He had thought his heart would break then. Lion Court ought to have been passed to Charles de Dagonet. George neither cared nor was competent to run the place, yet there was no one else left.
When he heard that Dagonet was returned from the Peninsula, he had almost hoped that the lad could somehow redeem himself, until he had learned about Miss Hunter, the story fully embellished by Charlotte’s vivid tongue. Something had snapped inside him. The world would be better off without such a renegade. The clever, fine daughter of the Reverend Hunter! Dagonet had seduced her. He couldn’t bear to have such a man associated any more with the family. In a moment of passion he had made the arrangement with the young viscount.
He set his stubby jaw. He would not rescind it.
Let Dagonet die on the dueling field or the gallows, and Miss Hunter would be free to make a good match.
He would see to it.
The pain shot up to his knee again and he roared aloud.
“May I fetch you anything, Grandfather?” Charlotte sat primly across the room. “You know, it was most unwise to have port after dinner. Mr. Clay was always most abstemious when it came to port. He believed it inflamed the blood.”
“Be damned to Mr. Clay, madam! I’ll drink what I like.”
“Don’t prose on so, Charlotte,” George said. “Can’t you let a fellow have what he wants, without prosing on?”
“You might be better had you not indulged so deep yourself, George. I never recall you so abusing the bottle as you have recently. Mr. Clay never drank to excess. He was moderate in all things.” She sniffed audibly.
“There is a lady below to see you, my lord.” It was the footman, in his powdered wig and livery.
“So late? The marquis is too ill to see anyone,” Charlotte announced.
“I’m not in my grave yet, madam. I still make the decisions in this house. Who is it, Larson?”
Larson bowed and presented a card on a silver tray.
Lord Somerdale picked it up and peered at it in the firelight. “Miss Hunter? Send her up!”
“There is a person with her, my lord.”
“I don’t care if the Archbishop of Canterbury is with her. Send her up!”
Within moments Catherine and Peter Higgins had entered the room.
Charlotte rose instantly to confront them. “Who is this person, ma’am?” she said, indicating the sailor. “Could he not wait in the kitchens? Mr. Clay always made sure that no one from the street ever entered our drawing room.”
“I believe Lord Somerdale would wish to hear what this man has to say, Mrs. Clay. By all means retire. I’m sure you would be more comfortable.”
“What’s this? What’s this?” The marquis waved Catherine over. “Glad to see your pretty face, my dear. Who is this fellow?”
The sailor bowed. “Peter Higgins, at your service, my lord. As was gardener’s boy at Lion Court seven years ago. I was there when poor Milly Trumble drowned. I saw it happen, my lord. The lady thought as how you might be of a mind to hear me out.”
“It concerns no one but you, Lord Somerdale,” Catherine added quietly. “I did not know that Sir George Montagu and Mrs. Clay were with you.”
Catherine sincerely hoped that George and Charlotte would leave the room, but they both insisted on staying. George had gone green around the gills, yet he sat as if planted in his chair. Mrs. Clay would not miss some new piece of gossip for the world. Lady Pander would be all ears to hear the latest about Devil Dagonet and his checkered past.
Charlotte settled herself firmly, spreading her skirts, and gave a self-satisfied smile.
“I trust that since we are en famille, nothing need be kept from any of us,” she announced. “Pray Mr. Higgins, let us hear the tale!”
With a bashful nod of the head, the sailor began to repeat the story he had earlier told Catherine. They heard him in a dead silence until, with an embarrassed look at George, Peter Higgins was forced to explain the role that George had played.
The marquis turned on his grandson. “What’s this, sir? Was it you seduced the girl? Be damned to you! Why did you not own up like a man? You let your cousin take the blame. Why did Dagonet not tell me at the time?”
George’s face was damp with sweat. “Because he swore an oath to me that he would not,” he mumbled. “We made a bargain. If he was fool enough to keep his side of it, even after he thought I’d broken mine, more loss to him.” Sudden red color flooded back into his cheeks and his voice rose to a bellow. “Why shouldn’t he have suffered? He always had everything. He could ride better, shoot better, fence better than anyone else. He never studied at his books when we were boys, yet he could do all the lessons and argue rings around me in class. Everything was his. Everything! All the girls were in love with him, even Milly! She came to my bed, but it was Dagonet she was in love with. And you always loved him more than me, Grandfather. Always! He was the apple of your eye. You never noticed anything I did. It was Dagonet with you, always Dagonet! You even gave him that stallion.”
“Because your father had provided you a stable full of hunters and Dagonet had no horse of his own, sir.”
“But the stallion was better than any of them.”
“And you could not have handled him. Your behavior is vile, sir. Vile! To have allowed your cousin to take the blame for your irresponsibility! To have stood aside and relied on the strength of his honor, at the sacrifice of your own! How could you have lived with yourself all these years?”
But George’s large body crumpled like the collapse of a hot-air balloon. Burying his face in his hands, he began, in great audible sobs, to weep.
The sound echoed into an appalled silence.
It was broken by Mrs. Clay.
“I fail to see that this changes anything.” She sniffed. “The girl was murdered. Dagonet was there and George was not. If George had fallen prey to her wiles in a moment of weakness, who can say that it was not Dagonet who corrupted her to start with? No one has ever laid the charge of the girl’s death at George’s door. He was in Fernbridge at the time with Mama. Dagonet was found drunk in the woods. He was at the scene.”
Charlotte turned to Peter Higgins, who stood awkwardly twisting his hat in his hands. “How do you explain that, my man?”
“There was another man, ma’am,” the sailor replied.
As George stopped his weeping and dried his eyes, the erstwhile gardener’s boy continued the tale. He was listened to in a hushed quiet.
Catherine could not take her eyes from the old marquis. His face was beginning to look different, as if years of pain were slowly peeling away. His beloved favorite grandson had never betrayed his word, had behaved with nothing but the highest honor, in the face of all their misplaced wrath and discord. How could he have ever believed otherwise?
“And this other gentleman?” the marquis asked at last in an unsteady voice. “The man who attacked Dagonet and left Millicent Trumble to drown. Did you recognize him?”
“Why, yes, indeed, my lord. I knew him well.”
“So who was the mystery stranger?” Charlotte queried impatiently. “Really, this is all too sordid. Let us have some plain speaking on this at last! Mr. Clay always recommended plain speaking.”
But the sailor would not meet her eye. He stood silent, eyes downcast.
“Well, sir?” the marquis demanded.
The sailor looked up at the old man, avoiding the eyes of everyone else in the room.
His voice when he spoke at last was perfectly steady and true. “It was Mr. Clay, my lord. I couldn’t have mistaken him. He had been there earlier that summer for two full months. Mr. Clay was your culprit.”
There was a piercing scream as Charlotte rose to her feet, then collapsed back onto her chair.
“This is calumny of the highest order,” she cried. “My dear late husband! How dare you mention his name in connection with this horrid tale?” She pointed wildly at Catherine. “She has paid this fellow to tell you all these lies, Grandfather. Nothing can be proved
. She tries to clear Dagonet by putting the blame on dear Mr. Clay, who is not here to defend himself. The man lies. All lies! No one can corroborate such an accusation.”
Catherine glanced down at her hands, clenched now in her lap. She had been amazed when Peter Higgins had told her that it was Charlotte’s late husband, Mr. Clay, who had attacked Milly at the lake and then knocked out Dagonet and poured liquor on him, so that he would be left to take the blame. Mr. Clay, who on that summer visit to Lion Court had seduced the maidservant from George with promises to set her up in a London establishment of her own. When the promises proved empty, and Millicent, desperate, must have threatened to expose him to his wife, Mr. Clay had come back secretly and silenced the girl forever. The same Mr. Clay who had eloped with Charlotte to start with, instead of honorably approaching her father.
It was only by Charlotte’s account that her husband was remembered as such a stickler for the proprieties. The evidence was that he had been anything but. Yet Charlotte was right about what really mattered: Why should the marquis believe Peter Higgins?
And that was when Catherine was to witness the most unexpected development of the evening as George stood up, his face grim.
“I can corroborate it, Grandfather. Millicent told me herself. She was with child by Mr. Clay. She wanted me to help her. Me! She had made me a damned cuckold, and she wanted me to help her. I told her to go hang! Your husband killed the girl all right, Charlotte. It wasn’t me and it wasn’t Dagonet. I have guessed it all along and I think father did, too.”
With a strangled sob, Charlotte fled the room.
Respectfully pulling his forelock, Peter Higgins allowed himself to be shown to the kitchen for a mug of ale.
“I suppose this means that Dagonet gets Lion Court, after all,” George continued dully. “He always wanted it. Mama won’t care. Now that she’s come to town, she says she won’t live there anymore. Damned old-fashioned place anyhow, stuck way out in the country! Rather live in town myself.” With a heavy sigh, he walked to the door. “Good night, Grandfather!”
The marquis ignored him and was pounding on the floor with his cane.
“Larson! Fetch my man of business! I want to change my will.”
“He may be abed, my lord,” the manservant replied gravely.
“Then have him roused from his slumbers, damn you! And I want a message sent round to my grandson, Charles de Dagonet. He’s to come here this instant.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Lord Somerdale turned to Catherine. “You care for him, don’t you? I can see it in your face every time his name is mentioned. Damn me if he isn’t going to stick by this marriage! I’ll see to it.”
“I pray you, my lord, please do not! There was nothing to our marriage but an attempt to save me and my family embarrassment.” Rapidly she outlined to the old man the events at the Rose and Crown, when Dagonet had saved Annie from the fever. “We have agreed to have it annulled.”
The marquis grinned, his round face beaming. “Then he’s a dashed fool, after all, if he does not fix his interest with you. If I were his age, I’d choose you for myself.”
They were interrupted by the arrival of a slightly disheveled solicitor, who had obeyed with dispatch the peremptory summons from his noble employer.
“I want Lion Court made over to Charles de Dagonet, with all the proceeds from the estates. Do it this instant! And then change my will. He is to inherit everything that’s not entailed.”
“My lord,” Catherine asked hesitantly. “Do you leave George nothing? He has been foolish and selfish, but not truly wicked, surely?”
Indeed, how could George have revealed what he knew without destroying his sister?
“He can marry Miss Ponsonby. She has enough to set them up in a respectable situation. He’ll get nothing from me, but I’ll not foul his marriage. There’s nothing in the story we’ve heard tonight that need leave this house. From what I hear, Dagonet has lived it down already. Lady Easthaven had the nerve to tackle me about him, and call me a fool. She’s right. I have been. I have been! We can let it be known that Dagonet’s innocent without involving George. Bah! The fellow leaves a sick taste in my mouth. Never could stand him, nor Charlotte!”
Suddenly the marquis threw back his head and began to laugh.
The man of business was shown to the study, where he could begin to draw up the necessary papers, and Catherine determined to leave. She could not have Dagonet discover her there when he came to make his peace with his grandfather.
She was arrested by the return of the footman.
“Mr. de Dagonet left Jermyn Street some time ago, my lord. He is not at his lodgings and not expected to return tonight. His manservant commented that he left alone on his gray Thoroughbred. He had his rapiers with him.”
At which pronouncement, the marquis turned as pale as his own whiskers.
“He’s gone to meet Viscount Hammond,” he said. “What have I done? What have I done?”
“My lord?” Catherine asked. “Whatever is it?”
“I demanded he release you, my dear.” The old man’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “So I arranged that he should be forced to fight a duel.”
“But surely he could never be bested in a duel with swords?”
“Unless he has determined to die! I thought you would be better off a widow, my dear, and told him so to his face. I thought his death would free us all. I determined that you should have wealth, position, respectability. Impossible if you were tied to a villainous libertine! I didn’t know. So I told him that, if he died, I would secure your future, and I fear Dagonet has enough honor to want that. A last gallant, unselfish gesture! He would do it, I know. Viscount Hammond will kill him.”
The marquis struggled to his feet, tears running down the wrinkled cheeks, only to be felled by the pain in his gouty foot.
“If he has left for a duel,” Catherine said, her heart racing, “it will not be fought until dawn. I shall find him in time, my lord. Lord Brooke will assist me. Never fear!”
Chapter 21
Catherine arrived back at Brooke House, only to find that Lord Brooke had also left, very late, with Lord Kendal. Amelia was woken from her sleep, but she had no idea where the men had gone. Catherine would not worry her sister, so she told her only that there was good news about Dagonet that she wanted to share with his best friend.
She left Amy to fall back asleep, while she paced the hallways. Half the night had already worn away. There were only a few hours left. Where were the gentlemen planning to meet? Somewhere outside London, no doubt, where the chance of discovery was less. They must now be at an inn somewhere, close to the chosen site.
Would Dagonet truly plan to die in order to release her? She couldn’t bear it. She must find him in time.
Flinging her cloak around her shoulders she set off for Jermyn Street. After a great deal of pounding at the entry, Dagonet’s manservant opened the door, his nightcap still on his head.
“I must know where Mr. de Dagonet has gone,” she demanded. “Did he say?”
“My employer does not confide in me, ma’am. If you would forgive me, it is very late.”
He tried to close the door, but Catherine pushed inside. “Did he drop no hint? Pray, sir, please wrack your brains!”
“I am sorry, ma’am.”
“I know where they went!”
Catherine whirled around. In a smart, almost clean, set of clothes, Archibald Piggot had appeared beside her.
The boy grinned. “Mr. de Dagonet took me on to be under-footman, ma’am. But I keeps my eyes and ears open, don’t I? Lord Kendal was here and I heard them talking about it. They’re going to meet Viscount Hammond at Highgate. It’ll be a right pretty mill, I’ll bet. I’d give my eyeteeth to see it.”
“Are there horses here?” At the boy’s nod, Catherine continued, “Saddle up two, Mr. Piggot! You will have your wish sooner than you planned. You and I are going to Highgate right now.”
They were an odd sight as
they clattered off through the silent streets, leaving the manservant gaping. Archibald’s eclectic education had not included much horsemanship, though he hung on gamely enough, and within half an hour was as balanced as a monkey on a branch.
Catherine, with her skirts spread around her, rode astride on a man’s saddle, since the contents of Dagonet’s stable did not extend to sidesaddles for ladies. She barely noticed the discomfort. An iron determination fought with the cold fear in her heart.
Under a dark, overcast sky the two horses cantered north until the city streets gave way to a winding country road flanked by vegetable fields and bare fruit trees. Mud splattered up from their hooves in a soaking spray that bespattered Catherine’s clothes and speckled Archibald’s round face like extra freckles.
There was no one else abroad.
* * * *
The village of Highgate was beginning to awaken to its morning routine as they arrived breathless and sore in the main street. With Archibald at her side, Catherine rode to each of the inns in turn, ignoring the curious looks of the stableboys and the few early travelers.
At last, one of the ostlers was able to tell her that a party of three gentlemen had just left in the direction of the woods.
“Gone to Bottom Acre, I shouldn’t wonder,” he said with a sly wink. “That’s where the gentlemen usually meet.”
“Please, sir,” Catherine said. “The directions?”
Archibald Piggot, with a flourish, handed the man a coin.
“For your trouble, my man!” he said grandly.
The ostler’s affronted pride at being so addressed by a ragamuffin was not enough to prevent him pocketing the silver as he pointed.
“Go down yonder about a mile and turn left after the first five-barred gate. Follow the track through Rookery Wood. You can’t miss it.”
Scandal's Reward Page 21
