The Devious Duchess

by Joan Smith

  “We think Anna Wilkey was his helper,” Belami replied, and watched closely for Straus’s opinion as he placed considerable faith in the man’s expertise.

  They discussed again those items already thrashed out before meeting up with Straus. “You could be right,” Straus decided after some frowning and heavy thinking. “And if you are, the girl’s in some trouble, nessie pa? Ryder knows something’s afoot. He’s a cloth-head if he don’t after that tale of smashed decanters and bottles found under beds. Is it possible at all that Miss Wilkey did it all by herself? She might have harbored a grudge against the old gaffer?”

  “We feel she was Sir Nevil’s tool, no more,” Belami answered for his group. “All his erratic behavior points to his involvement.”

  “In that case, I’ll nick back up the road and keep an eye on the gel. See if I can squeeze any information out of her."

  “Do it subtly, Mr. Straus,” Belami advised. “We don’t want to set her off on any foolish course. Or do we?” he asked. “I should think her first move would be to get in touch with Sir Nevil. It might be interesting . . ."

  “Aye, exactly what I thought myself. And since she don’t know how to write, she’d have to go to him in person.”

  “She doesn’t write?” Belami asked.

  “Truth to tell, even Mrs. Haskell can’t spell worth a tinker’s curse,” Straus said. “Lamentable ignorance on every side. Anna Wilkey can write her name, and she knows some numbers, but that’s the extent of her schooling. I looked into it since you thought it was important. You, ah, didn’t think to do that?” he asked Belami. There was a mischievous light in his eyes.

  “I knew I’d learn something from working with you,” Belami told him.

  This sent a wide smile cracking across Straus’s face. “I’ve had a few more years at it than yourself, milord,” he admitted graciously.

  Deirdre had been uneasy without quite knowing why, and at this moment she realized what was bothering her. “We can’t see either the Grange or Fernvale from here. Anna and Nevil might be meeting each other now if they use the meadow. And Anna would certainly take that route.”

  “She’s right, by Jove. While we pat each other’s back, the young lady is tending to our business. Why don’t I go to the Grange and you continue on to Fernvale?” Straus suggested. “In that way we’ve got both ends covered, as you might say."

  “Where they’ll meet is in the middle—of the meadow, I mean,” Pronto said.

  The carriage parted to continue along their agreed paths. Already night was falling, in the short days of winter. A garish, red-streaked sunset glowed against the sullen gray of the sky. It was quiet within the carriage as each occupant mulled over his and her own thoughts.

  As they turned up the road to Fernvale, Deirdre said, “It could have been suicide as Auntie mentioned once.”

  “Could have been Adelaide. Don’t care what you say," Pronto insisted.

  “We must be patient just a little longer,” Belami said. “The party wasn’t a complete failure. At least it’s stirred up the hornet’s nest. And if Nevil feels we’re off on the wrong track, it might give him enough confidence to act a little indiscreetly.”

  Sir Nevil was behaving with perfect discretion when they reached Fernvale. He sat in the saloon with the duchess, having a cup of tea and discussing with her various means of screwing down Adelaide’s asking price for the Grange.

  “If she means to sell it furnished, I might go as high as six thousand,” the duchess said. “She doesn’t realize the value of some of the silver and paintings.”

  “She means to have a dealer in and evaluate all those things,” Nevil said. “There’s no grass growing under Miss Pankhurst’s feet.” There was none under Sir Nevil’s either. He knew what appellation would please her grace.

  “Told you she was the slyest woman in the parish,” Pronto said to Belami. Fortunately, Sir Nevil didn’t realize the significance of this speech.

  "I’ll take a nip over to the Grange this evening and have a word with Miss Pankhurst, if you like,” Sir Nevil offered. “I’ll try my hand at getting her to lower her price. I plan to be off to London right after the inquest in the morning, so I shan’t be late tonight. I’ll give you my report before you retire. I’ll just run upstairs now and begin my packing.”

  “An excellent idea!” the duchess said.

  Sir Nevil went upstairs, and the duchess turned a stern eye on Belami. “You owe that gentleman an apology, Lord Belami, though I’m not suggesting you make one. No reason he need ever know the sort of allegations you’ve been making behind his back. I knew perfectly well that Nevil had nothing to do with it. It was suicide. A pity. I would have told Straus so, but then Dudley would have to be interred at the north end of the cemetery with murderers and robbers. I hope the good Lord can find it in his heart to forgive Dudley. I shall console myself with the thought that he had become deranged, living all alone as he did for so long.”

  Deirdre looked hopefully at Dick to see if he was at all inclined to agree with this reasoning. “I hope you’re right," he said. But when he soon mentioned that he and Pronto would be getting back to town, Deirdre knew he was preparing to follow Nevil and began scheming to go with him or to follow him.

  They stayed till Nevil had left for the visit to Adelaide. He had decided to walk across the meadow, as it was a clear night. Belami went through with the farce of having his carriage called, but Deirdre knew Réal would be driving an empty vehicle.

  “You look dead tired, Auntie,” she said, hoping to get her aunt off to bed so that she might fly to the meadow and see the action.

  “Tired? Nonsense, I haven’t felt so stout in months. I shan’t go upstairs till Sir Nevil returns. I believe I shall go to the library and root out the papers on the Grange. I recall there was some dispute about the boundary twenty years ago when Dudley bought the place. You might just drop the hint to Belami that the Grange would be an unexceptionable wedding present, Deirdre. There is nothing like real estate, when all’s said and done. That managing Pankhurst woman will be claiming half our meadow if I don’t have the plans to prove her a liar and a thief.” On this amiable speech she hauled herself out of her chair and hobbled to the library.

  Deirdre didn’t waste a second. She darted to the hallway, grabbed her pelisse, and flew out of the front door. Outside, darkness had descended. It was cold and frightening and black. She could hardly see anything till her eyes adjusted to the shadows. High above, the pale, white moon drifted across a cloud-strewn sky. Ancient oaks and towering, ragged pines groaned as the north wind soughed through them. Sir Nevil and Belami and Pronto had a few minutes head start on her, so she clutched her pelisse closely around her against the wind and ran toward the meadow.

  Here the trees were few and far between. The men should have been easy to spot, but in the dim moonlight she saw no sign of human life. She advanced slowly, cautiously, looking to right and left. Some yards ahead, a spindly cedar assumed the general outline of a man, but she knew every tree and bush in the meadow and knew her imagination was playing tricks on her. She continued toward the tree, running now, and stopped to gulp fresh air into her lungs. Her deep breaths blended with the night sounds of wind in the trees, the rustle of disturbed branches as some sleepy bird rearranged its feathers. When she had caught her breath, she stepped out from the tree to scan the meadow once again.

  She didn’t hear the silent footstep behind her, had no idea she wasn’t alone till a heavy hand fell on her wrist. A strangled gasp caught in her throat, and her heart felt as though it were crushed in an iron fist. “Nay, lass, don’t take a fright. It’s only me,” Mr. Straus said softly.

  “Oh, Mr. Straus! What are you doing here? You frightened me half to death!”

  “When Anna slipped out the back door, I came licking after her and lost her in the meadow. Is Ryder at home?”

  “No, he left a few minutes ago. Belami and Pronto went after him. Didn’t you see them?”

  “Not a sight or
shadow of any of them.”

  “They were supposed to be going to the Grange across this meadow. You must have missed them, it’s so dark.”

  “Hardly so dark as all that. I spotted you in a twinkling. They can’t have come this way.”

  “But they did! Unless Nevil was lying . . ." She stopped to think a moment. “If Nevil didn’t come this way, then I suppose they would have followed him whichever way he went.”

  “And Anna out loose in the night!” he said, worried. “I made sure she was going to Fernvale to meet with Ryder. You’ve not seen her?”

  “No.”

  “I followed her halfway through the meadow, then lost her, but kept on coming. She wasn’t more than a dozen paces ahead of me. She must be lurking about your place, hoping for a word with Ryder.”

  “Where would she lurk?” Deirdre asked. “She wouldn’t go into the kitchen. Mrs. Bates is always there. The groom sleeps in the stable.”

  “Where else might they seek shelter and privacy? The granary? It’s separate from the stable. There’d be no one there this time of night,” Straus suggested. “If she met up with Ryder just as he came out . . ."

  “It’s possible,” Deirdre agreed.

  “We’ll give it a try.”

  Together they hastened back across the meadow, veering toward the big barn that stood like a square mountain against the sky. But when they reached it, the door was bolted on the outside by means of a beam that slid into two wooden brackets mounted on either side of the door.

  They exchanged a frustrated glance. Straus looked all around. The house was twenty yards away. Deirdre shook her head. "I can’t believe he’d take her there,” she said before Straus suggested it.

  “Think, lass,” he urged. “He’s got her somewhere.”

  A shiver of fear rippled down her spine at his manner of phrasing the situation. Deirdre had never cared for Anna Wilkey or seen her as a victim, but a vivid picture of her— such a small, pale, hopelessly ignorant girl, and Nevil a large, ruthless man—flashed into her head. Nevil had betrayed her, offered her some spurious affection, to bend her to his will. And what would he do now? Surely not kill her! Not another murder!

  “The conservatory!” she exclaimed. “We haven’t used it for years. The glass windows are half broken, but perhaps . . ."

  “Which way?”

  “The far side of the house. You can’t see it from the road.”

  “Aye, it’d be behind that large stand of fir trees then. Come along, lass, and, mind you, tread light.”

  As he spoke, he hastened forward, and Deirdre went after him. The conservatory windows were heavily coated with dust and grime, but their surface picked up the moonbeams and reflected them dimly, creating an illusion of a ghost palace. Within, the skeletons of withered fruit trees, lemon and orange, stood like dead sentinels. The sere remains of pineapple plants formed spiky fans along the outer wall.

  Straus stopped several yards in front of the conservatory and put his hand to his lips. Then he pointed to the door that hung ajar a few inches and looked all around. He and Deirdre noticed the two hunching figures at the left side of the building at the same time. Belami and Pronto. Dick looked up and spotted them. A movement of his hand bade them to leave, but they both ignored this and only detoured slightly, to approach the conservatory by a less direct route.

  When Belami saw their plan, he went to meet them, a little removed from the conservatory. “They’re in there,” he said. “Ryder’s trying to cozzen her into returning to the Grange.”

  “Have you got anything usable against him yet?” Straus asked.

  “The word ‘murder’ hasn’t been used—yet. I don’t want to miss it when it is. I’m going back.”

  “We’ll join you,” Straus said in a tone that brooked no denial.

  Soon four pairs of ears were listening at the broken window, and four pairs of eyes were straining to get a glimpse of what was going on. Between the rows of trees, Deirdre could see that Nevil had an arm around Anna’s thin shoulders, trying his hand at a little lovemaking, but his rigid stance made it perfectly obvious that he found the ordeal distasteful.

  “Everything’s going to be fine, my love,” he said. The words were spoken softly, but in the night air they traveled well enough to be just audible.

  “That’s what you said before, and things ain’t fine, Nevil. You’re going to go off and leave me. I know you are. What’s to become of me?” Anna asked.

  “I’ll come back for you, my love. Don’t you trust me?”

  “You said it was only a sleeping powder. That’s what you said.” She turned in his arms and gazed up at him.

  “It was a sleeping powder, Anna. What I gave you was a sleeping powder. If you were foolish enough to get it mixed up with something else and give him the wrong dose . . ."

  Anna began crying, and her words were hard to hear. “I gave him what you told me to! I put it in the glass of brandy I poured for him, and I took away the glass after he fell asleep and put another one on the floor, just like you said, so Lord Dudley couldn’t prove you put him to sleep. You were supposed to come back. We’d put the old gentleman to sleep and get rid of Mrs. Haskell, and you’d come back. We’d spend the night together, you said. Why didn’t you come? The constable says it was arsenic. You killed him, Nevil.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffed.

  “You did, and that Lord Belami and Straus know it. They told Polly they’d help her if she confessed, and they’ll help me, too. You’re not going to get my neck stretched!” she said boldly, sniffling away her tears.

  “If you’d done exactly as I told you, Anna, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Why did you have to go babbling to Polly that Mrs. Haskell was gone to visit her aunt?”

  “I never told Miss Gower! I told her I didn’t know where she was gone. It just slipped out to Polly. That’s all. Anybody can make one little mistake. I could’ve talked Polly out of thinking I ever said it. It was you scaring her that made her run off like she did. Saying the law’d get after her for not being there to look after Lord Dudley. Neglecting her duty and letting him die. She’s so scared there’s no telling what she’ll do. I wish she’d stayed away."

  “No use crying over spilt milk,” Nevil said. His voice was becoming impatient. “Exactly what did Straus say to you, Anna? What makes you think they suspect you?”

  “Us, you mean,” she informed him. “He asked me all kinds of questions till I hardly knew what I was saying. He asked me if you was my beau and if you gave me any medicine to give Dudley that night. I tell you, Nevil, he knows everything.”

  “You didn’t tell him? You didn’t admit it?” Nevil demanded sharply.

  “No! But if he keeps at me with them sharp questions he’ll make me slip up. I know he will, Nevil. You’ve got to take me away with you—now, tonight.”

  There was no immediate reply to this plea, but through the branches Deirdre saw that Nevil was pacifying Anna by patting her shoulder and smiling. Some unreasonable, emotional part of her wanted Nevil to run away to safety with Anna, but she knew he’d never do it. He’d never marry a penniless servant girl, and even if he did, to save his neck, the girl would have a hideous life.

  In pantomime, they all watched as Nevil led Anna to a carved-iron loveseat in the conservatory and sat down with her, talking softly in a way that soothed her. Nevil was speaking, but in the low accents of lovemaking so that his words couldn’t be distinguished. He seemed to be giving Anna something, some little box. She opened it and took out a small, dark object. She offered the box to Nevil, and he, too, took up one of the little items. It must be bonbons, Deirdre thought. Almost simultaneously it occurred to her what they might contain.

  She thought Anna was struck by the same thought, as she sat waiting for Nevil to eat his first. He popped his into his mouth, and Anna raised her fingers to do likewise. Suddenly Belami and Straus were galvanized into action. Straus let out an unholy bellow. “Stop, in the name of the law!” he hollered through t
he broken window. Belami had fled around to the open door, and in an instant Deirdre saw him grab the bonbon from Anna’s fingers. Nevil shot up from the bench and made a lunge toward the rear of the conservatory. His disappearance was followed almost instantly by the shattering of broken glass as he plunged through the window.

  “Go after him, Pronto!” Deirdre shouted, and Pronto slunk away through the night with surprising speed. When she looked back to the scene inside, Belami and Straus were also gone. Deirdre went in to comfort Anna or to stop her if she seemed bent on escape.

  Anna had gone beyond such crafty thinking. She sat slumped on the bench, crying into her raised hands. Deirdre took the poor, thin form into her arms. “It’s all right, Anna,” she said, stroking the girl’s back. “You’re safe now."

  “Oh, miss, they’ll kill me for sure. I’m an accessory. I gave your uncle the poison. He told me it was just a sleeping powder.”

  “We heard it all, Anna. Don’t be afraid. It’s going to be all right.”

  “It was wicked of me. I know it was. He never even said he’d marry me, but he said I was beautiful. Nobody ever thought I was beautiful before. He said he’d loved me forever, ever since he saw me at the Grange. He was going to hire me rooms in London. He said he thought I was prettier than Polly.”

  Deirdre knew she couldn’t leave Anna alone, but her mind was darting off on the chase. She thought it would only be a matter of minutes, but for a long time she waited with Anna, till the cold finally made her realize this was a poor spot to wait.

  “I want to go home,” Anna sobbed.

  Home seemed preferable to Fernvale, where the duchess would have a great deal to say to Anna Wilkey, none of which the poor girl was in any state to endure. Deirdre walked across the meadow with her and took her into the kitchen. In the lamplight, Anna’s face was seen to be ashen and stained with tears, her sunken eyes red from crying.

  “Where’s Mrs. Haskell?” Deirdre asked Polly, who was working at the sink.

  “She’s with Lady Dudley, miss,” Polly answered, but her eyes were trained on Anna. Soon she ran to her sister servant and put her arms around her.