by Jo Beverley
“You refer to Lady Maybury in particular?”
“The most playful of them all, sir. If she has paid you some attentions, even flirted a little…”
“Even kissed me in the gardens at Thretford House?”
Sellerby halted again, and his hand tensed on his gold-topped cane. Dracy planned the best reaction to a blow, keeping in mind that it could be a swordstick.
However, Sellerby relaxed into a smile. “Playfulness, sir, as I said. That gives even more point of my warning.”
“I might find such playfulness enchanting.”
“Quite so, but it would be an error to take it seriously.”
Enough was enough. This madman needed to be sunk before he distressed Georgia.
“Is the Earl of Hernescroft being playful when he discusses a union with me? Or the countess merely diverting herself by inviting me to lodge at Hernescroft House?”
Dracy could see Sellerby long to hurl an accusation of lying in his face.
Of course he didn’t. That might provoke a duel, and a man like Lord Sellerby would hide under a table at the hint of violence.
“My dear Dracy, I fear the whole family plays with you, though why, I cannot imagine. Have you done them harm? Ah, the horse race!” Sellerby chuckled. “Hernescroft was not best pleased by his defeat. My dear sir, only think. What possible connection can there be between you and Lady Maybury, especially after only two encounters? Whereas I have been her friend and often welcome companion for years. We share all interests and tastes.”
“It does seem unfair, doesn’t it?”
“Incredible, let us say. Am I in error in thinking you inherited a ruined estate and have no other means?”
“No, that’s about the sum of it.”
“Do you have any idea how much Georgia Maybury spends on a single gown?”
“As she has enough to last years, it won’t matter.”
“Won’t matter! By Olympus, she never wears a grand gown twice!”
Sellerby was hitting too close to the bone for comfort, but Dracy wouldn’t show it.
“I gather the gown she wore to her sister’s ball wasn’t new.”
“She has just emerged from mourning and will need time to design and commission new wonders.”
“She designs them herself? Then she’s much to be admired.”
Sellerby waved a dismissive hand. “For the most part it’s her maid’s work, and the maid’s sister, Mistress Gifford, but Lady Maybury has perfect taste.”
“I agree with you,” Dracy said, thinking of a kiss.
“She won’t marry you,” Sellerby stated impatiently. “I merely seek to spare you embarrassment.”
“So kind, sir. May I spare you in turn? Once free of scandal, I predict she’ll marry Beaufort.”
He expected that obvious truth to stagger Sellerby, but the man smiled slightly. “Will she ever be free of scandal, however? I would wash her clean in an instant if I could, Dracy, but some of the stain has gone too deep. Her true friends will stand by her, but I don’t count Beaufort among them.”
“Then there’ll be other suitors.”
“Willing to overlook all? No, no, she will, in due course, marry me.”
Such overweening confidence. But then Dracy saw something else.
A sneer?
No, a touch of amusement.
By all that was holy, could Sellerby have decided to set some stains deeply in order to remove the competition? By means of a letter, revealed at the Thretford ball? A wild idea, especially when Sellerby had worked hard to weaken the scandal by trying to sway the dowager Lady Maybury in Georgia’s favor.
“You give me food for thought, Sellerby; indeed you do. I thank you, but I must now be on my way.”
Sellerby bowed. “A delightful interlude, Dracy.”
Dracy bowed back. “Positively illuminating, Sellerby.”
He walked briskly away, not caring about direction, sifting through his thoughts.
Sellerby had stood as Georgia’s friend in the matter of the dowager, but that might have fixed the idea of an incriminating letter in his mind. If it had actually existed then, and Dracy wasn’t sure how, Sellerby might even have managed to steal it. Purely to protect Georgia, he was sure. However, when he saw Georgia beginning to triumph over scandal, and thus being courted by the likes of Beaufort, he’d had a weapon.
It was damned hard to believe. Sellerby, for all his foppishness, wanted to marry Georgia. He’d never want to fix the stains of scandal on his wife.
And yet, and yet…there had been something in his manner, and he was so damnably confident, despite Georgia’s attempts to warn him off.
Dracy realized something else. If his speculation was true, then Sellerby must have taken the letter to the ball in case of need. It would have been a cold-blooded, calculated plan. In that case, the man might try again, heaping scandal upon scandal until only he remained willing to marry her. It would be an insanely destructive course, but Dracy had known men driven beyond reason by passion for a woman.
If any of this was true, Sellerby didn’t truly love Georgia—he only burned to possess her. What was more, he didn’t know her. She’d beg for bread in the streets before marrying any man out of desperation. Dracy might not have spent a great deal of time with her, but he knew that.
He realized his footsteps were taking him back to Hernescroft House, where he could warn Georgia. She probably wasn’t there, however, and he shouldn’t distress her with such half-baked suspicions. He’d think on it. Even if Sellerby was so vile, he wouldn’t strike again yet.
The better way to serve her was to clear her name, and he revised his plan. He didn’t need coffeehouse gossip. He needed men who’d known Sir Charnley Vance and who might know where he was, or at least illuminate his character. That meant a haunt of sporting gentlemen. He turned his steps toward the White-Faced Nag tavern.
Chapter 19
He’d visited the Nag a number of times because it was popular with racing men and so he’d generally find an acquaintance. Today he spotted Lord Yately, a spare man in his thirties who owned a few thoroughbreds for amusement, and Sir George Mann, a swarthy Welshman of the same stamp. Sir Brock Billerton of the massive belly was interested only in the gambling aspect. He hailed Dracy warmly. He’d been one of the few to have bet on Cartagena, so he’d won a splendid amount and considered Dracy a friend.
Dracy called for ale and joined their table. He was introduced to two other men, one of whom had the brash honesty to ask the cause of his scars. Having explained and endured the usual praise of his bravery, he settled to mostly listening, curious as to whether any of these men had heard of the new scandal.
It wasn’t mentioned, nor was the supposed betrothal. No surprise there, for these men spun in a different orbit, and there were as many of those in London as there were planets and stars. The conversation was all about racing and horses, but then a newcomer brought Georgia’s name.
“Lady May’s back!” Jimmy Cricklade announced as he joined them. “Saw her alight from her chair not more than two hours since.”
“Tallyho!” hooted Mann, making Dracy clench his fist.
“You’d have no chance with her,” sneered Billerton “Likes a court beau the like of Sellerby.”
“Wonder if she’ll set up her court again,” a young man asked with an eager eye.
The man next to him shoved him. “What would you want with dallying in a lady’s boudoir telling her what pin to wear in her gown?”
Clearly the young man might want that sort of thing a great deal, but he had the sense to keep his mouth shut.
The men joked about Lady Maybury’s court, and Dracy decided to risk raising Vance’s name himself.
“Was Sir Charnley Vance part of her court?”
All the men laughed.
“Not one for boudoirs, Charnley Vance!” said Yately. “His fine ladies visited his lair, not he theirs.”
“Fine ladies?” Dracy asked, surprised. What little he’d been
able to learn about Vance didn’t fit that picture.
“Any number of ’em,” said Billerton. “For all their silks and airs, many a duchess—or a countess,” he said with a wink, “likes a low adventure. And I heard Vance was particularly well-endowed.”
“Gads yes,” said Mann. “Saw him take out the snake once and wave it. I suppose some women like a monster.”
He sneered and a murmur of disgust ran around the table, but Dracy knew that Vance’s action had been a boast that touched men where it mattered.
Hung like a horse and women chasing him because of it, even fine ladies.
Not Georgia, he was sure, but he now saw why the story had been so easily believed. If ladies of the beau monde were known to have adventured with Vance, why not the flighty Lady Maybury?
That made his task even harder.
“Remember another like that,” Yately said.
“Like what?” Billerton asked.
“Well hung. Friend of Vance’s, as it happens. Man called Curry.”
“Snakes of a feather hang together?” Cricklade said and laughed at his own joke. The rest only smiled at best. “Curry!” Cricklade said to recover. “Remember him. The Marquess of Rothgar did away with him in a duel, snake and all.”
There was a flurry about the duel, and indeed, Dracy thought, it must have been an event of note when a man of Rothgar’s status was engaged in a fatal meeting.
“I heard tell,” said Mann, in a portentous manner, and then waited for attention, “that Curry might have been put up to it.”
“Put up to it?” Yately asked.
“To kill the Dark Marquess. He has enemies enough.”
“Then they chose the wrong means,” Yately said. “Devil with a sword, Rothgar is. That Curry must have been a fool to attempt it.”
“Money,” Mann said. “That’d be it.”
Dracy decided he’d heard enough about the distinctly unpleasant carryings-on in the so-called beau monde and took his leave, little the wiser in any way that was useful.
There were hours to go before dinner and he needed to find out more about the letter. He was carrying it in his pocket to keep it safe, so he took it out to refresh his memory about the address. Major Jellicoe, Fellcott’s Coffeehouse. It was common enough for men to use such places to receive their correspondence, and Fellcott’s would not be out of his way.
He went there weighing the wisdom of it, for he didn’t want the letter to be real. However, as he’d said to Georgia, it was always better to know the truth.
He insisted on speaking to Fellcott himself, but neither the man nor his servants remembered a particular letter from six months ago, not even one from abroad.
“Major Jellicoe certainly used Fellcott’s for his correspondence, my lord,” the proprietor said, seeming eager to please.
“Do you remember the man?” Dracy asked.
“Oh, yes, sir. Remarkably well set with a booming voice. Generally well disposed, but not a man to cross, if you know what I mean.”
“I heard that he was involved in a fatal duel a while back.”
“That he was, sir, but only as a second. A nasty business. An earl dead, and Jellicoe’s principal fled for fear of the noose. Jellicoe himself stood in some danger as accessory, but the jury at the inquest decided the duel had been managed as it should be.”
“A sorry business, all the same,” Dracy said, feeling like slapping himself in the head. Inquest! There had to be a record of that somewhere. “I thank you for your help, sir.”
He left, feeling he might at last be on the trail of something solid. He had no idea where records of inquests were kept, so he returned to Hernescroft House to consult one of the earl’s people.
When the footman on duty in the hall offered him a letter, his heart somersaulted with hope that it was from Georgia. It wasn’t, but it was almost as welcome. Lady Hernescroft wrote that the family was to attend a musical evening at Lady Gannet’s, and he was invited to join them. Family must include Georgia, so he’d spend some time with her today.
He had a footman take him to Hernescroft’s Town secretary and asked Linley about reports of inquests.
“A particular inquest, my lord?” Linley asked.
Dracy had to admit it, though he’d probably seem idly curious. “The one into the death of the Earl of Maybury.”
“We have a copy, my lord. I will have it sent to your room.”
In minutes, Dracy had a bound, handwritten transcript of the inquest into the death of Richard, Earl of Maybury.
It began with the account of the duel itself, with depositions from those there. Lord Kellew had stood for Maybury, and Major Jellicoe for Vance. Sir Harry Shaldon had also been present, though it wasn’t clear if he was attached to either man or a bystander.
The three accounts were consistent. There’d been no pistols involved, so the two men had fought with swords from the first. It had been agreed from the start that the seconds would not fight.
The bout had lasted some five minutes with no blood drawn, and in his testimony, Lord Kellew had reported his hope that the matter would end with no harm done. However, Vance had delivered the fatal thrust.
Dracy read over Kellew’s exact words on that. “Vance thrust to the heart and then stepped back.”
Stepped back. Accidents happened in sword fights, and some were fatal, but in such a case, wouldn’t the culprit rush forward in remorse and attempt to help?
He read the other testimonies, but none mentioned that detail. The coroner, damn him, hadn’t pressed for more detail of Vance’s actions.
The next deposition was from the surgeon who’d pronounced Maybury dead of a sword thrust that had penetrated the heart. The coroner had then noted that Sir Charnley Vance was not present at the inquest and was reported to have left the country. If he were to return, he was obliged to present himself to give his account.
Then, right at the end, the coroner had asked the witnesses about Vance’s words and actions. All three men agreed that he’d been calm throughout, and that after killing Maybury, he had paused only briefly before turning to mount his horse and ride away.
On paper it sounded cold-blooded, but Dracy knew that shock could affect people in odd ways. He remembered one man whose closest friend was killed at his side. He’d carried on as normal for hours before completely breaking down.
Perhaps Vance had turned pale and no one had mentioned it. Perhaps his step back had been of horror at seeing what he’d done. Perhaps he’d ridden away and collapsed only when he thought himself safe from observation.
Dracy read the report through again, but the words offered nothing new.
The jury had confirmed the obvious—that the Earl of Maybury had died from a sword thrust to the heart, delivered, in the course of a duel, by Sir Charnley Vance, who had then fled the country. The coroner repeated his hope that Sir Charnley would return and give an account of himself, and that was that.
It was almost the dinner hour, so Dracy tidied himself and returned the document to the secretary.
“Was there any attempt to prosecute Vance?” he asked.
“No, my lord. The due processes of dueling appear to have been followed, and with Vance out of the country there would have been no purpose. If he ever returns, measures might be taken. But not by the family.”
No prosecution by the Perriam family because there must be no underlining of a connection between Vance and Georgia.
“I gather great efforts were made to locate Vance,” he said.
“Yes, my lord. Particularly by the Honorable Peregrine Perriam.”
The idle, Town-loving fop. Dracy had no opinion of any work he might have done.
He thanked Linley and went toward the front of the house, to the anteroom where the family and guests would gather before dinner. Georgia would soon be there, and the question rose again. Should he share his suspicion about Sellerby? She had long knowledge of the earl and could better judge the probability, but it went against the grain to accuse
someone of such behavior without proof.
When he entered the room, she was already there, and his heart betrayed him with a thump.
She was talking to an elderly gentleman while her parents conversed with Lord Bathhurst and George Grenville. This was a political gathering, then, but perhaps also a way of presenting Georgia to a few people.
He studied her but saw no distress. When she noticed him she smiled, so he joined her to be introduced to Sir George Forster-Howe, a neighbor from Worcestershire and member of the Commons for a riding there.
