by M C Beaton
Lucinda, still unnaturally calm and sedate, reminded the marquess of the self-contained child he had kidnapped.
“Tell me, my lord,” she asked, “why did you leave this until the very last minute?”
“It took time to find the lawyers,” said the marquess, turning away, unable to tell her of the days and nights he had dreamed of her until at last he knew he could not bear to see her married to anyone other than himself.
The old countess rose to her feet and walked slowly forward. “Let me see the papers,” she said.
She took her huge quizzing glass out of her capacious reticule and studied them carefully.
Then she looked at her granddaughter. “What do you want, Lucinda?” she asked. Her pale eyes raked around the group, settling at last on the Marquess of Sunningburgh with a look of peculiar malevolence.
“I shall never marry,” said Lucinda. “I shall enjoy this one Season and then I shall return to Partletts and make all the changes I wish. I insist on having the freedom of a mature married woman although I am a spinster. No, I shall never marry. Uncle Charles, please take me home, sir. Reverend, I will leave you to tell our guests the news. I suggest they follow us and enjoy the wedding breakfast. Some of them have traveled far.”
“Lucinda!” pleaded Sir Percival. “Have you no thought for me?”
Lucinda looked at him, seeing him clearly for what he was for the first time, realizing he had never loved her, that he only loved her money.
“I agree you have been hard done by,” she said. “You may submit all outstanding bills you may have to me. When my lawyers have settled them, I think it would be best if we never saw each other again.”
She took her uncle’s arm and walked to the door. Then she hesitated, turned, and addressed the Marquess of Sunningburgh.
“I owe you a great debt, my lord,” she said. “You have made me realize I do not need any man—least of all you. “
On her uncle’s arm she walked back down the aisle of the church. The organist, unaware of what had been going on, began to play a triumphal march, and high in the steeple, the bells began to ring.
Stooped and elderly, Lord Lemmington was the envy of every man in the waiting crowd outside. How could such an old stick have gotten himself such a young, radiant, and beautiful bride? they wondered.
One week later, the marquess paced up and down in the library of his town house. His friend, Mr. Tommy Flanders watched him sympathetically. By some miracle, the scandal of Lucinda’s nonmarriage had escaped the newspapers, but the marquess had finally told his friend all about it.
“So,” ended the marquess, “the best thing I can do is take myself off to the country and forget about her.”
“That doesn’t sound like the gallant major I knew,” said Mr. Flanders.
The marquess gave him a rueful smile. “This is love, not war, Tommy.”
“It’s the same thing,” said Mr. Flanders earnestly. “Attack! That’s the thing. Make her fall in love with you.”
“Don’t be silly. She doesn’t want me near her.”
“You know,” said Mr. Flanders eagerly, “they talk about morals and conventions, but I find it remarkably easy to have words in private with a young lady if I put my mind to it. Now, that grandmother of hers is always falling asleep. You had a chance—two chances—of being alone with her before. Put your mind to it and you’ll have another chance. Ask her to forgive you. It ain’t your fault about that stupid betrothal or that that old horror said Webster could have his moneybags if she married anyone but you. Anyway, his will left everything to her, so it stands to reason the will canceled out anything in the betrothal papers.”
“Not so. I was too clever by half. When the will was read out to the family, Lord Lemmington, the Earl of Sotheran’s brother, had learned of the betrothal from the dowager countess. She got him to instruct the lawyer to leave ‘all that nonsense’ out in case it distressed Lucinda, but I assure you that bit about Webster was in the will and Lord Lemmington didn’t even know about it because the lawyer took him at his word and left out everything relating to marriage. The lawyer who read the will wasn’t Mr. Poulett but a doddering old fool nearly in his grave. Of course, it was I who had to go and ferret the whole thing out. But, by George, I’m glad I did. I swear she looked like a reprieved prisoner!”
“Then she has reason to be grateful to you.”
“I doubt if she will see it that way.”
“You’ll never know until you try.”
“But what if she has such a disgust of me that she screams at the very sight of me?”
“An odd sort of girl,” said Mr. Flanders slowly. “I don’t think after the sort of upbringing you say she’s had that there’s much that would make her scream. Perhaps you could get the old countess on your side.”
“Now, there’s a lady who frightens me. I think she flies about London on her broomstick at night.”
“Fustian. These old ladies are as simple and innocent as children.”
The marquess’s butler quietly entered the room and handed him a huge box of chocolates.
“Who sent me these?” demanded the marquess.
“There is no letter or card, my lord.”
“Very well, leave them on the table.”
The butler put the box of chocolates on a table by the open window and left.
“Perhaps you have an admirer,” said Mr. Flanders.
The marquess shrugged. “Probably meant for someone else,” he said. “Let us go for a ride in the Row. I need some exercise to clear maudlin thoughts about Lady Lucinda from my brain.”
One hour later, Mr. Toby Pollock, murderer, rapist, and thief, strolled past. He had made a daring escape from Newgate prison a year before and had gone into hiding. Now, dressed soberly and correctly and with his hair dyed black, he was sure he was safe from the clutches of the law. He had decided to stroll through the fashionable West End to see what pickings he might find. The Runners would not be looking for such a one as himself in Mayfair.
He was passing the marquess’s town house when his sharp eye saw the large box of chocolates lying on the table by the open window.
He looked quickly up and down the street. No one was in sight, not even a butler standing on the steps to take the air. The window, fortunately for him, was right on the street, the front windows on the other side of the entrance being protected by the area steps.
He reached in and seized the large box and slid it inside his capacious coat.
His mouth watered. He loved sweet things and, as a mere boy, had once stabbed to death a cook who had caught him in the act of stealing a cake.
He made his way to Green Park and settled down on the grass behind a huge tree. Greedily, he opened the box and stared at the contents.
On the following day, the Marquess of Sunningburgh read, with little interest, that a common thief and murderer had been found dead in Green Park. He noted idly that the authorities said the notorious escaped murderer appeared to have been poisoned. They did not mention anything about an expensive box of chocolates that had been found beside him on the grass, half of it eaten. The marquess had quite forgotten about that mysterious present. In any case, he detested sweets.
Chapter Eight
Miss Jessop, the young lady who had taken Mr. Flanders’s fancy, had the honor of being driven by the marquess in the park while Mr. Flanders attended his tailor.
The marquess was well pleased by her friendly and cheerful company and thought she and his friend were well suited.
Lucinda, driving out with her grandmother, saw the marquess for the first time since the wedding. In all her dreams of seeing him again, she had never thought of him being with another lady. She thought Miss Jessop looked a rowdy, vulgar sort of girl. She told her grandmother that the park was too hot and dusty and that she wished to go home.
But that sight of the marquess had started up all of the old longings in her treacherous body. She began to fret that she had inherited all of her father’s
lust. She despised herself and alarmed her grandmother by calling for a bath to be prepared as soon as they got home.
The countess, like many members of London society, frowned on cleanliness as being a dangerous habit. It was enough to wipe the face and hands with clean linen each morning. Washing the face in water made it too sensitive to cold and sunburn. As for the body, once or twice a year was enough. One royal duke was heard to remark crossly that it was sweat, damn it, that kept a man most clean. But there were rebels. William Cobbett, that dangerous radical, held that cleanliness was a “capital ingredient” and advised the lover to look behind the lady’s ears before he started any serious courting. But by and large, baths were considered useful for subduing inmates of the madhouse but not of any use in polite society.
But Lucinda was adamant. She had paid a great deal of money to have a bath installed in her bedroom and she meant to use it as much as possible.
It was an ornate piece of furniture in the shape of a chaise longue. There was a copper heater at the head of it; the heater ran on spirit and it took almost an hour to heat the water.
She was to attend a ball that evening. Perhaps the marquess might be there. She had not wanted to go, pointing out to her grandmother that as she no longer had any desire to marry, she would rather confine her social engagements to the opera or the playhouse. The old countess had said pettishly that there was not a female alive who did not want to marry. Lucinda had received a shock, said the old lady. She bitterly blamed the marquess. He had had no right to ruin Lucinda’s happiness. He had no right to be alive! What a waste of good arsenic and expensive chocolates.
Lucinda felt drowsy after her bath and told her maid to let her sleep for an hour before beginning preparations for the ball.
But her sleep was racked by nightmares. Her father fell down a long, winding staircase to hell, tumbling and falling, shouting pathetically, “Help me, Lucinda.” Then that dream faded to be replaced by a horrible one where Gotobed had come to life and was stalking the house with a meat cleaver.
She awoke with a cry of distress and sat up. Almost as part of her dream, she once again saw Gotobed’s body in the chest. The first twitching, clutching symptoms of fear began to assail Lady Lucinda Esmond.
For she at last knew that she had seen the dead body of Gotobed. She had been thrown off balance by her emotional reaction to the Marquess of Sunningburgh. She had wanted to believe her grandmother. But now she knew her grandmother had lied.
The Marquess of Sunningburgh noticed Lucinda’s pallor. Anxiety made him pluck up his courage and approach the Countess of Lemmington, who sat at the ball, a little apart from the other chaperones, behind a bank of flowers.
Lucinda was dancing with Sir Percival Magnus. It was a country dance, affording little opportunity for conversation, but Sir Percival was making the most of it, whispering intensely in Lucinda’s ear when the figure of the dance brought them together.
The old countess did not look up when the marquess approached. She was, as usual, attired in the style of the 1750s. The square neck of her panniered gown was cut low to display a heavy sapphire necklace. Long sapphire and diamond earrings dangled almost to her shoulders. Her shoes, peeping out from beneath the stiff skirts of her gown, had high red heels.
Her white wig had been dressed very high and decorated with ropes of pearls. In fact, she was so small and wizened that her body seemed only a little larger than her enormous wig. Her cane had silver ribbons on the top.
The marquess came up to her. She ignored him and produced a small enameled snuffbox and helped herself to a delicate pinch with all the finesse of Lord Petersham.
“My lady,” ventured the marquess, “I am worried about Lady Lucinda. Her pallor this evening is unnatural.”
The countess leaned on her cane and stared straight ahead. “It is all your fault,” she said. “You stopped the wedding. She would have been happy.”
“Come, my lady, we both know she had a lucky escape.Sir Percival Magnus is a popinjay. His only interest in her was her money.”
“He would have suited,” said the countess stubbornly. Her pale eyes fastened on him and he repressed a shudder. There was something malignant in her gaze. “See here, my fine buck,” the countess went on, “she won’t have you, so she can’t have anyone else. She needs a milksop. My son, Giles, paraded his doxies about Partletts when Lucinda was a child. So she fears men. What girl would not, after such an upbringing? Sir Percival would have done his part. I would have seen to that. She’ll never settle for a proper man, don’t you see? It’ll have to be a fribble.”
“At least, under the terms of the will, it will have to be a fribble with money. That way Lucinda can be sure of securing a man who loves her,” said the marquess.
“Love. Pooh! Moonshine and cobwebs. Marriages should be arranged. Plenty of opportunity for love after one is married.”
“If I may say so, that attitude will hardly stop her from fearing men.”
“No, you may not say so,” mocked the countess. “Anyway, I am sure you will not live long, so she will be able to do as she pleases.”
“I beg you …”
“Say no more. Lady Lucinda is not your concern. She is mine. She is the only person I have ever loved. I will do anything to ensure her happiness.”
“It is of no use talking to you, ma’am. You have obviously taken me in dislike.”
“And why not? You—a man who kidnaps little girls!”
He bowed stiffly and turned away.
“Do you like chocolates, my lord?” came her voice from behind him.
“No, my lady,” he said.
“Pity,” she said with a chuckle.
As he walked away, he suddenly remembered that box of chocolates, which had disappeared so strangely. Had the countess sent them? And if so, why?
He settled down to watch Lucinda like a hawk, waiting for an opportunity to get her alone. If he simply went up to her and asked her to dance, she might refuse.
The ball was being held in a mansion in Cavendish Square. The theme was a “rose” ball. There were roses everywhere, in great vases, growing in pots, and climbing trellises.
Lucinda was wearing a white muslin gown with a silver overdress, the clasps of which were made of silver filigree and diamonds. A collar of diamonds shone at her neck and a thin gold chain of diamonds had been threaded through her hair.
Even had she been plain, thought the marquess cynically, such a display of fine jewels would have drawn the men to her like moths. There was something outrageous about Lucinda’s display of jewels, a flaunting of the social law that no unmarried miss should appear in anything other than modest pearls, garnets, or coral. Also, her jewels all had modern settings, a flagrant show of wealth. Every female in the room seemed to evince some signs of jealousy as they looked at Lucinda. Perhaps they felt it was surely enough to have such great beauty without having to gild it with some of the finest stones London society had ever seen.
Then he remembered her saying that to her the jewels were simply the toys she had never had. Perhaps her horrible upbringing had flawed her for life. Perhaps she would always shrink from men and end up an elderly eccentric surrounded by posturing and mincing fops.
Her dance had ended. He watched her partner offer his arm to promenade with her before the next dance, as was the custom. Lucinda said something and shook her head. She moved across the ballroom floor and the marquess set out after her. She crossed the hall and went into a room reserved for ladies who wished to repair their paint or their dress.
The strains of a Scottish reel danced jauntily out from the ballroom. He stood in a shadowy recess in the hall and settled himself to wait.
A long time passed. He began to wonder whether she had been taken ill. Behind him in the ballroom, a voice announced that supper was being served upstairs. He drew back even more as the guests surged out, chattering and laughing.
Still he waited until the last guest had disappeared into the supper room, which was off t
he first landing of the main staircase.
He was about to summon one of the footmen and tell him to send a maid to find out what had happened to Lady Lucinda when she at last emerged. She was whiter than ever and her large eyes glittered with tears.
He took a deep breath and approached her.
“Lady Lucinda,” he said. “May I escort you to supper?”
“No,” said Lucinda in a distracted voice. “I am not hungry.”
“Walk with me a little and tell me what distresses you.”
“Nothing distresses me,” said Lucinda in a low voice. But she listlessly took his arm and let him guide her back through the now empty ballroom and out the long windows onto a deserted terrace.
The orchestra had gone upstairs to serenade the guests in the supper room and the strains of a sad little waltz drifted down to their ears.
“Now,” said the marquess. “Now, my child, you had better tell me all about it.”
Lucinda looked up at him, longing to find the courage to tell him to go away and yet feeling that if she humiliated and rejected him one more time, he would never come back, and she did not think she could bear that.
“I think …” she said slowly. She stopped and half turned her face away.
He waited, feeling that if he said anything or tried to touch her or comfort her that she would not go on.
“I think,” she began again, “that Grandmama has killed our former butler, Gotobed.”
He was about to exclaim that she was talking nonsense and then he remembered that look of peculiar malignancy in the countess’s eyes and said instead, “Go on.”
“Gotobed was an unsavory fellow who was our butler at Partletts when my father was alive. We found it hard to keep servants. My father is said to have ruined Gotobed, which is why the man had to work for us. After the masquerade ball, when I returned to Berkeley Square with Grandmama, Gotobed was waiting. It was four in the morning, but instead of telling Alexander—the butler then, the one who tried to rob Grandmama and fell in the river—to send Gotobed away, for it was a ridiculous time to see anyone, Grandmama sent me away and told Alexander to tell Gotobed to await her in the drawing room.
