"And James," the duke continued.
"Your Grace?"
"This is to be done discreetly and in the strictest confidence."
"Of course, your Grace."
Eversleigh picked a speck of dust from the sleeve of his coat and pushed himself upright. "I have seen quite enough of these four walls for one day," he said. "I am going to go out in search of some amusement. I suggest you do the same, dear boy."
James Ridley stared in dismay at the employer's back, which retreated unhurriedly through the doorway.
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Henry had been wrong about the twins, too. Although Miss Manford and Penelope were indeed in the schoolroom, Phil was not. The three of them had held a conference following their return from the park.
"Well, we certainly did not find out anything new, Philip said. "If it had not been for that stupid cat getting stuck in that tree, we might have got close enough to have heard something usefuclass="underline" "
"It is hardly likely, dear," Miss Manford said practically, since Mr. Cranshawe and your sister were on horseback and moving. They would have seen us for sure if we had tried to get close."
"We could have moved along behind the trees," Philip said, sighing over the lost opportunity.
"Well, I think it all worked well," Penelope said, stroking the back of the cat as it lapped up a saucer of milk. -We certainly saved Henry from whatever the teeth had planned for her. And besides," she added, "if Cleopatra had not got stuck in the tree, we would never have found her.
"Well, I think we had better keep an eye on Henry twenty-four hours a day," said Philip melodramatically. "I don't trust that man."
"I am sure you exaggerate, dear boy," Miss Manford said. "He is a gentleman, after all."
"Manny, do gentlemen kiss ladies in public?" asked Philip scornfully.
Miss Manford declined to answer. She blushed instead.
"I think everything will be well for today," Penelope said, gathering the cat into her lap and continuing to stroke its back. "His Grace is taking her to the opera tonight, is he not?"
"We must watch her until then," Philip insisted. "She went to her room after luncheon."
"We have not had our history lesson today," Miss Manford protested.
"Oh, Manny, I can take the book with me and read while I watch," said Philip. "Are you coming, Pen?"
"Who is to look after Cleopatra?" she asked. "The poor little thing is feeling so strange and Oscar has been so rude to her."
"Well, she does stink a little bit, Pen," her brother said. "I shall go alone, then."
Philip, in the true spirit of the drama of the situation, as lie saw it, went first to his room and changed into the urchin's clothes that he had worn the night before, and then tiptoed quietly into the empty room opposite Henry's. Ile settled himself in a chair from which he could see the handle edge of her door through the door of his room, which he left slightly ajar.
Thus it was that Philip saw Henry slip from the house and was all ready to follow her. He did so without hesitation. It was obvious to him as soon as he saw her unusually drab outfit and as soon as she turned in the direction of the back stairs, that she was on some secret errand. He held her very carefully in sight until she hired a hackney cab. For a moment Philip was alarmed. He thought he would lose her. Fortunately, there was time after Henry got into the carriage and before it moved away for him to run forward and swing himself up behind. The driver did not notice, and none of the passersby seemed to consider his actions strange enough to raise any alarm.
Chapter 11
Henry sat in her room later the same afternoon, looking flushed but triumphant. She was at a small escritoire, writing a letter. A small collection of crumpled sheets of paper surrounding her on the floor showed that the words of the letter were not coming easily. This time she seemed satisfied. She signed her name with a flourish, shook the paper in order to dry the ink, and reread what she had written.
Dear Mr. Cranshawe [she had written, having discarded the notion of calling him Oliver],
I am now able to repay my debt to you. I thank you with all my heart for having helped me out of a difficulty. You will find three thousand pounds enclosed in this package.
I remain your grateful friend,
Henrietta Devron
Yes, that was quite enough, she decided. She did not need to say more. There was just the correct combination of gratitude and reserve. She folded the letter, slid it into the package with the bank notes, and tied the bundle securely with ribbon. She rang the bell for Betty.
"Betty," she said when her maid entered the room a few minutes later, "which footman is most reliable to send on a secret and important errand?" Henry did not mince her words. She had learned from experience that Betty was devoted to her and could be trusted to keep her secrets.
Betty did not hesitate. "Robert, your Grace," she said.
"Good. Will you send him to me?" Henry directed.
Within ten minutes Robert had been sent to Oliver Cranshawe's residence with the package. The footman had strict instructions to deliver it into the hands of Cranshawe himself or, failing that, into the hands of his personal valet. He was not to wait for a reply.
Henry breathed a deep sigh of relief when the deed was finally done. What a delicious sense of freedom there was in being out of Oliver's clutches at last. He would probably he furious to see her slip through his fingers, she thought grimly. But he could hardly refuse the money. And with that debt repaid, she would no longer be obliged to jump whenever he snapped his fingers. In fact, she decided, she would not need even to be civil to the man. Marius would be pleased to see that their friendship had finally cooled. Not that she had any interest at all in pleasing her husband! Her hands curled into fists as she thought again about her abandonment to his lovemaking the night before and his cool rejection of the morning.
Henry summoned Betty again and had hot water brought to her room for a bath. She relaxed in the water while Betty laid out her turquoise satin and lace evening gown on the bed behind her. For the moment she felt relaxed. She could get ready for dinner and the opera almost with a light heart, though it would be difficult to spend a whole evening in close contact with Marius. But at least, she thought with a little smile of genuine amusement, she would have the satisfaction of knowing that he was not enjoying himself. Marius and music did not mix happily together.
Tomorrow she would think about her new problems, for, truth to tell, she had merely exchanged one nasty difficulty for another. She tried not to think about her dealings of earlier that afternoon. She had felt horror when the hackney cab had turned into narrow, filthy streets filled with all kinds of offensive rubbish and smells. Doorways and roadsides had been crowded with untidy and dirty-looking people and ragged children. When the carriage had stopped, she had not known what to do for a few moments. But, remembering that she was Henry Devron and had never been afraid of anything for long, she got resolutely out of the carriage with the driver's assistance, instructed him to wait for her, squared her shoulders, and bore down on a small group of women gossiping in a doorway.
They had gawked at the sight of her fine clothes (the gray cloak and brown bonnet had looked drab enough back on Curzon Street, but not here), but had directed her readily enough to the first-floor rooms of the money lender. She had given them each a shilling for their help and had been followed by openmouthed stares to the dark doorway of her destination.
Henry shuddered now in the bathtub remembering those dark, dirty stairs and the smiling, sinister little man who had opened the door at her knock and bowed her into a dingy room whose door he had proceeded to lock. The interview itself, though, had not proved as difficult as she had expected. The little man had been quite willing to lend her the money, especially when he knew who she was (she had decided not to lie, believing that he would more readily agree to do business with a duchess than he would with a Miss Nobody). Henry had eagerly signed the papers, not at all deterred by the interest rate, which she did not understand. The only nasty moment had come when the moneylender had demanded a pledge of security.