Regency Seduction. Lucy Ashford
paintings there by him. Of course, there weren’t. But I looked, and looked—so foolish of me!’
Helen gazed at her. ‘Oh, I’d no idea … Rosalie, you must have missed him so!’
‘Always,’ said Rosalie quietly. ‘I was so young when he died. But I never forgot him.’ She tried to smile again. ‘Do you remember how on the way back from Oxford, I wouldn’t stop asking you questions about everything we’d seen? How you put up with me, I can’t imagine. Seriously, Helen, I know you feel dreadful, but how about writing again? Stories, poetry, anything!’
Helen shook her head. ‘I worry far too much to write. I still feel as though I’m being watched.’
Rosalie shivered, because sometimes she felt the same. But aloud she said resolutely, ‘Nonsense! Biddy’s brothers are close by, remember—and you have such loyal friends. Do please try to stop worrying.’
‘Oh, Rosalie. You are being so good to me.’
‘Not as good as you’ve been to me, Helen,’ answered Rosalie quietly.
And she felt a liar and a hypocrite. All of this is my fault. I drew down the wrath of Alec Stewart upon you.
The constables, she privately thought, would be doing very little about Helen’s wrecked press; you needed money and influence to stir the forces of law into action. Who else but Alec Stewart would have set his men to do this vile deed? He had left that note to warn Rosalie to be quiet about his exploitation of those poor soldiers. What would he do if he knew that Linette had whispered his name as she lay dying?
It was up to her to confront him. But how could she, secure as he was in his castle of rogues?
At least Rosalie had been right to assure Helen that she did indeed have friends, because Francis Wheeldon, the kind churchwarden who lived in nearby St John’s Square, called round almost daily; one afternoon he asked Helen if she would write some articles about the history of Clerkenwell for the parish magazine.
Rosalie had seen Helen’s face brighten with interest, and tactfully she had left them alone, taking Katy and Toby to the Green to play in the spring sunshine. She liked Francis. Quite a few years older than Helen, he lived with his spinster sister and was a scholarly, gentle man.
Indeed, when Rosalie got back, Helen was looking almost happy and was already sitting at her writing desk.
‘So you managed to get rid of Mr Wheeldon at last?’ teased Rosalie gently.
Helen turned with a smile. ‘Oh, yes. It’s a little embarrassing really, the way he fusses over me.’
‘He’s sweet. And he thinks a lot of you, Helen.’ ‘Nonsense!’ Helen was brisk again. ‘But, well, writing these articles about Clerkenwell will be interesting. Francis is so knowledgeable. And that reminds me, Rosalie—I hadn’t realised before, but Francis knows such a great deal about French history. So I mentioned your mother’s family—they owned property south of Paris, didn’t they?’
Rosalie swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘They used to, but they lost everything in the Revolution and were scattered far and wide, my mother said.’
‘That’s what I told him. But Francis corresponds with a friend in Paris and he said he’d ask for any news. Isn’t that kind of him?’
‘Incredibly kind, yes.’ Rosalie was anxious not to dampen Helen’s enthusiasm. ‘And it’s so good to see you writing again!’
Helen clapped her hand to her forehead. ‘Oh, Rosalie, that reminds me—will you do me a very big favour? I was asked to a poetry reading above Hatchard’s bookshop in Piccadilly tonight—they wanted me to write a review. But now I’d much rather get on with this, for Mr Wheeldon. I wonder, will you go instead?’
Rosalie hesitated. Amateur poets did not always make for the jolliest of evenings.
‘Please,’ urged Helen. ‘I’d be so grateful!’
‘Of course I’ll go,’ Rosalie said swiftly. She owed Helen so very much.
* * *
But later, as she was upstairs preparing herself for a night of would-be versifiers communing effusively with nature, she was disturbed by a knock at the front door. She knew Biddy was in the kitchen giving the children their supper, and of Helen there was no sign; doubtless she was engrossed in her writing and deaf to the world. So Rosalie hurried downstairs to answer it—and found Sal, from the Temple of Beauty, wrapped in a hooded mantle against the cool March night. Rosalie flinched inwardly. The Temple of Beauty could only mean trouble. ‘Sal,’ she said. ‘This is a surprise. How did you find me?’
‘Caught sight of you earlier, gal, at the market in Cheapside!’ grinned Sal, hands on hips. ‘Then I simply asked around and tracked you down—a neighbourly visit, that’s all!’
Rosalie nodded. ‘How is the Temple of Beauty?’
‘Put it this way, it’s not been the same since the night you were there. Remember that fight? Dr B.’s still got a black eye from it and Mrs B.’s given Charlotte the push, ‘cos she realised that same night what the pair of them was up to between the sheets! So the place has had a right old turning-over, though that wretched piano’s busted to bits, so it’s not all bad news.’
Rosalie shivered slightly. ‘Dr Barnard’s not still after me, is he?’
‘For bein’ some sort of writer? Lord, no, he forgot that in all the trouble over Charlotte.’
‘And—you’ve not seen the Captain in there again?’
She tried to make her question casual, but Sal arched one painted eyebrow. ‘Still hankering after him, gal? No, no sign of him. Forget his handsome face, that’s my advice.’ She peered inside the hallway. ‘Nice-lookin’ place. Stayin’ with family, are you? I remember you mentioned a sister to me.’
Rosalie was puzzled. She didn’t think she’d mentioned Linette to anyone there. ‘I did have a sister, but she died.’
‘I’m sorry, gal, real sorry. Your only sister, was she?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well …’ Sal looked up and down the street and shrugged her shoulders ‘… just thought I’d call to see how you was and everything. You look mighty smart. All dressed up for something, or someone?’
Rosalie glanced down at her serviceable blue gown and managed a smile. ‘Oh, it’s a poetry reading in Piccadilly, though to be honest, I’d much prefer to be indoors on a night like this.’
Sal laughed. ‘Poetry. La-di-dah! Walkin’ there by yourself?’
‘I’ll take a hackney cab. But once I’m there I’m sure I’ll be perfectly safe among the poets!’
‘Well, I’m one of the Three Graces tonight at Dr B.’s, so I’ll be dressing up, too, but I shan’t be wearin’ as much as you. Just thought I’d see how you are, you know?’
‘Yes. Of course. My thanks for calling.’
Rosalie watched Sal hurrying away as the cold wind whipped some rubbish down the street. With a catch in her throat, she remembered seeing Alec Stewart for the first time, lounging at the back of Dr Barnard’s hall. He’d quite simply taken her breath away. So stupid of her. She knew now that her judgement had been most terribly awry.
Alec Stewart would be unaware that Linette had whispered his name to Rosalie as she lay dying. But surely, surely he realised she would guess instantly that he was the one behind the destruction of Helen’s press?
No doubt he dismissed her as powerless, she thought bitterly. As he’d said, no magistrate would take seriously the word of a woman who’d appeared on stage at the Temple of Beauty. But she wouldn’t, she couldn’t let him get away with his crimes!
Meanwhile—oh, Lord, she was