Part 2 (2/2)
The wildfire died. ”Have at it, my dear,” he said. ”If it will make you feel better about being a woman-and having a woman's needs.”
Incensed, she drew back her arm, but Gareth's eyes dared her. Chilled her. Somehow, she found the presence of mind to lower her hand and set her palm flat on the back of her chair instead, so that he would not see how it trembled.
”Get out, Gareth,” she said, refusing to look at him. ”I have grown weary of this. Draw yourself next quarter's pay, and go. You are sacked.”
”You cannot sack me, Xanthia,” he said as he turned and walked stiffly away. ”Not without a two-thirds vote of your directors. And that would be you, me, and Rothewell. Do you want to solicit his vote, my dear? Do you want to tell him why? And do you want to tell him what we've been to one another?”
”I begin to think it might be worth it,” she snapped, addressing his back. ”Sometimes, Gareth, I despise you.”
It was his turn to stare blindly out the window. ”No, you don't,” he said, setting one hand on his hip. ”I almost wish, Xanthia, that you did, for it would be easier. But good G.o.d, sometimes I despise myself enough for the both of us.”
She was utterly shaking inside now. Dear heaven, she had played this badly! She really did not want to lose Gareth, either as a friend or as an employee. It was a horrid, horrid balancing act she played.
”I have to go,” she said, shoving her chair abruptly to her desk. The argument was over for now, and they both knew that neither had won.
”Go where?” he said, almost as if nothing had happened. ”Captain Stretton and the purser will be coming ash.o.r.e with the manifest and cashbox.”
”Lady Sharpe is expecting me,” said Xanthia, piling her files together untidily.
”Very well.” Lloyd went to the door. ”I'll deal with Stretton. Shall I call your carriage?”
”I shall take a skiff from Hermitage Stairs,” she said abruptly. ”It will be quicker. The rain has let up, and the tide is coming in.”
Lloyd turned from the door, frowning. ”In London, you are a lady, Xanthia,” he said. ”Overlooking the fact that ladies do not work, they certainly do not hail watermen unaccompanied.”
”And what would you have me do, Gareth?” she snapped. ”Loll about in Mayfair tatting sofa cus.h.i.+ons and leave you to run Neville s.h.i.+pping?”
Lloyd drew back as if she had slapped him. ”That was beneath you, Xanthia,” he said. ”And I did not deserve it.”
”I am sorry.” Xanthia returned to the window, crossing her arms over her chest, as if she were cold again. ”You are right, of course. My remark was uncalled for.”
He followed her, and turned her roughly by the shoulders. ”You do not have to live like this, Xanthia,” he said. ”Here, in England, you can be what you really are-a lady by birth.”
”As opposed to what?” she retorted. ”The impoverished ward of Bridgetown's most disgusting wastrel?”
Even Gareth knew better than to bring up the topic of her uncle, the vile man who had reluctantly taken in Xanthia and her brothers. ”You are the sister of Baron Rothewell,” he gritted. ”Cousin by marriage to the Earl of Sharpe. The blood niece of that grand dragon, Lady Bledsoe. Why can't you give this up, Xanthia? Why can't you be what you were destined to be?”
”Because, Gareth, I can never forget what I was.” Her voice was low and hard now. ”Nothing but my uncle's unwanted refuse. This company made me. By the grace of G.o.d, my brother gave me a chance-and now Neville s.h.i.+pping defines me in a way a man could never understand. I will never, ever give it up, Gareth-not for any reason on G.o.d's earth-and if you think otherwise, you'll have a long, miserable wait ahead of you.”
His eyes held hers for a long, expectant moment, then, with an awkward jerk, he drew open the door. ”I am not waiting for anything,” he said. ”I was done with the waiting years ago. I shall send Bakely down for your skiff.” And then he was gone.
Angry and shaken, Xanthia gathered the papers she would need for the evening, stuffed them into her leather bag, and hastily threw on her cloak. When she went downstairs, into the clerks' domain, Gareth had vanished. She tucked her portfolio under one arm, bid the staff a good evening, and went out into the late-day bustle along Wapping High Street.
The rhythmic clank! clank! clank! which rang from the cooperage echoed off the towering walls of the buildings and warehouses lining both sides of the street. The sour scent of fermenting hops from the brewery upriver filled her nostrils. And overlying all of it was the sharp stench of low tide.
A cart rumbled by, laden with wooden slats, destined for the cooperage, no doubt. Xanthia let it pa.s.s, then turned down the narrow, cobbled lane which led to Hermitage Stairs. Gareth Lloyd awaited her at the top, and below, the skiff he had summoned bobbed against the slapping current. It looked to be new and st.u.r.dy, and the waterman bore his bra.s.s license badge proudly on his coat sleeve.
Clearly, Gareth meant to accompany her. ”It is late,” he said, his voice emotionless. ”I've sent Bakely down to the dock. He'll send a lighter out when the Belle Weather drops anchor and tell Stretton to report tomorrow.”
For an instant, she considered refusing his company. But Xanthia was nothing if not practical. It would look far better to arrive in Westminster in the company of a gentleman-or a man who certainly looked the part-rather than to arrive alone, and she did have Pamela to think about. So she placed her hand in Gareth's, as she had done perhaps a thousand times before. ”You really needn't do this, you know.”
”I know,” he said, and took her carefully down the stairs.
They settled themselves into the boat, and the waterman pushed away from the stairs, stroking his oars deeply and powerfully into the roiling murk.
Xanthia tried to focus on the riverbank and not on the man who sat beside her. She loved this view of London. This was not the stiff, elegant world of Mayfair and Belgravia, but the living, breathing world of commerce, dominated by the vast East India warehouses, and the tall construction cranes of the new St. Katharine's Docks. In the pool, ma.s.sive merchantmen and sleek clippers rocked on the turning tide, their towering masts now stripped bare. Lighters hastened to and fro to off-load precious cargo from the larger vessels, then see it safely ash.o.r.e. And if man were dwarfed by this great, teeming world, a woman was...well, blatantly out of place. Gareth was not wrong on that score.
Oh, Xanthia felt as if she belonged-but the occasional sidelong stare told her that she still did not blend in. Of course there were women in the docklands. But they were shopkeepers, seamstresses, and merchants' wives, or the ubiquitous prost.i.tutes who frequented every inch of every port on G.o.d's green earth. They were a part of life from which the ladies of Mayfair would undoubtedly have recoiled. Xanthia was well accustomed to them. Gareth was wrong. She was not a lady, she thought, craning her neck in search of the Belle Weather. Not really. And that did not trouble her as much as it perhaps should have done.
She was very troubled, however, when she arrived in Hanover Street to be told that Lady Sharpe was still abed. Instructions had been left to show Xanthia to her ladys.h.i.+p's chamber, and a footman took her up at once.
Xanthia went in to see that Pamela was not precisely in bed, but on a long, velvet divan and wrapped in a woolen shawl. Her daughter Louisa sat rigidly in a chair beside her. Lady Louisa's dainty blond ringlets seemed to have lost a bit of their bounce, and the girl's eyes and nose were swollen to a pathetic shade of pink.
”Heavens, Pamela!” said Xanthia, stripping off her gloves as she came into the room. ”And Louisa-? What on earth has happened?”
At that, Louisa burst into tears, sprang from her chair, and rushed toward the still-open door.
”Oh, my,” said Xanthia, watching the girl's flounced skirts vanish.
Pamela looked up with a wry smile, and patted the empty chair. ”Pay her no mind, Zee,” said her cousin. ”The child is seventeen. Everything is a melodrama when one is that age.”
Xanthia tossed her gloves aside and sank into the chair. ”Pamela, what is going on?” she demanded, taking her cousin's hand. ”This house seems perfectly topsy-turvy today. The servants are jumpy as cats-and you, in your dressing gown at teatime! You are unwell. I can see it in your eyes.”
The wry smile returned. ”I am just a little weak, my dear,” said Pamela, squeezing her fingers. ”But it shan't last. Now, listen, Zee. I am going to tell you the most amazing thing! Sharpe is quite simply beside himself.”
Xanthia's eyes widened. ”What? Tell me, for I'm worried sick.”
Pamela set a hand on her somewhat ample belly. ”Xanthia, I am with child.”
Xanthia gasped. ”Dear heaven! Are you...are you quite sure?”
With a weak smile, Pamela nodded. ”Oh, Xanthia, can you believe it? I am so excited-and so very frightened, too.”
Xanthia was a little frightened herself. Pamela was but a few years shy of forty, and after two decades of marriage and at least half a dozen pregnancies, she had carried but two children to term. Daughters. Lovely girls, but daughters all the same.
”Oh, Zee, do say you are happy for me!” exclaimed Pamela. ”Oh, do not think what you are thinking, my dear, and think only of this wonderful chance which I have been given. A chance to give Sharpe his heir. Oh, my life would be quite perfectly complete!”
Xanthia smiled deeply and leaned over the divan to kiss her cousin's cheek. ”I am ecstatic,” she said. ”I could not be more pleased. I cannot wait to tell Kieran. He will be so happy for you, Pamela. But my dear, you must be so very careful. You know that, do you not?”
”I do know,” she said grimly. ”The midwives and doctors have already been here this morning to poke and prod me, and to confirm what I was afraid even to hope. And now, I'm not to be allowed to do anything-scarcely even go downstairs!-for the next six months. I shall go quite mad, of course. But it will be worth it if I can but give Sharpe a son.”
Suddenly, the vision of Louisa's red nose and eyes returned to Xanthia. ”Oh, dear!” she said. ”Poor Louisa!”
Pamela's eyes began to flood. ”Frightful timing, is it not?” she said. ”This is her come-out, Zee! This is her season! We've spent a small fortune dressing her, and she has taken quite nicely. And now I'm to be stuck abed until Michaelmas!”
”What is she to do, Pamela?” asked Xanthia. ”There is her father, of course...but that is not quite the thing, is it?”
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