Paula Marshall - The Wolfe's Mate

‘Oh, I’ve already done that,’ ground out Ben Wolfe through gritted teeth as he handed her a cup of tea. ‘A more noisy and talkative shrew it has seldom been my misfortune to meet.’

‘Twice,’ riposted Susanna, drinking tea with an air, ‘you’ve already said that twice now—you earlier announced that you had a similar misfortune with duennas. When I was a little girl, my tutor told me to avoid such repetition in speech or writing. It is the mark of a careless mind he said.’

She drank a little more tea before assuring the smouldering man before her, ‘Not surprising, though, seeing that your careless mind has secured you the wrong young woman. You would do well to be a little more careful in future.’

This was teasing the wolf whom Ben so greatly resembled with a vengeance but, seeing that she had so little to lose, Susanna thought that she might as well enjoy herself before the heavens fell in.

Afterwards! Well, afterwards was afterwards—and to the devil with it.

Ben Wolfe, leaning against the wall as though he needed its support, looked as though he were ready to send her to the devil on the instant. He did not deign to answer her because he was beginning to believe that she wasn’t Amelia Western, and that, for once, he had made an unholy botch of things.

No, not for once—for the very first time. He had always prided himself on his ability to plan matters so meticulously that events always went exactly as he had intended them to and he had built a massive fortune for himself on that very basis.

The glare he gave Miss Who-ever-she-was was baleful in the extreme, but appeared to worry her not one whit. There was a plate of macaroons on the teaboard and Susanna began to devour them with a will. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast and all this untoward excitement was making her hungry.

It was thus Ben Wolfe who greeted the arrival of his henchman with relief. Tozzy, the junior of the two, was carrying a woman’s reticule, a grin on his stupid face. Fitzroy, more acute, knew at once that his employer was in one of his rare, but legendary, tempers and assumed the most serious expression he could.

‘Is that your reticule?’ demanded Ben of Susanna, who was busy pouring herself another cup of tea. ‘I thought that you didn’t care for tea,’ he added accusingly, mindful of her former refusals.

‘Oh, it wasn’t the tea I didn’t care for,’ Susanna told him smugly, ‘it was the company and the occasion on which I was drinking it which incurred my dislike. I’m much happier now,’ she added untruthfully, ‘and, yes, that is my reticule.’

‘Then hand it to her, man,’ roared Ben who, being gentleman enough, just, not to shout at Susanna, shouted at Tozzy instead.

Tozzy, having handed the reticule back to Susanna, opened his mouth to speak, but was forestalled by the beleaguered Ben saying to Fitzroy, ‘Look here, Jess, Miss Who-ever-she-is says that when you picked her up in Oxford Street—’

‘Kidnapped me,’ corrected Susanna, who was now inspecting the contents of her little bag and smiling at them as she did so.

‘You picked her up in Oxford Street,’ repeated Ben through his excellent teeth, ‘and she told you that she was not Miss Western. Is that true?’

Jess looked away from his employer before saying, ‘Yes. I called her Miss Western and she immediately informed me that she was not.’

‘And who did she say that she was?’

‘She claimed to be Miss Western’s duenna, Miss Beverly. But you had pointed her out to me as Miss Western yesterday in Hyde Park so I knew that she was only saying that in order to try to make me let her go. So I took no notice of her.’

‘You took no notice of her,’ said Ben, who found that he had recently acquired the distressing habit of repeating not only what he had said, but everything said to him. ‘Didn’t it occur to you to tell me that she had made such a claim?’

‘Not exactly, no. You’ve never, to my knowledge, ever made such a mistake before—indeed, I can’t remember you ever making a mistake of any kind in any enterprise we’ve been engaged on, it’s not your way, not your way at all…’

‘Jess!’ said Ben awefully. ‘Shut up, will you? Just tell me this. Which do you think she is? She has, in the last half-hour, claimed to be both Miss Western and Miss Beverly.’

Jess was too fascinated to be tactful. ‘Both? How could she do that?’

‘Easily,’ said Ben. ‘Damme, man. Answer the question.’

Jess looked Susanna up and down as though she were a prize horse. ‘Well,’ he said doubtfully, ‘she’s only supposed to be eighteen. I’d put her as a little older than that. On the other hand, she claimed to be a duenna and, in my experience, duennas are usually middle-aged; she certainly doesn’t resemble or behave like any duenna I’ve ever met and—’

‘Jess! Stop it. You’re blithering. I know what duennas look like. Give me a straight answer.’

‘Wouldn’t it be simpler if you listened to me?’ Susanna was all helpfulness. ‘Perhaps you could explain why, if I’m Miss Western, heiress, I should be kidnapped outside an office for the placement of young gentlewomen needing employment, i.e. Miss Shanks’s Employment Bureau, and carry its card in my reticule. Look,’ and she handed it to Ben Wolfe who stared at it as though it were a grenade about to go off at any moment.

‘She has a point,’ observed Jess gloomily.

‘Does that mean, yes, she’s Miss Western or, no, she’s Miss Beverly?’ snapped Ben, tossing Jess the card.

‘No, she’s Miss Beverly.’

‘God help me, I think so, too. You picked up the wrong woman.’

‘Kidnapped her, on your orders, which he faithfully carried out,’ interrupted Susanna, her mouth full of the last macaroon. ‘You really can’t pretend that you’re not the one responsible for me being here.’

Master and man stared at one another.

‘Apart from gagging her to stop her everlasting nagging, what the hell do we do now?’ asked Mr Ben Wolfe of Mr Jess Fitzroy, who slowly shook his head.

‘Missing?’ said Mrs Western to Amelia’s maid, who had been sent to remind Miss Beverly that she should have been in attendance on Amelia at six of the clock precisely to see that she was turned out à point in order to attend the little supper party which the Earl, George’s father, was giving for them at Babbacombe House that evening.

‘She’s not in her room, madam, and the housekeeper says that she went out early this afternoon, saying that it would not be long before she returned. She has not been seen since.’

‘You visited her room, I collect. Was there any sign that she had intended to be away for some time?’

The maid shook her head. ‘Not at all, madam. The ensemble which she proposed to wear this evening was laid out on her bed, together with her slippers, evening reticule and fan.’

Mrs Western heaved a great sigh. ‘How provoking of her! You are sure that she is not in the house—hiding in the library, perhaps? She spends a great deal of time there which would be better spent with Miss Western.’

‘I enquired of the librarian, madam, but she has not visited it today.’

‘I should never have hired her—although, until now, she has carried out her duties well enough—but tigers do not change their spots…or do I mean leopards? What are you smiling at, Amelia?’

‘It’s leopards, mama, I’m sure—or so Miss Beverly always says. But it’s no great thing that she’s missing. I am to marry soon and shall not be needing a duenna—and in any case, young women about to be married are always allowed greater freedom than those who are not. We could let her go immediately. I, for one, shall not miss her.’