A Scandalous Countess: A Novel of the Malloren World

by Jo Beverley

  He followed her back to the house, seeking some way to overcome this new barrier, but also urgent to send a new message to Perriam. Perriam wouldn’t be caught in such a foolish trap, but he needed to be constantly on guard.

  At least Georgia would be on guard against poison. He hadn’t mentioned abduction, however, which might be Sellerby’s next move.

  He halted and then walked around to the stables, where the Perriam men were housed, and spoke to them.

  “You’re to take turns in patrolling around the house and keep an eye open for any strangers, day and night.”

  The men masked any surprise. “Very well, sir.”

  Dracy wished he could bring in an army to encircle the house, but he was being extreme. Sellerby was in London and now knew he was suspected of the forgery. He wouldn’t act hastily, for he was a cold sort of madman, full of cunning.

  In time, Dracy was going to have to talk to Georgia again, to discuss many aspects of this and try to bring her to reason, but for now, he’d leave her be.

  He wrote the letter to Perriam and sent it off with a groom, then faced the day. He couldn’t bear to stay under the same roof as Georgia, knowing her to be in such pain. He might as well take up Torrismonde’s offer to tour the estate and learn more about land management. With or without Georgia, he’d soon have to return to Dracy and do his duty by the place.

  Georgia huddled in the coverlet on the bed, wanting only to be alone, but Lizzie found her there and insisted on being told all.

  “Upsetting,” she agreed, “but only more proof of Sellerby’s vileness. Once he’s dealt with, all will be well.”

  “But Dracy could have died!”

  “Yet is alive and well. He must have come close to death many times and avoided it, so perhaps he’s particularly fortunate.”

  “Not to have met me.”

  Lizzie gave her a look, and Georgia sighed.

  “Oh, very well. I couldn’t bear that, but it seems I can’t fly in alt forever.”

  “Thus, you might as well enjoy this lovely day. Come with me to visit the children, and then I’ll drag you around my daily tasks. There’s nothing like work to settle us.”

  She wouldn’t be refused, and by dinnertime Georgia accepted that she was feeling more herself, entirely because of her surroundings.

  She’d visited Brookhaven only once before, at Christmas, with Dickon. It had been delightful, but the house had been full of family and friends and awhirl with entertainments. The gardens and the estate had been mostly gray, without even snow to enchant them.

  This visit was different. Outside, everything was deliciously fresh and alive, and inside the house was tranquil. Harmony breathed from the mellow wood and worn furnishings, and from the gentle blend of fresh air and indoor herbs.

  In her own homes Georgia had delighted in the new and elegant, and Herne had been done over in that Italian style thirty years ago. Brookhaven had simply been cared for over the generations and had developed a patina of comfort.

  A new pattern for country life took shape for her, a pattern that might even be possible at a place like Dracy Manor. Could she be content with it, however, year in, year out? Her misadventures in the fashionable world had left a sour taste. She’d miss a great deal about it, but she might welcome something close to Lizzie’s life.

  As they strolled down from the nurseries toward the dining room, Lizzie asked, “Better now?”

  “Better, but guilty about that. I felt so vile and knew I deserved to. I’m not sure I should allow ease.”

  “And who is served by your misery?”

  “I’m sure there’s some biblical requirement for sinners to suffer.”

  “You’ve committed no sin.”

  “I’m sure I have, but I don’t seem to be able to suffer as I should. I fear I’m a shallow creature.”

  “Simply practical. Despite Lady May, you are a very practical person. It’s why we’re friends.”

  “And I give thanks for it.” Georgia paused on the landing. “Lizzie, I must tell you something, even if I disgust you.”

  “You never could.”

  “I’m not so sure. I want Sellerby dead. I truly do. No Christian forgiveness or turning the other cheek. I want to dance on his grave.”

  Lizzie did look shocked but said, “If he’d arranged for Henry to be killed, I think I might feel the same.”

  Georgia hugged her. “Thank you! For understanding. I forbade Perry from calling him out, but now I dither even about that. Dracy suggested that he might kill himself.”

  “That would be a very good thing.”

  “Lizzie, I’m shocked!”

  “I’m a little shocked myself, but I’ve never encountered such evil. He needs to be stopped, and why should his blood be on anyone else’s hands? What’s more, he’d be buried in an unhallowed grave and burn in hell.” She nodded. “We’ll pray for that.”

  Georgia gasped, but it became a giggle. “Oh, Lizzie, thank heaven for you.”

  The men hadn’t come home, so they dined in Lizzie’s boudoir.

  “They’ll be eating at a farmhouse somewhere and enjoying it mightily.”

  Georgia told Lizzie about the pie house, and somehow she spent the whole dinner relating the various adventures she’d enjoyed with Dracy.

  But not all of them. She couldn’t share the nighttime ones.

  Perhaps one.

  She recounted Dracy coming home drunk and wounded, making light of the wounds, for in truth there’d been nothing to them. She confessed to returning to his bedchamber and finding him in his nightshirt.

  “Really, Georgia, that wasn’t good of you,” Lizzie said, but she was amused. In fact, she was smiling at the evidence of Georgia’s feelings for Dracy, and Georgia couldn’t fight it at the moment.

  “He has very fine feet,” Georgia said and, to her amazement, blushed.

  “Perhaps you should write a poem to them,” Lizzie said, lips twitching.

  “His name is Humphrey. Don’t use it, though.”

  “I’m sure it was a very noble name in the middle ages.”

  Georgia almost spilled his amorous career, but thank goodness she didn’t, for he came in with Torrismonde, both looking hearty from fresh air and simple food.

  “I returned to find a letter arrived from your brother.” He made sure the door was shut and said, “He had little trouble in finding someone who remembered a corpse that was probably Vance.”

  “Dracy! I didn’t tell Lizzie about that.”

  “Then my apologies, Lady Torrismonde.”

  “No, no,” Lizzie said, bemused. “Sir Charnley Vance is dead?”

  Torrismonde said, “I think I should explain this new matter to you, my love.”

  “Indeed,” said Dracy and tilted his head, sending Georgia the clear message that she should leave with him.

  “What?” she asked quietly when they were in the corridor. “Why is it a secret?”

  He grinned. “There’s a detail. Back to the breakfast room, I suppose.”

  “Oh, don’t be foolish. This is my room. Come on.” She led the way into the room and then shut the door when he was in. “Now, tell me, and don’t frown at me. I trust you not to leap on me.”

  “I was worried about my virtue, as it happens,” he said, but with a twinkle in his eye. “Very well, the delicate matter is how Perry could find out about an unidentified corpse a year old. Charnley Vance was rather monstrous in his manhood.”

  She frowned. “Rather…Oh, you mean his enormous cock! Dickon told me about that, and there were some cartoons. In one it was a flagpole.”

  He leaned back against the door, shaking his head. “You’re the most well-informed innocent in the world.”

  “I’m not an innocent.”

  He smiled. “You’re not as innocent as you were. No.” He pushed straight. “None of that. From what your brother says, the corpse was fished out of the river four days after the duel, dressed in shirt and breeches. A bag of stones had been tied around
the waist, but the corpse had eventually been stranded by a low tide. It was assumed to be a suicide. People do that sometimes. Add weights so they will drown quickly.”

  “How horrible to be so despairing.”

  “Of course no one looked for murder, and I doubt there would be any sign of poison after that time. In view of the suicide, he was buried in an unmarked spot in unhallowed ground.”

  “So we have our proof,” Georgia said, “but not enough for a murder trial.”

  “No. It would be easy for a lawyer to argue that Vance was so overcome by having killed your husband that he took his own life. It gives us greater certainty, however.”

  “What happens now?”

  “Given the lack of hard evidence, your brother proposes another forgery. Another letter written by Vance, but this time entrusted to someone before the duel. If anything were to happen to him, it was to be delivered to the Chief Justice, and of course it contains a description of the plot.”

  Georgia was staring at him. “That’s…that’s…wicked. But wonderful. Hoist with his own petard! If word spreads that Vance is dead…Wait, wait! The letter isn’t real.”

  “It is now. Vance gives someone—let’s call him Hermes—the letter. Vance disappears after the duel, but Hermes assumes he’s fled abroad. Today, with all the world gossiping about the possibility that Vance died, Hermes decides he must act on the letter. He—in this case your brother—sends the letter anonymously to Lord Mansfield, the Chief Justice.”

  Georgia stared at him, slightly breathless. “Oh, the justice of it when Sellerby used forgery as a weapon. What will happen?”

  “Such an accusation against an earl is a weighty matter. Most likely Mansfield will summon Sellerby to privately answer the questions raised.”

  “He’ll deny the whole thing, and that will be that.” But then Georgia inhaled. “If he were warned, however…”

  “Being devious must run in the Perriam blood. Sellerby will be warned somehow, with an added detail about the place of Vance’s murder. Your brother hasn’t found it yet, but he agrees it must exist, so Sellerby will hear that a witness can place him at the spot with Vance on the day of the duel.”

  “I wish I could see his face.”

  “As do I. But the end will satisfy, assuming he either flees the country or puts an end to his miserable existence. If he flees, remember your brother expects to truly find the place and witnesses, so he can be hauled back to face justice.”

  She sat down, shivering slightly. “It suddenly seems real. More real. More horrible. He planned it. He planned Dickon’s death, and planned Vance’s murder. He poisoned Vance, watched him die, then threw him in the river like rubbish. Then he waited patiently, so patiently, to claim the prize—me. So cold, so cold. I could imagine that his blood runs icy rather than hot.”

  He came to take her hands, to hold them between his big, warm ones. “He is vile, and you are his victim as much as your husband was.” He drew her up, saying, “I’m breaking my word,” and wrapped her in his arms.

  She shivered there for a moment, but then his warmth comforted her and she snuggled close, suddenly sure. “Home,” she said.

  He stroked her back. “You want to go home? Where is that?”

  She looked up. “You. You are home.”

  He lowered his head and kissed her, softly, warmly. She played her lips against his, drawing in some essence that she needed, that fed her and made her whole.

  She drew back. “I’m breaking my word too, and being selfish as well, but I want you forever. I need you by my side, as my husband and my dearest friend. Please.”

  She saw the joy in his eyes, a promise, a blessing. “It’s I who should beg, but I need to tell you something first.”

  “Tell me something? I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “It’s a confession of sorts, yes.” He led her to the small settee, so small they had to sit closely side by side. “You’ve probably wondered why your mother constructed the false betrothal.”

  She shrugged. “Still playing Father’s game to keep Fancy Free.”

  “True, but not the game you thought. Your father’s plan to keep his horse is based on an exchange, but the exchange has always been you.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “At Herne, after the race, he offered me you as wife, along with your large dowry, in exchange for Fancy Free.”

  “I can’t believe that.”

  “Would I lie? He ordered you down to dinner so I could see the goods.”

  She gaped at him, but then anger raised her from her seat. “He had no right to do that. I’m free to marry whom I choose!”

  “He seemed to think he could command you to it.”

  “He was wrong,” she said. In fact, she almost growled it. “How could he?”

  “Don’t be too angry, Georgia. I think he was a very worried man. You didn’t realize the full extent of the scandal, but your parents did, and I think they were concerned about your treatment by the beau monde. They were probably also concerned about your future behavior, for your father mentioned my well-honed ability to impose discipline.”

  “Discipline!”

  “I know, I know. I was hard-pressed not to discipline him by a fist to his fat nose.…”

  Georgia covered a giggle at that image.

  Dracy smiled. “He was led astray, of course, by my face. It makes me seem much more ferocious than I am.”

  She had been furious, but humor had broken it, and she shook her head. “I can imagine it all. Father believes he’s God as far as the family is concerned, no matter our age or legal status. So I was to be saved from shame by being shackled to a tyrant who’d bury me in the wilds of Devon and beat me if I misbehaved.”

  “And who was poor enough to be tempted by such a bitter prize.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “You were tempted, weren’t you? And willing to do everything in your power to grab the prize!”

  “Don’t start along that path. I was tempted by you—I admit it. By your beauty, yes, but almost as instantly by your kindness. You looked me in the face from the first.”

  “I’d take shame not to.”

  “I know, but most would not. I came to Herne, I saw you, and I was conquered, but I never expected to win such a prize, and I would never have taken you against your will, even if your father found a way to force you. That was true then, and it’s true now.” He drew her into his arms. “But I’ll willingly marry you, my love—once you’ve seen Dracy Manor.”

  “What? Why?”

  “It’s not Brookhaven, Georgia. It’s a ramshackle mess. I need you to know what you take when you take me.”

  It did daunt her—she couldn’t deny it—but she said, “Then I’ll travel there with you, as soon as possible. And if there’s work to be done, we’ll decide how to do it.”

  He rested his head on hers. “I hope you feel the same way when you actually get there.” He stepped back so that they only held hands, then slowly slipped free even of that. “I hope for calmer days too, and the end of this madness, so you can choose without fear or anguish.”

  “You’re being noble,” she complained. “It won’t matter. The simple fact is I can’t live without you, you dratted man, so even if it’s life in a pigsty, so be it!”

  He laughed and swept her up to whirl her around—but her foot caught a vase and sent it flying to smash into a pane of the window.

  He put her down, and they stared at each other, aghast but laughing. He quickly flung open the door as a serving maid and the Torrismondes came running.

  “My deepest apologies,” Dracy managed, but sent her a wild appeal for help.

  “He annoyed me,” Georgia said, “so I threw a vase at him. And missed. I’m so sorry, Lizzie. I’ll pay for the damage.”

  “Of course not. It doesn’t matter, but…” Lizzie’s lips were twitching, and probably some of the joy still danced in the room. “Come away and let Betsy clean up the bits from the floor. I’m
not sure what can be done about the window.”

  “It’s a summer evening,” Georgia said. “The breeze will be welcome.”

  The breeze was indeed welcome that night, Georgia thought as she sat by the window, too full of thoughts and dreams to sleep. She suspected that Dracy was awake too, but she wouldn’t go to him. This was a quieter time, a thoughtful time. But even though she tried to think practical thoughts about country living and expenditures, the truth kept dancing through. The truth she’d spoken. She couldn’t live without him.