A Worthy Wife(23)
Nialla's house was a hovel at the end of a rutted road that was more of a cow path. The grass was overgrown, the shutters were hanging, and the roof had collapsed over one corner. Brianne refused to step out of the coach. Aurora was getting down when the door to the cottage opened and a petite, pretty redhead came out. The girl's freckled face was alight until she saw that the luxurious coach was not her father's, come to take her home. Her eyes filled with tears, and she clutched an already damp handkerchief. They had obviously found the latest Mrs. Podell.
"If you are looking for the village," she told Aurora with a sniffle, "you have missed the turn. It's back that way." She waved a reddened hand in the right direction, almost as if she were waving to her former life.
Before the woebegone young woman could back through her doorway, Aurora introduced herself as Lady Windham, to which appellation she was becoming accustomed. Nialla curtseyed, but without recognition of the name. Then Lady Brianne stepped out of the carriage. While she was making the introduction, Mrs. Harland Podell to Lady Brianne who was also Mrs. Harland Podell, Aurora noted that Brianne had removed her necklace, thank goodness. At least her sister-in-law had some drops of human kindness in her blue blood, not flaunting the diamonds in front of the downtrodden.
Once Aurora explained who they were, and that they had come-to inquire into her welfare, Nialla almost kissed her hand, then threw herself into Brianne's arms, weeping. Still acting uncharacteristically unselfishly, Brianne held her hand out, for Aurora's handkerchief for the girl.
"I I have felt so alone, you see," Nialla apologized, stepping back and wiping her eyes, "with no one to talk to except my cat. And to know that someone cares at last, strangers, at that, is overwhelming. But we are not truly strangers, are we?"
"We are practically in-laws," Brianne said dryly, straightening her hat.
"But why did you pick this location if you have no friends here?" Aurora wanted to know, horrified that this delicate creature was on her own in this isolated spot.
"I had friends, or so I thought. They were all afraid of my father, though. Everyone for miles around depends on him for their livelihoods, you see. No one would take me in, or hire me, or even tell me what my jewels were worth, but I I stayed nearby hoping my father would relent. And I had nowhere else to go."
"That cad!" Brianne swore, inspecting the outside of the dilapidated cottage through her lorgnette.
"My father said he was ashamed, after boasting to all his cronies of the fine connections I was making. My presence only reminded him of the humiliation."
"I didn't mean your father, although Mr. Benton has a great deal to answer for. Our pigs live better than this. I meant Podell, that serpent, for taking such cruel advantage of such a sweet little lamb as yourself."
Aurora couldn't help thinking that she was no older than Nialla, yet Brianne had never expressed the least sympathy toward her.
"You are so good, Lady Brianne, a true angel of mercy," Nialla said, starting to weep again. "And you too. Lady Windham, for bringing her."
Brianne preened, as though coming here were entirely her idea, but she did give Aurora some credit. "Oh, she was in Podell's sights, too, for some reason."
Nialla said, "Most likely because she is so beautiful."
Her remark had Aurora preening a bit herself. "Why, thank you."
Brianne tapped her foot in the mud. "Hmph. Aurora made a lucky escape, though, and landed in clover, whilst the two of us suffer and scrape by."
Some scrapings were more luxurious than others, Aurora reflected as she followed Brianne and Nialla into the two-room cottage. Brianne would never want for anything, while this Mrs. Podell did not have enough wood for a fire. The interior was somewhat better than the outside of the cottage in that it was clean, but it was bare and cold. Brianne took the only comfortable chair, of course, leaving Aurora to sit on a wobbly wooden seat at the table. Nialla offered them refreshments, hard toast, thin jam, weak tea, which neither Aurora nor Brianne had trouble declining after the lavish repast at Mr. Benton's. They both understood the food might be Nialla's only meal that day. Enjoying her role as Lady Bountiful, Brianne even unwrapped the strawberry tart from her pocket and placed it on the tray, saying, "You might enjoy this later."
Nialla took one look at the pastry and started crying again, her lip trembling. "It's it's one of Mrs. O'Shea's, isn't it?"
If Mrs. O'Shea was the cook at Mr. Benton's house, it was. While Brianne awkwardly patted the other girl's back, Aurora was worrying. What were they supposed to do with this weepy little widgeon? She desperately wished her husband were here, for Kenyon would know what was best to do. He'd rescued her, and Lola, so she had every confidence he would not leave this damsel in such unconscionable distress. "There's nothing for it," she declared. "You'll have to come with us."
While Nialla sobbed, Brianne said, "Excuse us a moment, please," then grabbed Aurora's hand and dragged her outside. "Are your attics totally to let? We can't take her home with us like some lost puppy! Her presence will stir up the very scandal Kenyon has been trying to stifle."
"No, it won't, not when we tell the same story we gave out at her father's, that her dead Podell was a cousin to your dead Podell."
"What, and they were both named Harland? That bird won't fly."
Aurora thought she was doing remarkably well for a woman who had never made up a single fib in her life before meeting Windham. "It could be a family name. Or her departed spouse could have been Harley. No matter, we shall not leave that poor girl here like this."
"Of course not," Brianne surprisingly agreed. "But you could write her a check, for heaven's sake; you don't have to adopt her."
"And when the check is gone? Here she has no chance for employmentif the little peagoose is capable of anythingor for marriage. What other options are there for her? With us, she can start anew."
"But she has freckles and her people are in trade!" To Brianne, either condition was like being infected with the pox. One might sympathize, but one did not invite such an unfortunate into one's home.
"Derby society is not like London. No one will question her ancestors if she is our guest."
"She is your guest. Remember that when you try to explain her presence to Kenyon. He will be furious."
He'd be more furious when he discovered how Aurora managed to redeem Nialla's gems from the slimy, unscrupulous jeweler who had not paid her a fraction of their worth. Brianne knowledgeably declared that Nialla ought to have been able to live comfortably off their sale for years. Luckily, the chit had not sold them outright and still had a week left in which to reclaim them at the price she'd received, plus interest, of course. And of course Aurora did not have that much cash in her reticule. She did have a check, though, which the shopkeeper was reluctant to accept.
"Why should I? How do I rightly know you're who you says you are?" He jerked one hairy, dirty thumb in Nialla's direction. "Word is, she ain't no Mrs. Podell, even. You mightn't be no countess, and that one"with another jerk toward Brianne, who huffed"mightn't be no lady a'tall."
"Do you see that coach outside, sirrah?" she asked. "It has a crest that even I can see without my looking glass. And my sister-in-law has the Windham signet ring."
She also had the Windham diamonds. Aurora left them as collateral, over Brianne's hysterical clamor. "Oh, hush, it's only for two days until Mr. Dawson can return to exchange them for the money."
"Dawson? Dawson? You're entrusting my diamonds to an"
"He is not," Aurora declared, shoving Brianne into the carriage. "And they are my diamonds anyway."
Brianne howled the entire first leg of the journey home, but not so loudly as the cat in its basket.
Chapter Seventeen
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Some expressions sound better between the pages of a novel than in real life. "Stand and deliver" was one such phrase. Hearing the words, and the gunshot that followed, was not thrilling, the way it was when one was at home, reading by the bedside candle. It was terrifying. Nialla started to scream. The shot, or her screams, frightened the horses, who tried to bolt. The driver cursed and shouted, fighting for control of the cattle. The guard would have fired back, or would have helped with the reins, but Maisy had thrown herself into his arms at the first sight of a pistol-waving, masked horseman in their path.
Brianne was leaning out the window, shouting encouragement to the driver. "Outrun the dastard, Oliver. Mow him down. Shoot him, for heaven's sake!"
Since it was obvious that the driver, Oliver, could barely keep the horses from galloping off the road, Brianne was in danger not only from the highwayman but from falling out of the careening carriage altogether. Aurora tugged on Brianne's skirts until her sister-in-law sat back down, clutching the overhead strap to keep from being tossed around the interior of the coach. "The bandit is going to overtake us in a minute," she reported. "His horse is an enormous gray."
All they could do was sit and wait, holding on to each other and Nialla, who was clutching her cat's basket as if it were a life ring, and sobbing, of course.
"Well, at least he won't get the Windham diamonds," Brianne crowed.