Wicked:. Noelle MackЧитать онлайн книгу.
a maid barely able to stand on her feet stifled a yawn before they turned to her.
“Squiggs, take Mr. Taruskin’s coat,” Penelope said sharply to her, “and be quick about it.”
“Oh—no. I would rather keep it on,” Semyon said, “I won’t stay long.”
Squiggs, a stolid young woman, stepped back into position against the wall, her face a blank mask.
“Has the other girl gone, then?” he asked Mrs. Congreve.
“What other girl?” Penelope replied.
“The one named Angelica. I went down the wrong hall during the thick of things and met her by chance.”
Penelope Congreve shrugged. “Do we have a servant by that name?” she asked her husband in an arch voice. He did not reply. “Congreve, I am talking to you.”
He only grunted, too old and wise to take her bait.
The true nature of a marriage was fully revealed in the weary hours after a party, Semyon thought. Mr. Congreve might be guilty of indiscretions too numerous to name, but Semyon suspected that his cold-eyed wife strayed too. He hardly cared and it was too late to take back his inquiry. But he hated to think of old Congreve even trying to touch Angelica.
He would take her away from here, he decided suddenly. It would not be difficult to persuade her as soon as he could find her and talk to her.
If she wished to go, he reminded himself dutifully.
Bah. He had a feeling she would fling herself into his arms and beg to be rescued.
Once she was safely by his side, he would figure out what to do with her. Semyon had never been one for thinking further ahead than a day or two, a privilege of being the last-born of his brothers. They did his thinking for him and he ignored their good advice. He was as wild as he wanted to be.
“Her last name was Harrow, I believe. Or something like that.” Semyon strove to keep his tone conversational, as if he didn’t care in the least what had happened to a mere maid.
“Oh, her.” Penelope shot a look of disgust at her husband, who appeared not to notice it. “Of course. Angelica. How could I forget her first name? Silly me.” She favored Congreve with a thin smile. “We were giving Harrow one last chance with the coats tonight, weren’t we, my dear?”
“I see.” Semyon Taruskin waited for her to say more.
“He”—she went on, indicating her husband with a wagging finger—“hired her on a friend’s recommendation—his friend, not mine—as a lady’s maid for me. Sight unseen. Most unwise. I never quite trusted her and she seemed to think she was too good for the job, so it seemed best to take her down a peg. Mr. Congreve had to agree, as I vowed to make his existence a living hell if he did not. I always get my way.”
On and on she prattled, leading both men into the library and heading for a decanter and set of small glasses. In other rooms of the vast house, he could hear servants putting things to rights and clearing away the debris of the party, and one occasionally passed through where they were, looking nervously at Mrs. Congreve first.
She handed round the filled glasses herself, sipping hers daintily but fast and refilling it several times as the conversation between the two men ebbed and flowed. Semyon was listening with only half an ear, hoping to catch a glimpse of Angelica or hear her soft voice over the hubbub. After a time, he made some excuse to leave, and bent over Penelope’s outstretched hand in a pantomime of a gallant kiss, not about to touch his lips to her papery skin. Fortunately, she was quite drunk and did not seem to care what he did.
Semyon straightened. Mr. Congreve, he realized, had slumped in his chair, suddenly overcome by sleep in the manner of an aging man who had had too much sherry and stayed up too late.
As Semyon watched, the older man’s mouth fell open and his tongue lolled within the pale pink cavern as he snored juicily.
“You see what I must contend with.” Penelope dashed away a tear.
Semyon had no doubt that she felt infinitely sorry for herself and with some reason. But he was no closer to finding his goddess and could not very well prowl the house looking for her.
“Yes. I daresay he is tired. As we all are. Mrs. Congreve, I must go,” he said firmly.
“Are you sure?” she asked in a tiny voice.
“Quite sure.” He disentangled himself from the surprisingly strong grip of her hand on his arm and offered her a pillow instead. With a prodigious yawn that revealed every one of her neat, small teeth, Penelope flung herself into it, looking up at him coquettishly.
Semyon hastily withdrew, leaving the Congreves to each other and shutting the door to the library behind him.
He headed for the front door, glad he’d worn no hat that he might have forgotten in his haste to leave. Glancing into the rooms being set to rights, he looked around one last time for Angelica and spotted Jack instead.
The footman, whose livery had been replaced by work clothes to help the others move the ballroom furniture back to where it had been, gave him a worried frown and took him aside.
“Sir—may I talk to you?”
Semyon knew instantly that the other man’s concern was for Angelica.
“Yes, of course.” He let himself be led into an alcove where they would not be heard or seen should a busy servant pass by. “What is it?”
“Our Miss Harrow is gone, sir. I could not wake her after you left and when I went back an hour later, she was not there at all.”
“What? Have you looked elsewhere in the house?” He controlled his tone and suppressed his instinctive fear for the beautiful woman he’d desired so much. Had some other man happened upon her as she lay in slumber?
“Of course or I would not have come to you,” Jack replied. “She is not in her chamber under the eaves and none of the other women have seen her for some time. One said that the mistress was fuming because Angelica was not there to hand back the coats. It was a mad scramble, I hear—”
“Never mind that, man. Do you think Angelica was sacked and left because of that?”
“No. Her belongings are just as they were in her chamber, nothing taken. Only she is gone. And I put your very question to several of the servants. Someone would’ve heard something. Mrs. Congreve is a great one for making scenes and screaming. Her husband cannot control her and she does as she pleases.”
“Hmph. I daresay she cannot control him,” Semyon muttered.
The footman only shrugged, as if he had no particular concern for the Congreves. “Those two would not care if Angelica vanished forever. Something about it does not seem right to me, but I cannot say why. It is not like her—she was always kind to others and she would have left word with a sympathetic soul or told me had she decided to run away.”
“So. It seems that no one would blame her if she did, am I right?” Semyon asked.
“The higher you go, the worse it can get in this unhappy house,” the footman said soberly. “I was thinking that as Mrs. Congreve’s maid, she might know more than the rest of us. But she never said. Things go on here behind closed doors that no one but the master and mistress can open.”
“I see. That does not bode well.”
Jack hung his head as if saying the briefest of prayers, then looked up. “You told me to take care of her, and I tried to, sir. And I would have done, gold guinea or no—”
Semyon’s every hair stood on end. He was just as guilty, if anyone was. He too had left her where she lay, asleep and vulnerable. “Good God, man, where could she have gone? Who are her friends? Where is her family?”
“I don’t know. None of us knew much about her. It is like that in London, sir—”
“Yes,