Treacherous Temptations

by Victoria Vane

  “Then perhaps we might kill two birds with one stone?” Hadley suggested. “As an Italian national, you understand that I only wish to comprehend the public’s absurd fascination with this unusual English production. Perhaps just the first act and then we shall proceed to a proper Italian Opera.”

  Several hours later, after having wined and dined with his extravagant host, Hadley and Chavigny arrived at the standing-room-only theatre at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where they had to elbow through the mob to watch the first act of the Beggar’s Opera. The house was packed with Londoner’s of all rank and station who applauded with great enthusiasm the bawdy comic parody that dared place the spotlight on the overt government corruption. Hadley was surprised to remark a number of men he would have expected to be waiting attendance on the king. Of particular note, sitting in a private box on the stage itself, was the Duke of Bolton.

  “It is not his politics, but his prick that places him here this night,” the Frenchman winked.

  “What do you mean?” Hadley asked.

  “The lovely Lavinia Fenton has caught his eye.”

  “The actress who plays Polly Peachum?”

  “Oui, the same,” The ambassador sniffed. “The talk everywhere is that the noble duke is smitten and desires to take that common stage strumpet as his mistress. In France, one at least strives to keep the noble prick in the noble chatte.” He smirked with a one-shouldered shrug. “Chacun à son goût n gout. I fear I shall never comprehend the ways of the English.”

  …

  Arriving at the King’s Theatre between the second and third acts, Hadley was struck not only by the staid aristocratic audience and the sober tone but by the many vacant seats for this operatic tribute to the new king, compared to Lincoln’s Inn with its bawdy and raucous songs that packed the house. The two contrasting scenes confirmed the class disparity and growing popular discontent that Cornbury had described.

  Hadley parted from his companion shortly after entering the theater. Although he would have liked the opportunity for a Royal audience, presenting himself as Di Caserta in company with the French ambassador would not serve his interests. Thus, while Chavigny paid his respects to the King and Queen, Hadley sought out Mary and Lady Blanchard.

  Descending into the pit where he had an unobstructed view of all the boxes, he scanned the occupants of each three times, yet failed to locate them. Strange that. It was uncharacteristic for Sir Richard to forego any opportunity to toady to those in power. For the sake of appearances, Hadley stayed for one act, after which he made his excuses to Chavigny and departed for Blanchard House. It was well past midnight when Hadley arrived to a house still ablaze with light. Finding Sir Richard in a state near apoplexy only added to his immediate sentiment of unease.

  “But what more can you expect me to do?” he heard Barbara say to his nemesis. “I’ve already sent out every footman in my employ! It’s not my fault they returned empty handed.”

  “Send them again. Damn it!” Sir Richard shouted, shaking as if in the midst of a convulsive seizure. “And call for the watch! Leave no stone unturned!”

  “The watch?” Hadley’s brows shot up. “Have you been set upon by thieves?”

  Barbara replied, “No, Hadley, it’s—

  “—none of his concern,” Sir Richard silenced her with a dark look and then turned his wrath on Hadley. “You’ve no business here!” The baronet snatched up his hat and walking stick. “I go now to report this unhappy incident to the authorities. I expect you to notify me the very moment you have any word.”

  “What the devil has happened?” Hadley asked the moment Sir Richard departed. “Where is Mary?”

  Barbara threw her hands up in the air. “She’s run off! Our plump little pigeon’s flown her coop!”

  “How?” he demanded. “Why? What has transpired to make her do such an insane thing?”

  “The foolish chit overheard Sir Richard and I discussing her marriage and bolted out the door!”

  “And you both just stood there and watched?”

  “Of course not! I ordered the footmen after her straight away.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “About four hours ago.”

  “Four hours! The devil you say! The girl could be floating in the bloody Thames by now!” He spun toward the door with a growl.

  “Where are you going?” Barbara demanded.

  “To find her, of course!”

  The footmen had been little help, having lost her almost immediately in the London crush. The only clue they had provided him was her general westward direction, although that of course could have changed. Still, Hadley set out with an army of servants and linkboys to light their way, combing the streets and alleyways, while he prayed to a God he didn’t quite believe in, that she was safe.

  Two hours later, Hadley clawed a hand through his hair, cursing for the hundredth time. “Bloody, bloody hell! Where the devil could she have gone?”

  He couldn’t fathom what could have driven her alone and unprotected into this most dangerous of places. He wondered briefly if in desperation she might have tossed herself into the Thames, but then shook it off. Mary was far too sensible to do such a daft thing. No, akin to a vixen in the hunt, she would surely run to ground someplace she might feel safe. The thought struck him dead in his tracks. Where would country-bred Mary Edwardes most likely seek solace and safety?

  “The parks!” he cried. “Forget the streets and taverns. We must divide and search the green spaces. “You,” he ordered Barbara’s head footman, “take three men and go to St. James. Two more of you off to Green Park and the rest will search Hyde Park.”

  Hadley’s hunch led him to Kensington Gardens, with a linkboy to light his way. He dispensed several shillings to bribe the guard at the entrance, and not long thereafter, found her shivering in her sleep, curled upon a bench in the Queen’s Temple overlooking the Serpentine—the same place they had spent the afternoon together only days before.

  The lamplight struck her face. Painted with a thick mask of ceruse, she was ghastly pallid and barely recognizable. The rest of her exposed skin was powdered to a fashionably pale hue with the exception of her rouged cheeks and lips. Even her curly red hair appeared to have been straightened and powdered almost white. In the ivory gown, the sum effect was almost as if she had been transformed into a statue of marble. “Good God, Mary! What the devil did they do to you?”

  Startled awake, she bolted upright with a fearful cry. “I won’t go back to them!”

  Fearing she would dash off again, Hadley grasped her firmly by the shoulders. “What the devil did you think you were doing running off into the night? Do you have any idea what dangers lurk in London? I thought to find you dead…or worse.” He fought the urge to shake her until her teeth rattled. “What madness has driven you to flight?

  “Do you have to ask? Just look at me, Hadley!” Mary’s lips quivered. She wiped the back of her hand across her face, smearing the red across the white. “Madam and her accursed French maid cropped my hair. I am shorn like a sheep!” Mary clutched her wig with a sound of distress. “My poor hair!”

  “I see it, my pet.” He tossed the wig aside and ran gentle fingers over her face followed by feathery kisses that lightly brushed her jaw, her cheeks, and then her eyelids. He fingered the short curls that framed her face. “It will grow back.” The distress and abject misery in her eyes stirred him to add, “Do not believe you are any less without it, dear girl.”

  “Do you mean that?”

  “I do.” He dismissed the linkboy with another shilling and joined her on the bench. “It’s alright now, Mary. You are safe with me.” He doffed his frock coat and put it around her shoulders, regretting that he had foregone a cloak in his earlier haste. He then retrieved his handkerchief and gently wiped the cosmetic mask from her face.

  “Thank you, Hadley,” she sniffed. “But you can’t understand. It’s not just my hair. I w-won’t go b-back to them!”

  “I can only presu
me by your actions that Sir Richard has finally shown his true colors?”

  “Yes. I wouldn’t believe you, but y-you were r-right all along,” she said. “Sir Richard intends to auction me off like so much ch-chattel!”

  “Auction? Surely not!” Hadley scoffed. “I only spoke figuratively. Even Sir Richard cannot be that callous.”

  “But it’s true!” she cried. “He has a list of potential bidders!” She still shivered.

  He pulled her close, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders. “Please, my dear. I don’t patronize you, but you knew he brought you here to arrange your marriage, and the sad reality is that most are contracted in such a way. It almost always involves an exchange of favors, land, or money.”

  “I thought I would have some say regarding the man I would spend my life with, but it matters not what I desire, for Sir Richard is only bent on furthering his political career.”

  “What if you just refused? When would you come into your inheritance?”

  “Not until I turn thirty.”

  “Thirty?” he whistled through his teeth.

  “Yes. Papa wanted me settled in marriage but knew I was disinclined to wed. The terms of his will were meant to give me incentive to do so, but he never intended for me to have no choice at all in the matter. He never would have approved of this!”

  “How old are you now, Mary?” he asked. “When will you reach your twenty-first year?”

  “My twentieth birthday is in October.”

  “Then only fourteen months remain until you attain your majority, at which point your guardian will no longer have the legal right to dictate to whom you are wed. ‘Tis not an eternity.”

  “But there is no delaying this! Don’t you see?”

  “On the contrary, he cannot wed off a shadow.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That you only need to stay out of his reach until your majority.”

  “But how is that possible? I have no means of support. Sir Richard is in control of the estates and all monies. You see? I have no choice!”

  “But you do, my dear. You may simply choose to wed whom you will.”

  “But we only come full circle,” she sobbed. “For only he can grant consent.”

  “Not necessarily true, my dear,” Hadley stroked her back. “There are hundreds of marriages that take place every day in London without a license, banns, or parental blessing. Indeed, there are any number of places where a couple can be wed in such a manner. The prison districts abound with them. These marriages only require mutual consent and two witnesses.”

  Mary regarded him wide-eyed. “This practice is legal?”

  “Such marriages are considered irregular, but due to a loophole in the law, they are indeed upheld.” Lord Hadley continued, “Sir Richard would be quite impotent against a fait accompli. If you and I were to wed, I could protect you and keep you out of his reach.”

  “But you have already admitted that you only wished to wed me for my money, and without my guardian’s consent, there would be no money. He would only take issue with the marriage in the courts of law and tie up my inheritance.” She turned her back to him and buried her face in her hands.

  “That is true…but only for a short time,” he said after a moment of reflection. “Fourteen months to be precise. Upon your majority, you would only need to seek recognition of the union through the church, whereby there would be no longer any means of contesting it. Thus, you would come into your full inheritance.”

  Her gaze narrowed again. “You are seriously proposing that we marry?”

  “Yes, Mary. If you wish it.”

  She averted her gaze. “But I’ve already told you, I won’t have you.”

  “And I’m suggesting that you might reconsider your alternatives now that your eyes are open. You can see for yourself that Sir Richard never had your best interests at heart.”

  “And you do?” she gave a bitter laugh.

  “The difference is that I propose a mutually beneficial bargain.”

  “How can you call it a mutual bargain when you stand to gain far more than I? For once I am legally joined with you, I become little more than your possession.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “According to law that is true, but I promise to give you whatever freedom you desire Mary, to live where you will, and do as you please. I will not interfere.”

  “You propose independent lives?”

  He inclined his head. “It is not my preference…but if that is what you wish.”

  She was silent for a long moment. “Are you certain of all this?” she asked.

  “Yes, Mary. I am quite certain.”

  “How do you know of such things?”

  “I read civil law at Oxford,” he replied. “The knowledge I gained of jurisprudence has proven useful upon several occasions.” Except in the face of his father’s impeachment. He had been impotent against the host of hostile lawyers and government officials.

  “You studied the law?” she asked with surprise.

  “Why is that so difficult to believe?” he asked in mild affront. “Have I not the look of a scholar to you?”

  She frowned at him. “Honestly, no. I find it impossible to envisage you in the long white wigs and black robes.”

  He gave a wry smile. “It was never my intent to join the judiciary. I believed at the time that my studies would be advantageous in my future parliamentary career…but then certain events altered my circumstances.”

  “And forced you abroad?”

  “Yes,” he replied.

  “Tell me,” Mary said. “Please tell me what happened. You are asking me to trust you implicitly, to give you control of my life, but you still have given me no basis for that trust. I still know nothing about you…nothing substantial.”

  She had a point of course, but how much to tell her? How close to the appalling truth could he reveal before she would lose her faith in him altogether? “What do you wish to know?” he asked guardedly.

  “Why did you leave England?”

  “I had no choice,” he said.

  “What do you mean by that? You have been gone over seven years. Did you commit some crime?”

  He gave a snort of contempt. “I was not transported if that’s what you are thinking. In truth my exile was largely self-imposed.”

  “Lady Blanchard said you were ruined.”

  His gaze narrowed. “And did the Countess elaborate on the circumstances?”

  “Only that it was related to the South Sea Company. I was quite young but I still remember it.”

  “The Earl of Blanchard was a director of the company and one of the earliest and most enthusiastic investors, but like a compulsive gamester he hadn’t the will to leave the tables when he was ahead. He invested tens of thousands in a company whose merchant vessels promised the old Spanish dream of El Dorado, but it all came crashing down. The ships sunk, drowning all who hadn’t had the foresight to abandon ship before the storm…”

  “Many people suffered great losses. Was your father amongst them?”

  “One might say that. He took his own life after unsustainable losses.”

  Mary touched his hand. “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I,” Hadley replied dryly. “But if that wasn’t already bad enough, he was posthumously tried for Felo de se and sentenced to impeachment.”

  “I don’t understand what you are saying. The courts charged a dead man with a felony and took away his title?”

  “Self-murder is considered a criminal offense by both God and the Crown.”

  “But how could they do such a thing! Surely he was not in his right mind at the time.”

  No, he was surely not, given the full circumstance. Hadley’s chest constricted at the remembrance of it all, but he forced a breath into his lungs. “No, of that I am certain, but his death came at a very convenient moment, at a time when a diversion was needed and by consequence my entire birthright was forfeited to the crown.” There now. Very close to the truth. Tha
t wasn’t so bad.

  Mary looked aghast. “Are you saying that you were punished by the government and deprived of title and estates for the desperate act of a man in emotional distress?”

  “That sums it up quite well. ‘Tis a simple matter of the father’s sins being vested upon the son. Out of the ministry’s sheer benevolence,” his voice dripped with sarcasm, “I was allotted a paltry annuity by way of recompense. Enough to subsist on, but by no means at the standard I was accustomed to. So I went abroad.” Another partial truth. It seemed to be getting easier, and oddly, his chest felt lighter.

  “How unjust! ‘Tis no wonder you stayed abroad. But why would you choose to return now?”

  “It is as I said before. The novelty of travel long wore out and I desired to come home. With a new king on the throne I had the grandiose idea of petitioning him for my birthright, but I now know how foolish I was to entertain the possibility.”

  “Could Sir Richard speak on your behalf? I believe he is very influential with the First Lord of the Treasury.”

  “Indeed he is!” Hadley gave a bitter bark of laughter. “But who do you suppose orchestrated the confiscation of my patrimony in the first place?”

  She looked shocked. “Sir Richard was involved in that? How could he do such a thing? Why does he despise you so?”

  “Because I know he was one of the primary perpetrators of the greatest fraud in our time, a crime so great that it bankrupted thousands, and yet the wily snake managed to screen himself and the others who equally profited…by pinning the crimes on my father.”

  “But how can this be true?” she asked.

  “The South Sea Company was originally patented as a means of consolidating public debt, but several of the directors conceived of a scheme to profit by artificially inflating the value of the company stock. It was bribery and fraud on a truly magnificent scale. As the Company Cashier, Sir Richard distributed stock to the most influential directors without asking any payment at all until such a time as they sold it back to the company. In return for the stock, these powerful and influential individuals put about extravagant rumors concerning the riches to be gained in the company’s proposed trade with the Americas.”