners, and restrictions of a woman, liked children and envied me mine. I doubted she yearned after them enough to don a frock and marry a man, but if she ever had young ones to look after, I thought she’d do well by them.