Deadly Engagement: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance)

by Lucinda Brant

  “She was only sixteen years old when I married her,” the voice said and heaved a sigh.

  “I beg your pardon,” said Alec, turning to discover Lord Gervais with quizzing-glass up to one watery and bloodshot eye. “Sixteen?”

  The man directed Alec’s attention back to Emily and Lady Gervais. “My wife,” he said. “Cynthia. Married her on her sixteenth birthday. Straight out of the schoolroom. Friends on the Bench warned me against it. But I wouldn’t hear a word against her. Still won’t. Lovely little thing. Makes me happy to see her happy. Can’t have children. Pity.”

  “Y-yes it must be,” Alec murmured and guided the man to the back of the room with the excuse of getting a dish of coffee. He had noticed how the judge had been throwing back the brandy like water and it was obvious the man’s drunken state had brought on a melancholy mood. “But if you are happy, surely—”

  “Happy? Happy?” Lord Gervais choked on the word. “I wish I could make her happy. It’s laughable watching her share confidences with that yella haired chit. Poor little fool.”

  Alec was startled. “Your—um—wife?”

  “No, man! The chit! Delvin’s little bride. Has no idea, has she? I mean she wouldn’t. Just out of the schoolroom herself. Bound to have her heart broken. Bound to. It’s not as if he’ll give up Cynthia for her. Why should he? My wife’s an accomplished whore.” He jabbed Alec in the chest with a thick finger. “Know that, man. Delvin’s mistress. Now that’s nothing to sneeze at, is it?”

  Alec blinked. He didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t every day a husband bragged about his wife being another man’s mistress. Lord Gervais was proud of the fact. That Delvin had the audacity to invite his mistress and her husband to his engagement celebrations should not have surprised Alec but it did.

  “Not that the chit isn’t a taking little thing,” mused his lordship and belched, admiring Emily’s low-cut gown through his quizzing-glass. “There’s something very appealing about innocence. Don’t find innocence in my profession. All whores and pickpockets not fit for spit. But innocence…? Ah! What I wouldn’t give to have my wedding night over again…”

  Alec was spared further revelations by a group of gentlemen who hailed his lordship over to join them in a game of whist. He watched the judge stumble off and found Sir Cosmo Mahon at his side.

  “Gervais boring you with talk of his judicial duties?” he asked with a shake of his powdered head. “Don’t know why Ned invited him. A hanging judge and one of the best by all accounts. Not one of us.”

  “He was telling me about his wife,” said Alec, sipping his coffee.

  “Aha.”

  Alec smiled. “Reason enough for him to be invited this weekend, wouldn’t you say, Cosmo?”

  Sir Cosmo frowned and jerked his powdered head in Emily’s direction. “Hope she never finds out. Rather bad form of Ned to invite the woman here. One only needs to look at her twice—”

  “Twice?”

  “All right! Just look at her!” grumbled Sir Cosmo. “Nothing discreet about the woman. Not to my liking. Dare say not to yours.”

  “Absolutely not,” said Alec with a twinkle at his friend’s awkwardness.

  “Where’s that uncle of yours?” Sir Cosmo asked, changing the subject.

  “He’ll be here tomorrow. For the ball. He went out of town today for a meeting of the anti-slavery league. Don’t worry, Cosmo. He’ll be the life of the party, I promise you.”

  “I’m rather hoping he will,” said Sir Cosmo, scanning the room with his quizzing-glass. He coughed. “He has a tendre for Aunt Olivia, y’know.”

  “Yes. That’s why he’ll be here.”

  “Who?” asked Lady Sybilla in a breathless voice. The youngest daughter of the Duchess of Romney-St. Neots and married to an Admiral of the Fleet, it was common knowledge that the Lady Sybilla secretly adored the Earl of Delvin’s younger brother. Her harmless infatuation provided endless entertainment for everyone except Alec who had a soft spot for the harmless beauty and hated to see her an object of ridicule. “Oh dear! Am I interrupting?” she wondered, the fluttering of her gouache fan becoming agitated. “I didn’t mean… I’m—I’m so glad to see you safe home, Mr. Halsey.”

  Sir Cosmo lifted his eyebrows, smiled, and sidled away, much to Alec’s annoyance, though he was too polite to show it. He offered Lady Sybilla a seat on a newly vacated sofa and entertained her with a detailed description of the latest fashions worn at the Palace of Versailles, while doing his best to ignore her somewhat vacant smile, that is until Emily swept up to them, champagne glass in hand.

  “Aunt Sybilla! You’re being so unfair,” Emily announced and hiccupped. “You’ve kept Alec all to yourself for a good twenty minutes when Lady Gervais particularly wants to be introduced.” She looked at him archly. “She was so surprised to learn you’re Edward’s brother. Her eyes almost left their sockets. With your somber clothes and unpowdered hair she thought you a member of the clergy.” She chuckled into the champagne bubbles. “She thinks you’re dreadfully handsome. Imagine!” She shrugged a bare shoulder. “I suppose you must be. Everyone knows Aunt Sybilla’s in love with your beauty.”

  Lady Sybilla’s fan stopped in mid-wave and her face flamed under the layer of lead cosmetics at Emily’s brazen comment. She stumbled into an excuse to leave without looking at Alec, swept up her heavily embroidered petticoats and scurried away to the opposite side of the room to find a safe haven with Selina Jamison-Lewis, who sat languidly fanning herself, straight back to a group of gossiping ladies. Angry with Emily’s childish taunt, though he realized it sprung from too much champagne, Alec turned on a heel and deliberately left her alone in the middle of the room while he sought the fresh air and solace of the balcony.

  Humiliated to be so summarily deserted, a hundred pairs of eyes looking on, Emily followed Alec out into the night without a thought to what her actions might present to others. Of course everyone was watching the threesome and more than a few eyebrows lifted when the bride-to-be swept out after the other brother, these same raised eyebrows turning to observe through quizzing-glasses and from behind raised fans the reaction of the Earl of Delvin. But his lordship seemed oblivious to one and all and stood talking with Lord Gervais and Lord Andrew Macara, a scented lace handkerchief poised in his right hand.

  “How dare you so rudely dismiss me!” Emily demanded, confronting Alec on the balcony, face flushed with anger tinged with bemusement that he could treat her in such a cavalier fashion. “Can I help it if Aunt Sybilla has been besotted with you for years and years? Poor Uncle Charles must be secretly mortified. But as he is always at sea he is saved from enduring the humiliation of his wife’s unfaithfulness.”

  “If you care for your aunt and uncle you won’t repeat such utter tripe,” Alec replied woodenly, looking out on a cloudless night sky studded with stars. “There is no harm in your aunt and she is devoted to the Admiral.”

  “It isn’t tripe,” Emily contradicted, wondering what had possessed her to embarrass her favorite aunt and tarnish an unsullied reputation. She hiccupped and stared down into the bubbles in her champagne glass. She’d had too much to drink but she was beyond caring. She put the glass aside and leaned against the cold marble of the balustrade. “What I don’t understand is why she remains infatuated with you when you broke her heart that day she discovered you with Selina Jamison-Lewis in the wood.”

  Alec frowned self-consciously and turned to look at her. “The wood? What do you know of the wood?”

  “So Jack was right!” she cooed with conspiratorial satisfaction, all anger extinguished with revelation. She sidled up to him, her many ruffled sleeve brushing against his arm. “Will you tell me what happened in the wood?”

  “Good God, no!”

  Emily pouted. “What does it matter now?” she said with a careless shrug of a bare shoulder. “It’s such ancient history.”

  Alec moved a little away, to the end of the balcony. “Is Jack ancient history, Emily?”

  Emily�
��s teasing smile vanished and she suddenly felt heavy of mind and heart. “That’s unfair! Everyone thinks it’s a great lark that Jack and Edward fought a duel over me, but I think it’s horrid! It’s not my fault Jack’s—Jack’s—gone.”

  “No, it’s not your fault,” Alec agreed in something of his old manner and came back to her. He held her hand. “Why do you think Jack and Edward dueled?”

  “I don’t know! Truly, I don’t! It gives me the headache to think about it! Grandmamma asked me the same question and all I can say is I had no idea Jack was jealous of Edward. He wasn’t. I mean, he never said so and he never acted as if he cared two straws for me above the ordinary.”

  Alec brushed a loose powdered curl from her flushed cheek. “So why would Edward tell the world that the duel with Jack was fought over you?”

  Emily sniffed. “Perhaps… Perhaps that’s what Jack wanted Edward to believe? Yes! As some sort of excuse so that Jack could lure Edward into a fight?” She looked up expectantly. “That’s reasonable, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. But not likely. The Jack I knew was not the sort of fellow to start fights. In fact, he wasn’t a very good swordsman. And Edward made sure Jack wouldn’t survive his injuries… Why?”

  Emily felt like bursting into tears. She pulled her hand from his and put it behind her back. “You think Edward meant to kill Jack? That’s a terrible accusation to make against your own brother! Edward said you hated him for no good reason but I never believed it until now!”

  “That’s nonsense, Emily.”

  “Is it?” she asked archly, though tears now streamed down her cheeks. “Why shouldn’t you hate him? He’s the earl and you’re not!”

  “Now you’re being childish.”

  “I’m not a child! I’ve grown up, or haven’t you noticed?”

  He took a good look at her then in the flickering light of the flambeaux: The upswept mass of blonde hair was thickly powdered out of all recognition; the liberal use of cosmetics hid her delicate skin; and the cut of her many petticoated gown made her look the pouting coquette. She was no longer the Emily he had hoped to marry. He took a step toward her, saw a movement in the shadows by the open French door and checked. His bow was formal.

  “May I offer my felicitations on your engagement. Now you must excuse me. I am wanted by Lady Gervais.”

  She watched open-mouthed as he returned to the drawing room, leaving her alone on the balcony feeling wretched. He had not apologized for his rudeness and nothing had been resolved between them. As for offering his felicitations he had done so in a mechanical, non-convincing way. The duel and Jack Belsay’s unfortunate death had failed to rock her belief that in marrying the Earl of Delvin she would be made happy. Yet, ever since Alec had stormed out of her rooms a small lingering doubt had flamed within her and was kept alight by his silent disfavor. She wanted everyone to be happy at her good fortune. She wanted the engagement party to be perfect. Yet what she wanted more than anything else was Alec’s approval for the match. A hand on her shoulder made her quickly dry her eyes and spin about with a brave smile.

  “Alec?”

  But it wasn’t Alec, it was Lord Delvin and looking down at her with concerned inquiry. He gave her his handkerchief. “My dear, are you perfectly well?” he asked. “You had the Duchess and I worried when you disappeared so suddenly and with no thought to our guests.”

  Emily tried hard to smile brightly. “I’m sorry, Edward,” she apologized. “Too much champagne has addled my brain and given me the headache. I ought not to have run out on you like that, but Alec he—”

  “There is no need for you to explain, my dear,” the Earl said soothingly and kissed her hand. “Second is entirely to blame. No, don’t shake your pretty head. You know I speak the truth.” He smiled, a little wider than before as he led her to the French doors. “How can you, a delicately nurtured female, know Second’s true nature? Your grandmother, a most superior female, as Second’s godmother will not say a word against him, particularly to her innocent granddaughter. She would not want to alarm you unnecessarily. And I have no doubts he always play-acted the gentleman within her walls. But as your betrothed it is now my duty to protect you.” He lifted the string of diamonds and rubies about Emily’s throat and smiled into her wide gray eyes. “You must trust me and me alone to know what is in your best interests; are we not to be man and wife soon?” He let drop the heavy string of precious stones on a sigh and said, “It pains me to tell you this, and I do so in the strictest confidence, but Second is not the man you think him. There have been times when I have lied, yes lied, to protect the good name of Halsey on account of, let me just say, his conduct unbecoming. I know I will find disfavor in your eyes but I lied to save Second’s skin when he denied seducing Mrs. Jamison-Lewis, and to the very man she was about to marry. It weighs heavily on my conscience that I permitted Second to lie to my good friend George, but I could not stand by and allow Mrs. Jamison-Lewis’ chances of a brilliant match be ruined by my brother’s lust. After all, who can blame her, for she was just your tender age after all, and seduced with false promises.”

  “Oh, Edward! Then he did seduce her in the wood?”

  “The wood?” said Delvin, momentarily surprised. He let his lip curl. “Indeed, the wood, and anywhere else he could lay his filthy hands upon her.”

  “Alec had no intention of marrying Mrs. Jamison-Lewis?”

  The Earl gave a bark of harsh laughter. “My poor innocent! Marriage? When have my brother’s intentions ever been honorable? He is a confirmed rake and a cad. Do you understand me, Emily dear?”

  Emily nodded slowly, the implication behind the Earl’s words so depressingly shocking that her head felt as if it was filled with lead. Silently, she permitted the Earl to lead her back within the warmth and blazing light of the noise-filled Chinese drawing room. “Edward?” she managed to whisper, fingers convulsing tightly about his velvet sleeve. “The Jamison-Lewis marriage, it may never have taken place but for your timely interference…”

  He smiled at her choice of word, yet his pale blue eyes were fixed unblinkingly on a couple at the far side of the room. Lady Gervais, her voluptuous figure pressed suggestively to his brother’s side, was playfully chiding Alec under the chin with the closed sticks of her fan, while her brooding husband watched on not five feet away. “Interference? Yes. I should think Second and Mrs. Jamison-Lewis are only too well aware of my interference.”

  When Alec finally left the drawing room and went up to his rooms he found his valet engaged in using his apothecary skills. The long table by the window in the dressing room had been turned into a workbench. It was covered with various apparatus, an assortment of cuttings from the Duchess’s herb garden, an apothecary’s traveling case, and, at Tam’s elbow, a leather-bound Pharmacopoeia; all purchased at Alec’s expense.

  Tam was so busy stirring liquid to the boil over a naked flame that he failed to notice his master, even when the latter coughed politely to be recognized.

  “Have you been at this since I went down to dinner?” Alec asked conversationally.

  “Sir? Sir! Yes. I mean, no! I unpacked the bags, polished your boots, and put away your clothes,” Tam said, unraveling his shirtsleeves. “And I made sure the lackeys brought up a hip bath and had a fire built in the bedroom on account of a chilly breeze—”

  “I don’t want to know what you’ve been doing with your time. This need to constantly justify yourself isn’t necessary. What are you making there?” He peered over the boy’s shoulder and tentatively took a sniff of the rising steam from the glass flask. “Smells sweet.”

  “It’s nothing special, sir. Just Melissa officinalis. I’ve made a tea with the leaves and sweetened it to make it drinkable. Common Balm is what most people call it.”

  “What’s it for?’

  “Good for headaches, sir.”

  Alec surveyed the array of cuttings. “All this from her Grace’s gardens? I am impressed.”

  “Nearly as good as the Chelsea physi
c gardens, and so I told Mr. Heath. You’ve just got to know what to look for and what to use. A root of a plant here, a leaf, sometimes only the stem is needed. And then it matters how you use it. Some plants require little more than to be ground up. Other roots and stems have to be boiled for their juice. It’s not difficult if you know what you’re about,” said Tam diffidently. He wiped his hands and left the table. “I didn’t mean to keep you waiting, sir. I’ll have warm water fetched.” He reached for the bell pull. “Is there anything else you want, sir?”

  “No, nothing,” said Alec and handed Tam his frockcoat. “Did you have much trouble with Neave and the other servants?”

  Tam avoided his eye. “No, sir. That is, not once they knew I was your valet. Mr. Neave wanted to throw me out of the house. He called me a horse thief. Jenny and Mrs. Travers, she’s the housekeeper, persuaded him I was telling the truth. Mr. Neave wasn’t happy about it but he didn’t say anything else. Besides, he was too busy to be bothered with the likes of me on account of this weekend house party. Mrs. Travers was better about it.”

  “I’m sure your reappearance gave downstairs an afternoon’s conversational gossip.” Alec glanced at his valet in the reflection of the dressing table looking glass as he absently untied his stock. “You, of course, only heightened their curiosity by being terribly discreet?”

  “Not a word out of me, sir,” Tam said firmly. “Not even to Jenny.”

  “She… pleased to see you?”

  Tam pretended a moment’s deafness and disappeared into the closet to fetch a silk banyan and a pair of Moroccan leather slippers. He waited by the dressing table holding these articles and watching Alec polishing his nails, interrupting him to say, “Sir? If you don’t object, when I’m done here, I need to run an errand. The tea: It’s for Jenny. She says Miss Emily has the headache. I won’t take but fifteen minutes.”

  “Fifteen minutes. And, Tam, don’t make a nuisance of yourself.”