Undoing of a Lady

by Nicola Cornick

“Well at least Mary would be wed,” Lady Wheeler said, with a sharp look at Lizzie that suggested that since she had managed to secure an Earl she should be a little more understanding of a mother’s ambition. “Ever since Lord Armitage’s defection Mary has been sadly out of spirits,” Lady Wheeler continued, “moping around, sighing and sobbing, until it quite tries my patience—”

  There was a clatter as Mary dropped her teaspoon against the china cup. Lizzie saw that her hands were shaking and her brown eyes were full of tears.

  “Mama—” Mary whispered.

  “I hear that Sir Thomas has also called on Miss Minchin,” Lady Wheeler said, ignoring her daughter’s anguish, and speaking of her as though she were absent rather than sitting next to her, “so Mary has a rival there, I suppose, though Flora is only a banker’s daughter rather than Quality.”

  “I think it is probably the quality of Flora’s fortune that appeals to Tom rather than her breeding,” Lizzie said, rising to her feet. She smiled at Mary who managed nothing more than a grimace in return. “I pray you will not get your hopes up, ma’am,” Lizzie continued. “Now that my brother has discovered, like Monty before him, that he can fleece his villagers for all manner of taxes I doubt he will bother to tie himself down in wedlock. He is not temperamentally suited to it.”

  “Well, it is most inconsiderate of him,” Lady Wheeler said, taking the hint at last and moving toward the door, “especially when there are so few eligible gentlemen left in town. For what are we to do with Mary now?”

  “Leave her in peace, I suggest,” Lizzie said, pressing Mary’s hands as they parted in the hall. She watched Lady Wheeler and her daughter walk away down the tree-lined avenue, Lady Wheeler’s bonnet bobbing as she lectured her daughter and Mary dragging her feet and falling behind like a recalcitrant child.

  When Sir Montague had first introduced the Dames’ Tax, Lizzie remembered, Lady Wheeler had been one of the most vocal opponents, objecting to Sir James’s attempts to buy a suitor for his plain daughter. That had all changed when Lord Armitage had jilted Mary; it was as though she was damaged goods now and her mother could not get rid of her quickly enough. There were a lot of unhappy people in Fortune’s Folly as a result of Sir Montague’s revival of the medieval taxes, Lizzie thought bitterly. So many of the things that had happened since the previous summer were a direct result of his money-grubbing ways, not least his own death.

  Nat had not returned by the afternoon, nor sent any message, so Lizzie went out riding alone, over the moors and down toward Fortune Hall. She wanted to see her old home, even though she knew it would leave her aching with a nostalgia for the way things had once been before Monty had had his head turned by money and Tom had proved himself such an out-and-out scoundrel. There had been a time when they had all rubbed along together well enough, yet something had gone wrong along the way and now Monty was dead and Tom had gone to the bad and even as she looked at the ancient manor house drowsing in the sun, Lizzie knew that that part of her life was over for good.

  She was turning away to take the track for Fortune’s Folly village when Tom stepped out of a field gate on her left and startled her so much that she pulled on Starfire’s reins and the mare almost reared as a result. Lizzie calmed her automatically as Tom leaned casually against the gate and looked up at her, a smile that was not quite nice curling his lips.

  “Well, if it isn’t my cardsharp of a little sister,” he said. “What brings you in this direction, Lizzie?”

  “I was just taking a ride,” Lizzie said. “How are you, Tom?”

  “I’m better than some, certainly,” Tom said. He straightened. “Priscilla Willoughby for one. She asked me to give you a message, Lizzie.”

  Lizzie raised her brows. “Lady Willoughby is a friend of yours, is she? I might have known.” She tilted her head on one side. “I imagine the two of you would deal very well together, with so much malice in common.”

  “We have an arrangement,” Tom said indifferently.

  “Is she to become the next Lady Fortune, then?” Lizzie asked, with perfectly calculated innocence.

  Tom laughed. He put a hand on Starfire’s bridle and stroked the horse’s nose gently. It was one of the odd things about Tom, Lizzie thought, that he adored his dogs and his horses and yet was without compassion when it came to people.

  “I hardly think so,” he said. “I am not wealthy enough to tempt Priscilla and I am not sure I wish to marry such a slut anyway.” He looked up. “Don’t play games with her, Lizzie. She’s much more experienced than you are and she could hurt you badly.”

  “And you are warning me out of the goodness of your heart?” Lizzie asked. She found she was not unduly shocked to hear that Tom and Lady Willoughby were lovers. She remembered John Jerrold saying that he suspected that Priscilla was a great deal less respectable than she pretended to be. She wondered if Nat knew. Most probably he did not. In his mind Perfect Priscilla was probably pickled forever as the flawless, ideal wife. And Lizzie knew she could never tell Nat the truth because it would merely look like jealousy talking.

  Tom laughed again. “Hardly that.” He looked up at her, narrowing his eyes against the sun. “There are things you don’t know, Lizzie—things about that oh-so-worthy husband of yours. That’s what I want to tell you.”

  Lizzie’s hands tightened involuntarily on the reins and Starfire side stepped. Tom grinned to see his barb strike home. “Your Achilles’ heel,” he said softly, “your love for the undeserving Earl of Waterhouse.” He shook his head. “You’re a great girl, Lizzie—I admire you, I really do. In so many ways we are so alike, but you are too, too naive.”

  “Don’t bracket me with you,” Lizzie said. “I may be wild, Tom, but I’m not a callous, heartless bastard.”

  “More fool you,” her brother said calmly. “You’ve given your heart to the wrong man, Lizzie.”

  “You’re boring me with all this talk of love, Tom,” Lizzie said. Her heart had started to thunder. She felt mortified. The thought of Tom and Priscilla Willoughby laughing over her innocent love for Nat, perhaps as they lay in bed together, made her feel sick. How had Tom known? Could everyone see how she felt? Were her emotions too transparent, her vulnerability evident to everybody? Everybody except Nat…

  “What are you going to tell me?” she said, affecting ennui so that Tom should not see how much he was upsetting her. “Is your big piece of news that Nat was once Priscilla Willoughby’s lover?”

  As soon as the words were out she wondered if Tom was actually going to tell her that Nat was still Priscilla’s lover and she felt a lurch of horror and a fresh wave of sickness engulf her. But Tom was shaking his head.

  “I’m sure she would wish it,” he said, “but no. I’ll spare you that torture at least, Lizzie.” His eyes were full of mocking amusement as he dealt out scraps of malice like playing cards.

  “What I was going to ask,” Tom said casually, “was whether you knew that Cousin Gregory Scarlet paid Nat to marry you?”

  Lizzie stared at him whilst the sun poured down through the shifting leaves and the birds sang and she could not seem to hear them properly because there was a buzzing in her ears.

  Paid to marry you…Paid to marry you…

  “A dowry,” she said, through stiff lips.

  Tom was shaking his head. “A bribe, Lizzie. You know how stuffy Cousin Gregory is. He had heard you were becoming much too much like our mother.” He paused. “The drinking, you know. You have a reputation for it. And the flirtations with unsuitable men…Very undignified and unbecoming to the ancient and great name of the Earls of Scarlet.”

  “You’re a fine one to talk of conduct unbecoming,” Lizzie said. She felt cold, skin deep, bone deep.

  A bribe…Nat had been bribed to marry her…

  “It’s different for men,” Tom said complacently. “I won’t be labeled a drunken doxy.”

  “No,” Lizzie said, “just an arrogant, insufferable, hateful sot.”

  Tom laughed with the pleas
ure of hurting her. Lizzie knew he was enjoying it. She could see it in his face and yet she seemed powerless to resist his provocation.

  “You’ll have to do better than that if you want to retaliate against me,” he said cheerfully. “At least I won’t be bought and sold like a piece of meat as you were.” He stepped closer, staring up at her. “Cousin Gregory sold you, Lizzie, with an extra few thousand to sweeten your dowry, and Nat Waterhouse bought you because he needed the money.”

  Lizzie had heard enough. She dug her heels into Starfire’s side and turned the horse so sharply that she knocked Tom flying. Lizzie pulled back and Starfire reared and for one satisfying moment Lizzie saw the genuine terror on her brother’s face as the horse’s hooves came down toward him. At the last moment she turned again so the horse pirouetted in the most perfect piece of dressage. Tom scrambled to his feet, swearing horribly, and Lizzie looked down at him.

  “I never understood your need to hurt people, Tom,” she said. “We were close once, you, and me, and Monty. Where did it all go wrong?”

  She did not wait for his reply. She rode off toward Fortune’s Folly and left Tom standing in the bridleway staring after her. She could feel the venom in his look and her heart bumped against her ribs with the effort not to cry.

  Bought and sold like a piece of meat…

  A bribe…

  A drunken doxy, just like our mother…

  Gregory Scarlet had not wanted anything to do with her from the moment that he had inherited from her father and now all he cared about was preserving the good reputation of the Scarlet name. And Nat had agreed, for the money…For the money…The words drummed in her head with every beat of Starfire’s hooves.

  When she got back to Chevrons she rubbed Starfire down herself and fed her. Being in the stables with the horses soothed her. It was one of the few things from her past life that was a constant. The house was quiet when she went in. A supper for one was laid on the table in the dining room.

  “Lord Waterhouse returned whilst you were out, my lady,” Mrs. Alibone said. “He is dining at the Oyster Club tonight and said not to expect him back until late.”

  Nat was out. Of course he was. He was always out, the husband who had been bribed to marry her. He was working, or he was visiting his family, or he was with his friends…Lizzie felt sick with misery that Nat did not choose to spend his time with her. But then it was money and duty that had forced them to wed, not love.

  She stripped off her riding gloves and slapped them down on the table. The decanter on the sideboard seemed to beckon to her, the wine glowing red in the evening sunshine. One little drink would take the edge off her misery.

  A drunken doxy, just like our mother…

  With a sudden violent sweep of the hand she sent the decanter tumbling onto the floor. It smashed into the skirting board and broke, spilling wine across the carpet. Mrs. Alibone slid back into the room so swiftly Lizzie wondered if she had been lurking outside the door polishing the keyhole.

  “Madam!”

  “An accident,” Lizzie said. “I do apologize for the mess. I’ll tidy it up—”

  “Madam!” Mrs. Alibone sounded even more outraged at the thought of her mistress cleaning. “You certainly will not!”

  Lizzie sighed. “Very well. Thank you, Mrs. Alibone.” She glanced at the table with its lonely dinner setting. “Pray tell Cook not to bother with dinner. I shall go out.”

  Mrs. Alibone raised her brows. “Out? Madam, you cannot! It is not the Done Thing!”

  “Yes, I can,” Lizzie said. “I am going out without my husband. Again. Shocking, is it not?”

  And she ran up the stairs to get changed.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I WILL BE MAKING your cousin Mary an offer of marriage tomorrow morning.” Tom Fortune lay sprawled in his chair in the study at Fortune Hall. His shirt was hanging loose and his trousers were unbuttoned. He was enjoying the ministrations of Priscilla Willoughby’s skilful mouth and equally clever hands and was feeling very mellow. Being pleasured by a veiled woman was proving extremely erotic. Priscilla had refused to let him either see her or touch her because the skin complaint she was suffering had left her with a terrible rash. Tom thought it hilarious that Lizzie had apparently inflicted such humiliation on his vain mistress. Priscilla seemed to find it less amusing. In fact Tom suspected that the only reason she was here and was prepared to indulge his vices as usual was because she wanted something from him in return.

  “I tried to seduce Mary,” he continued. “I wanted to make sure she would be obliged to wed me.”

  “What happened?” Priscilla’s mouth brushed his cock in the lightest and most tantalising of touches, her cunning little tongue circling him, flicking and delving. Tom shivered with enjoyment.

  “She ran from me like the startled virgin she is,” he said. “I do believe she was terrified. Stephen Armitage cannot have had her when they were betrothed. Or perhaps he did—perhaps that was why she took fright.”

  Priscilla’s mouth tugged on him and he groaned. “At least you were spared the appalling tedium of having to make love to her,” she murmured. “Do you think she will accept you?”

  “I’ll make sure she does,” Tom said. His mind was starting to splinter with pleasure. He really did not want to talk, could not talk. But Priscilla kept accompanying her attentions with questions; questions it was becoming more and more difficult for him to concentrate on.

  “Did you speak to your sister?” she asked, fondling him, stroking until he thought he would burst. “Did you?” Suddenly she bit him, not quite gently.

  “Ow! Yes!” Smarting, Tom almost pushed her away, but already she was soothing the hurt, laving it away with her tongue and he started to relax again as renewed pleasure swept away the pain. “I told her about Waterhouse being paid to wed her,” he gasped, shifting in his chair to aid Priscilla’s movements. “She was very distressed, though she hid it well.”

  “Good.” Priscilla rewarded him with the subtlest and sweetest of caresses. “She is an evil little witch and she deserves to suffer for what she did to me.”

  When Tom had first heard about the doctored lavender water he had been filled with admiration for Lizzie—and contempt for Priscilla in believing for a moment that Nat Waterhouse would have sent it. Now, though, as Priscilla urged him to the most exquisite climax, he was not inclined to do anything other than agree with whatever she said.

  “I think,” he panted, “she is suffering very much indeed.”

  “Good,” Priscilla said again and he heard the satisfaction in her voice and thought she was smiling as she teased him over the edge, and he came with a triumphant shout and the release rolled over him leaving him spent and almost—almost—regretful that he was to marry Mary rather than her cousin.

  NAT HAD BEEN DISAPPOINTED not to see Lizzie before he had come out. Mrs. Alibone had said that she had gone riding and Nat had been glad of it for he knew that riding was one of the things that made Lizzie very happy. He wanted her to be happy and manifestly she was not. He could not understand why things seemed so different from how they had been before he and Lizzie wed, but evidently they were and it was his task to discover why and to solve the problem. That was what he had been doing from the first: solving the problem of Celeste’s disgrace, solving the problem of Lizzie’s lost reputation, protecting his family, trying to make all well again because he cared deeply for them all and, devil take it, dealing with problems was what men did. It was the most damnable thing that everything seemed to be going to hell in a handbasket rather than sorting itself out. His father was dangerously ill, Tom Fortune was circling and threatening further blackmail, Lizzie was grief-stricken and seemed wilder by the day and under the circumstances the July meeting of the Oyster Club, a most exclusive gentlemen’s dining club with very restricted membership, excellent food and ample wine, was exactly what Nat needed to help him forget for a few short hours that the rest of his life was in chaos.

  He reached for his glass.
They served wine in half pint glasses at the Oyster Club and that always loosened men’s tongues. It was Nat’s task, along with Dexter and Miles, to listen for anything that might throw some light on the Fortune murder case for they were lamentably short of leads. No one appeared to have seen or heard anything on the night that Monty Fortune had died, other than a vague rumor of a masked woman seen flitting about the village. There had been the argument between Monty and someone else several nights before his death but again, no one had seen the other person or could identify them. They were making little progress, and yet in cases of this kind something usually gave in the end. It was a matter of patience and endurance, rather like his marriage.

  Further down the long table, Nat could see Dexter and Miles talking to various acquaintances. The Club was eclectic, membership comprising local businessmen, professional men and gentry. The food arrived, the famous oysters that gave the Club its name followed by a prime beefsteak. Nat started to relax and tried not to think about Lizzie, left at home. For some reason the image made him feel edgy. The last time he had left her alone in the evening she had gone out and almost gambled away the Scarlet Diamonds. The village was still talking about it. It was surely impossible that she could do anything else even remotely as outrageous but he was painfully aware that they had never really discussed the matter properly, had not really talked about anything of importance in the last few weeks because Lizzie seemed so locked in her grief that he could not reach her and he knew he had used his work as an excuse not to try as hard as he should…

  Some sort of disturbance was taking place at the other end of the room. Servants were seen scurrying in all directions, diving for cover. He heard masculine voices exclaim:

  “I say! Lady Godiva!”

  “What ho! What a filly!”

  Men were standing now, craning their necks to see, raising their glasses in a toast. The dazzling lights of the chandeliers shone in Nat’s eyes and he blinked, completely unable to believe what he was seeing.