His Wicked Smile Page 5

  “Sergeant Redcake, that you?”

  Gawain turned on his stool to find the homely face of Sergeant Bowler Martin grinning incautiously at him. He hadn’t seen the man since he arrived in England. “Is this where you retired to, you old bastard?”

  “Best weather in the country,” the retired soldier said. “I grew up not too far from here. I never understood how you ended up in the Royal Sussex.”

  “I wanted to go to India,” Gawain shrugged.

  “She didn’t like you much,” Martin said, pointing to his eye. “Ever get your vision back?”

  “Not enough of it.”

  Martin had been in the same battle, and had lost a couple of fingers. They had been shipped home together and spent months playing cards as they headed toward England. “Come down to see your sister? I’ve heard she married well.”

  “That she did and yes, she just presented her husband with a daughter.”

  “Ah, a little one. Everything went well?”

  “Yes. Alys is up and about already. Seems determined to keep the nursemaid as idle as possible.”

  “She’s from sturdy stock. Look at you, a great businessman now, I hear, despite the licking you took from the Pathans.”

  “One thing about running the officer’s mess is I made good contacts among the traders.”

  “Doesn’t hurt that you had the capital from your family either.” Martin pulled out his pipe.

  “No, that never hurts,” Gawain agreed. He had taken his share of abuse from his comrades when they discovered his family had money.

  “I remember you telling me you did not want to return home because you thought Indian medicine would fix you up better than the home doctors.”

  “I’m still searching. Actually, I met an Indian healer up north recently. Ann Haldene.” He took sharp pleasure in saying her name aloud.

  “Ann Haldene,” Martin mused, lighting his tobacco. “Any relation to Wells Haldene?”

  “That was her husband, I believe. Dead a couple of years now.”

  “Too bad,” Martin said slowly. “She is half-Indian, right? Sounds English to the bone, but very dark.”

  “Yes. Why ever would you have heard of her? Never thought you were into the Hindoo mumbo-jumbo.”

  “She’s famous. At least her mother was.”

  “Why is that?”

  Martin puffed out a perfect smoke ring and squinted. “My lad, her mother was an Indian queen. Some maharajah’s daughter.”

  Chapter Four

  Gawain frowned. “Pardon me?”

  “Yes, and a maharajah’s wife as well. Husband, that’s the maharajah, died in eighteen fifty-nine. They were going to burn the maharani on the pyre with him.”

  Gawain drank deeply from his ale glass. “Obviously they didn’t.”

  “No. A subaltern, one of ours, obviously, swooped in and stole her from under the noses of the maharajah’s men. She was a famous beauty, known for her healing powers. He married her. Of course, the subaltern’s career was ruined after that. They had to be sent off to some remote station.”

  “And made their way back to England eventually.”

  “Yes. A great love story. No brilliant ending. The subaltern’s family had scarcely enough money to scrape together the funds to buy his commission and he never advanced. Lived very quietly with the lady, who was much loved for her work among the sick in that remote station.”

  “Just the one daughter?”

  “Yes, also a great beauty, they say. She married Wells Haldene, a young soldier. I don’t know why her family didn’t try to do more for her, but perhaps there wasn’t anyone left.”

  “You might be right. She said her mother died a decade ago, and she lives with her husband’s family now. But she may own the inn they run, now that I think of it. Her husband inherited it.”

  “So the Haldenes were prosperous business folk, at least.”

  He thought of the ragged appearance of Harry Haldene. It might be mere eccentricity. The inn itself seemed to have plenty of customers. “I saw no signs of imminent disaster.”

  Martin shook his head. “One hates to think of a princess running an inn.”

  “Come, man, she’s not really a princess.”

  Martin shrugged. “Why not? Her mother was the daughter of one of their kings. Her father might not have had a title, but the marriage was real enough. If she’d been raised in India, she might be sitting with Queen Victoria now, having tea, if she visited here. You know they fawn over foreign titles at court, no matter the color of the royal skin.”

  Tea with the Queen instead of breaking her celibate widowhood with a romp in the sheets, courtesy of a half-drunk tea merchant. What had possessed her? He was no legendary beauty himself. Yes, he dressed a few steps above the average customer of the inn, appeared to be a prosperous sort, though he had not the speech of a true gentleman, but she’d asked him for nothing. In fact, all the favors had been offered on her side. The Haldenes hadn’t even charged him for her medicine when he’d left, just the food and room.

  Women. She must have been out of her mind with loneliness. The worst of it was he liked her. But it would never do to get involved. An Indian wife, even of half-royal birth, would not get him where he wanted to go in life. No, it was best to stay away from Leeds. Martin’s history changed nothing.

  December 27, 1888

  Gawain sat in the first-class compartment of a Leeds-bound train. His hip pained him so badly that he’d been using a stick for support these past three weeks or more. His temper had flared repeatedly during his attempts to enjoy the holidays with his sister’s family.

  Mother had declared him overworked and blamed his bad mood on incessant traveling. He’d been to Scotland three times, and France twice, since Lady Elizabeth had vanished. Then there was the commute from Bristol to London to Sussex. What he needed was a massage. And sex. No one could perform either so well as Ann Haldene. Despite his spring promise to leave her be, he decided to go north and see if she could work her special magic on him again. For a week, at least. Or the remainder of the Twelve Days of Christmas. Or until he felt ready to travel again. After that, he’d promised to return to Edinburgh to receive the inquiry agent reports on Lady Elizabeth. At least stopping at Leeds broke up the train journey.

  At the station, he hired a hansom to take him to The Old Hart. Less than twenty minutes later, they were pulling into the stable yard. Dirty snow piled up against the buildings, though a clear path had been shoveled from the street to the inn’s door. The windows showed yellow from lights glowing within. He’d expected some sign of the holidays, but none was evident.

  After he paid the driver, he hoisted his valise and limped into the entryway, leaning heavily on his cane. A sudden realization that this was madness descended upon him. How could he have thought Ann could help him when no one else could? It seemed he’d made no progress of any kind since he first met her. Not on the hunt for Lady Elizabeth, not in finding an herb to cure his eyesight, not in helping his damaged hip. It had all been work, work, work. He was richer, but ever more miserable, more set in his angry ways. His youngest sister Rose had even called him a Scrooge when she only received tea for Christmas, even though it was a rare tea blended with roses only grown by certain mute French nuns.

  He took a breath in the deserted hallway and knew at once something was different in the inn’s atmosphere. What had changed? He glanced around, then turned into the dining room. Too late for luncheon, too early for tea, it was all but deserted. A couple of old men played chess in a corner by the fireplace he had so coveted last April. Now, the blaze was low and the room dim.

  He smelled the coal fire and tobacco smoke, then realized the difference he’d sensed. Before, the spicy scent of curry had hung on the air. The Indians used spices with an unsparing hand and you always knew when they’d been cooking. But he suspected no curry had been cooked here for a week or more. Were the Haldenes on holiday?

  The door to the kitchen pushed outward, and he saw a
woman in a dirty white apron peer into the room, as if she expected a customer. When she caught sight of him she stepped out of the doorway and moved toward him, a smile of welcome creasing her middle-aged face.

  “Come for a meal, sir? I’ve a fine pot of stew bubblin’ away, and I just made bread this morning.”

  “Excellent,” Gawain said, dropping his valise to his feet. “But I expected a curry.”

  “Oh, you must have come before, when Mrs. Haldene was cookin’. She makes a fine curry.”

  “Is she out of town?”

  “Yes, sir, she is. Left a fortnight ago.”

  “Where did she go?” Rude of him to ask, but he couldn’t help himself.

  The woman put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, I couldn’t say, sir. I’m sure I don’t know.”

  Gawain frowned. “Bring me a meal, would you? I’m fresh from the train. Are you in charge of the inn while Mrs. Haldene is away?”

  “I’m just the cook, sir. Mr. Haldene is manager ’ere.”

  “Harry Haldene?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Send for him, would you?”

  “You would like a room?”

  “I would, yes.”

  She nodded. “You shall ’ave both the meal and the manager presently.”

  He sat, gritting his teeth as pain laced through his lower half. Reluctantly, he pulled a couple of tablets of Antifebrin from his waistcoat pocket and swallowed them dry. They would help but gave him a terrible stomachache. Still, they did better for immediate pain and inflammation than any of his Indian remedies, like turmeric. Not that he liked to admit this. At least he remained fully convinced that he would have no vision in his bad eye at all without his remedies. In the warm months, he never needed more than these either. It was only when the damp set in, or long periods of travel, when he had to resort to the stomach-churning Western medicines.

  He had already finished his bowl of stew when Haldene arrived at his table, looking even more dissolute than in April. His shirt gaped where a button was missing and his jacket sleeve was ripped. Ann must have been his seamstress.

  “Seen you before, haven’t I?” Haldene said, with a ferocious smile.

  Gawain offered the man a cool stare. “Yes, I spent a night here in the spring. I’d like a room for the night.”

  Haldene pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead. “Very well. Traveling salesman, are you?”

  “Not exactly. I was looking forward to a good curry. What has happened to your cook?”

  “Took herself off to London. She and me sister, a fortnight back.”

  “Visiting relatives for the holidays? Returning soon?”

  Haldene shrugged. “Got a girl who’ll get your room ready. Up the stairs, front of the buildin’. Sign the ledger in the front passage on your way up.”

  “Thank you,” Gawain said, figuring nothing more would come from this laconic fellow.

  Haldene turned away, then looked back at him. “Say, weren’t you the chap with the interest in all that Indian business? Ann’s pills and such?”

  “Very much so. I’m an importer of Indian remedies, spices and tea.”

  Haldene scratched his unshaven chin. “Right. See, we have a Indian community here. Can you supply me what they need? The curries and pills and powders and such? I’m already out of some of the favorites and it does bring in the ready.”

  Gawain dug in his valise and pulled out a brochure. “This is a list of my wares. If you see what you need we can make arrangements.”

  “Excellent.” Haldene’s tongue curled in the corner of his mouth as he perused the brochure. His fingers left dirt marks on the cream pages. “Do you have samples with you?”

  “I do not. But I can cable my office and have what you need sent tomorrow on the train.”

  Haldene frowned. “I’ll just compare this to the list I was makin’, then. I expect the spellin’s are all different.”

  “Do you have an address for Mrs. Haldene in London? We could have her compare the lists.”

  “No,” the man said absently. “Haven’t heard from her yet.”

  “Doesn’t she own the inn?” Gawain asked.

  “Mmmm,” said Haldene noncommittally.

  “I’ll just go and find my room then.” The pills had yet to take effect. He debated asking for a couple of bottles of port, but he’d found the pills, which he’d only discovered a couple of months before, would work, given time. Still, he’d rather have had another of those massages. And sex.

  He signed the ledger and made his slow way upstairs, grateful he had only brought the one bag. The maid, an undersized girl about the same age as Fern Haldene, was making up the bed as he walked in.

  “Just the one night, sir?” she asked as he set his valise on the table.

  “I think so, unless Haldene wants to discuss business with me tomorrow.”

  “You buyin’ a share of the inn too?” she asked.

  “Who has been buying shares of this property?” he responded. “Mrs. Haldene is selling it?”

  “She gave some of it to Mr. Haldene,” the girl said. “For travelin’ money, and for the baby, of course. I think she should’ve stayed, a woman in her condition, but no one asked me. Expect she wanted to go before the customers knew what she was about.”

  Gawain reached unsteadily for the chair. When his hands found the back, he pulled it close and sat down, not taking his gaze from the maid. “She’s having a child? Remarried?”

  “No, sir,” the maid blushed.

  “When is the child coming?”

  The girl righted her cap, which had slid over her ear when she pulled up the blanket on the bed. “Early in the year, she said. Gone off to London to find the father afore it’s too late.”

  Early in the year? He mentally ticked off the months in his head. Was the child his? He could not think of what to ask next, so he blurted, “The father is in London then? She knows that?”

  “Said his name was Redcake, and there’s a famous tea shop in London by that name. Thought she could find him there.”

  His eggs and rashers shifted greasily in his already irritated stomach. “Why didn’t she just send him a letter?”

  The girl shrugged. “Dunno. You wantin’ anythin’ else?”

  “Her address,” he said hoarsely. “Have you heard anything? Has Fern?”

  “Fern went with her. I’ve got her position,” the girl said proudly.

  “The address,” Gawain repeated.

  “No, you ought to ask Mr. Haldene.”

  “You can go,” Gawain said, feeling like he would retch.

  The girl scrambled for the chamber pot under the bed and held it out to him, then trotted out of the room. He leaned his head against the lip of the clean pot, willing his stomach to settle. Damn pills. He needed to get on the next train for London, but he was a prisoner of his own body.

  How could he find Ann in such an enormous city as London? When his stomach finally calmed, he collapsed onto the bed and fell into an uneasy doze, tormented by images of her round with his child. Had she waited for him to return all this time, only leaving to search for him when the birth was imminent? How could he have done to a woman what Theodore Bliven had done to his sister Matilda?

  Ann Haldene might be a woman with property, but she had nothing like a Redcake’s family connections and money. An illegitimate child would drag her down into infamy. Her best hope might be to start over, claiming the babe was her dead husband’s.

  Except the timing was wrong. Ann Haldene was famous in her way. She’d have to change her name and try to blend into the East End, where her dark skin would not be unusual.

  His head tossed on the pillow. Images of babies with dark skin and his hawk nose mixed into some strange vision involving Harry Haldene and an Indian funeral. When he woke the next morning, he couldn’t even blame an overindulgence of port, just his own troubled thoughts.

  He packed up his bag, grateful that he could move that morning, and collected an ord
er form from Haldene. After Gawain promised to send the requested goods as soon as possible, Haldene himself drove Gawain to the station, talking artlessly of the local Indian community he served. Gawain suspected Ann had never mentioned the father of her child to her brother-in-law. Otherwise, he’d have expected one of those filthy mitts to leave the reins and land on his nose. Instead, he received the gratitude of one businessman to another, when their minds have met on a point of commerce.

  They shook hands in front of the station and then Gawain limped inside, bemused by the entire experience. As the train sped southward, he resolved to keep his story private from his family. He had a few days to make inquiries before he’d have to go to Scotland. It would have been far more pleasant to stay here in Leeds, in bed with Ann, as he had planned, but now that he knew she’d flown he could not stay still. He must find her. Until he ascertained if the coming child was truly his, this adventure was none of his family’s business, though. Ann might have left word for him at Redcake’s, since she’d expressed her intention of going to the tea shop.

  January 25, 1889

  Noel Redcake was one month old today. Ann Haldene tucked the sleeping baby into his cradle, curled his one lock of red-gold hair around her finger for a moment, and nodded to Fern. They both crept out of the bedsit of their two-room flat and returned to the kitchen.

  “I have to leave for work in a minute,” Ann said. “Do you have everything you need?”

  Fern nodded.

  “Make sure you dress Noel warmly when you bring him to me,” Ann instructed. “And take him to Mrs. Cook down the hall in two hours for a feeding.”

  Fern nodded again. This would be the first day of their new ritual because she was starting a position as a specialty cake baker at Redcake’s Tea Shop and Emporium. She had planned to go there and ask about Gawain Redcake when they had first arrived in London. Unfortunately, the train trip had given her a feverish cold, and led to a nightmare time where she’d been all but bedridden, culminating in the unexpectedly early birth of Noel. Gawain had been completely absent from her mind for a time. A week ago, she’d felt ready to leave Noel for the first time. She’d gone to Redcake’s and it seemed that Bertha Short, the tearoom manager, had misinterpreted every word out of her mouth, as if it weren’t quite English. She’d been passed on to Alfred Melville, the manager of the basement baking rooms. He’d said Gawain Redcake wasn’t employed there, nor did he own the place, but he’d offered her a position when he realized she was experienced in the professional kitchen. They needed someone to make cakes for the Fancy, the part of the baking rooms where the wedding and other specialty cakes were decorated.