The Daring Debutantes Bundle

by M C Beaton

  After tea she kept the girls amused with endless games of spillikins until it was time for dinner and then, after dinner, ordered them to bed.

  But Penelope could not sleep. The snow changed to stabbing arrows of ice which rattled ferociously against the leaded windows. The old inn creaked and struggled in the grasp of the storm and the bed candle’s flame wavered and danced in a multitude of scurrying drafts. The images of the Earl and Augusta and Charles danced in the black corners of the room.

  She thought for the hundredth time of the bitter complexities of the human character where a seemingly fastidious and honorable man such as the Earl, who had held her so passionately in his arms and promised her the world and all, should underneath be a weak and vicious philanderer.

  She could not help wondering if he ever thought of her at all, and groaned as she thought that at that very moment some other naïve debutante might be trembling in his arms and listening to all those speeches of love which she had trustingly believed had been for her alone.

  But there was no female present to console the unhappy and dispirited Earl who had returned from a fruitless visit to Bath. He had eased his feelings by giving the Misses Fry a piece of his mind, but now he did not know what to do.

  He was roused from his depression by his butler, Rourke, who entered the room and stood before him, looking shaken and nervous and not at all like his usual calm and urbane self.

  “What is it, Rourke?” asked the Earl testily.

  “I have betrayed you!” cried Rourke. “Oh, my lord, forgive me. It was the Fatal Tendency.”

  “What are you talking about, man?”

  “I gave you my solemn promise not to reveal the particulars of Lord Charles’s death,”said Rourke in a shaky voice, “but I failed you. A certain young footman called Snyle knew of my weakness for drink and filled me full of ale, plying me with questions the while. I had no recollection of telling him anything.

  “But Miss Harvey’s house is in an uproar. She has gone off to Dover to take a ship for France. She told the servants she was taking a short holiday, but it appears she has sold the house and left them without their wages. When I was talking to them, I learned that Snyle had been in her employ and had mysteriously disappeared on the day after I had been drinking with him. Well, Snyle had let several hints drop in the servants’ hall that he intended to make his fortune by finding out information about Lord Charles’s death. I cannot remember but I feel I must have let something fall when I was in my cups. Oh, my lord. I feel you can never forgive me!”

  “Dover,” said the Earl, his face white and set. “I tell you, Rourke, you shall easily repair any damage you have done by serving me in this way. You shall accompany me to Dover and aid me in hunting down Augusta Harvey. Our name is worth nothing should this traitor go free … for I feel sure Augusta is a traitor.

  “The roads will be bad, so we will need to ride. Have four of our best mounts saddled up and we shall take with us two of the burliest footmen. Now, bustle about man! We are no longer interested in the damage that has been done but how we can best mend matters. Mayhap Augusta knows the direction of her niece and I shall choke that information out of her—before I kill her!”

  Penelope gave up trying to sleep. Her thoughts were too anguished and the noise of the storm too loud. She decided to go along the corridor and make sure that the girls were safely tucked up.

  She put on her wrap and picked up her bed candle and quietly opened the door. The narrow corridor was very dim, lit only by the light of a small oil lamp hanging from a bracket on the wall halfway along. Then she heard the sound of another door being opened and drew back into the doorway of her own bedroom, not wanting to run into another guest while she was in her night attire. She cautiously peered round the doorjamb and then stood rigid, the candlestick tilting dangerously in her trembling hand. Augusta Harvey came quietly out of a room, went a little way down the corridor, and vanished into a room at the end.

  “I’m going mad!” thought Penelope wildly. “My nightmares are coming true!”

  But an innate common sense told her terrified brain that what she had seen was a real-live person. Like a sleepwalker, Penelope moved along the corridor until she reached the door through which Augusta Harvey had just disappeared.

  “Well, what news?” came the unmistakable harsh voice of Augusta.

  To Penelope’s surprise another voice she recognised answered her aunt.

  “We shall not be sailing tonight, Miss Harvey. The storm is too fierce and Captain Jessey says it may be a few days before we have a fair wind for France.”

  It was the Comte!

  Penelope stayed rooted to the spot, almost leaning against the door, although the voices carried easily above the roar of the storm.

  “Gad’s ‘oonds!” said Augusta furiously. “I feel like a trapped rat! What if Hestleton should have changed his mind and come looking for me!”

  “Hestleton is too proud,” replied the Comte in his familiar sibilant tones. “He will do all in his power not to besmirch his family escutcheon. He would not have it known that his young brother blew his brains out because he was a Bonapartiste spy. Which reminds me, you played your cards wrong over that little affair.”

  “How so?” snarled Augusta.

  “Well, when you had found out from the late and unlamented Snyle that Lord Charles had left a letter explaining that you had been blackmailing him so that he would introduce Penelope to his brother in the hope that the Earl would marry her, the Earl naturally thought Penelope was part of the blackmailing scheme.

  “Now, had you convinced him she was not, I feel sure he would still have married her because, if ever I saw a man head over heels in love, that was the Earl.”

  “Oh, I knew that,” said Augusta impatiently.

  “Then why …?”

  “Because,” said Augusta patiently while Penelope’s poor heart and mind seemed to be doing somersaults, “he would have married her, but I would have never been allowed to set foot in any of his households and the only reason I wanted that little baggage to marry him was to afford me a social entrée. Why should I spend money on her and not benefit myself, heh!”

  Penelope leaned forward and pressed her ear against the door. She must write to the Earl, she must tell him all she could find out.

  The Comte’s voice came again, sounding faintly amused. “Dear Miss Harvey, you are always describing the horrors of hellfire so accurately. Do you never fear them yourself? After all, you are a murderess, a poisoner, in fact— hélas, poor Snyle, I knew him well—a traitor, and, who knows, perhaps a double murderess if the luckless Penelope should starve.”

  “I do what is right,” came Augusta’s sulky voice, while Penelope’s brain reeled under the onslaught of this most recent information. “I wreak vengeance in His name. Yea, verily, I come with a sword …”

  “It was rat poison in poor Snyle’s case,” said the Comte, sounding much amused. “Dear Miss Harvey, you are an original. And while we’re on the subject of originals, may I have my snuffbox back? The one you have just slipped into your reticule? Ah, I thank you. Now, let us have some wine and relax. Nothing can be achieved by worrying …”

  Penelope crept off down the corridor and into the safety of her room. Her heart felt as if it were about to burst through her throat.

  She sad down shakily on the edge of her bed, her thoughts as wild as the storm outside. Even the Comte, whom she had believed to be a kindly man, had turned out to be Augusta’s accomplice.

  She was very shocked and very afraid, but somewhere in all the confusion was a small kernel of comfort. She knew now why the Earl had behaved so.

  After sleepless hours of thought she made up her mind. She would send an express to the Earl, telling him about Augusta. He would somehow know what to do. She would send the girls back home in the morning and somehow manage to stay at the inn without Augusta seeing her. If Augusta was about to set sail and the Earl had not arrived, then she, Penelope, would have to stop h
er somehow.

  * * *

  In the morning the sky was still steel gray, but the snow which had changed to rain during the night had ceased to fall.

  Penelope told the puzzled Jennings girls that she had to remain in Dover on urgent business and scurried back to the safety of her room as soon as the Jenningses’ cumbersome carriage had rolled out of sight.

  Now all she had to do was wait …

  Chapter Twelve

  Two days later, Penelope was still fretting in her room. The wind had died down and the sky was clear but the sea was still stormy with tall white-capped waves churning across its surface.

  It was late afternoon and the light was already fading and Penelope had resigned herself to another long night’s vigil, when she heard the sound of voices in the corridor. The Comte and Augusta!

  She pressed her ear against the panel of the door and listened. “Then it appears we may sail tonight?” Augusta was saying.

  “We may have to pay the good Captain more,” the Comte replied. “I fear that …” But whatever the Comte feared was lost to Penelope’s listening ears as he turned a bend in the corridor.

  Penelope hurriedly donned her cloak, grateful for its concealing hood which she drew about her face. She crept to the top of the stairs and listened. The Comte and Augusta were standing at the entrance to the inn. “I have had our trunks corded and put aboard,” the Comte was saying. “So it is only a matter of getting Captain Jessey to take us on board as well.”

  They moved off and Penelope followed behind, keeping at a safe distance as they went down the windy hill to the quay.

  The ships were still bobbing wildly at anchor. Penelope hid behind a bale of goods on the quay and peered cautiously round in time to see the Comte and Augusta boarding a schooner called the Mary Jane.

  She waited for what seemed like a very long time, trembling with cold and excitement, and wondering what to do should the couple not return to dry land.

  At last they appeared on the gangplank, looking very pleased with themselves. Behind them stood the squat figure of the Captain.

  “I thank you, Captain,” the Comte was saying, his voice carrying on the slight breeze. “We shall return in less than an hour with our personal belongings.”

  Penelope suddenly could not bear it any longer. She threw back her hood and ran forward, crying wildly, “Oh, stop them! Stop them! Traitors! Bonapartistes!”

  Augusta stood stock-still, clutching the rope rail of the gangplank. The Captain stood with his mouth open.

  Several fishermen stopped working on their nets and came to stand and stare.

  The Comte was the first to recover. “She’s quite mad,” he said loudly and clearly. He took Augusta’s fat arm’in a strong grip. “Come, my dear, and pay no attention to the town idiot.”

  “That man’s a Frenchie,” said one of the fishermen, a great burly fellow. “I vote we take them to the roundhouse and let them all tell their story there.”

  This was accepted as the judgment of Solomon by the ever-increasing crowd who advanced threateningly towards the ship.

  Captain Jessey rapped out some sharp orders and his crew began to make the ship ready to set sail. The Comte nipped quickly back on board. Augusta threw one terrified look at the crowd and made to follow the Comte as the mainsail of the Mary Jane flapped and cracked as it slowly moved up the mast.

  “No! You shan’t escape!” cried Penelope, running forward and seizing hold of Augusta. Augusta struggled and punched like a fury while Penelope held on. The tone of the crowd had changed. It was only two women fighting after all, and a rare sight that was. They hung back and cheered Penelope on with all the enthusiasm of an audience at a prize fight.

  Penelope’s desperate cries for help were lost in the appreciative roars of the crowd.

  “Either come or stay,” shouted Captain Jessey to Augusta. “We’re setting sail.”

  Suddenly a shot whistled through the shrouds of the ship and everyone froze.

  “Hold hard!” called a stern voice from the hill and the watchers swung round. Penelope and Augusta released each other and stared in the direction of the voice.

  The Earl of Hestleton, with Rourke and two footmen at his heels, came bounding down towards the quay. The Earl was hatless and his auburn hair gleamed like fire in the setting sun. His clothes were travel-stained and muddy, but he was an imposing figure for all that.

  “Stop that woman!” he called. “She’s a traitor!”

  “Spies is it!” cried the Captain in alarm. He had been prepared to take Penelope’s accusations as a joke, but the sight of the formidable Earl suddenly seemed to make the charges all too true.

  “I’m having none o’ this,” said the Captain. He gave Augusta a shove which sent her tumbling down the gangplank onto the quay. A few sharp commands and his sailors hauled the gangplank on board.

  Augusta stumbled to her feet and backed towards the edge of the quay before the cold anger in the Earl’s face. Penelope, who had retreated to the quay at the first sight of the Earl, stood behind the reassuring bulk of Rourke.

  “You are making a mistake,” babbled Augusta wildly. “It’s not me. It’s the Comte de Chemier you want.”

  The Earl looked at her with disgust and loathing. Then he lowered his pistol. “Come, Miss Harvey,” he said.

  Augusta twisted her head. Behind her the Mary Jane was already some yards from the quay.

  With a hoarse cry she suddenly twisted round and jumped into the water.

  Everyone rushed to the edge. Augusta was bobbing on the choppy water. She had lost her turban and wig and her thin, sparse hair floated around her fat shoulders like seaweed.

  “Help! For the love of God—help!” she cried to the ship in a thin, weak voice, and then her head sank under the surface.

  After a few breathless seconds it appeared again. The Earl slowly raised his pistol and levelled it at Augusta’s head.

  “Go on, fat ‘un, swim for it!” cheered the crowd, beginning to enjoy the drama immensely. Augusta saw the sun glinting on the barrel of the Earl’s pistol and saw his finger tightening on the trigger. “Penelope,” she wailed.

  The Mary Jane was still close to the quay, her sails hanging idly and her sailors crowding along the rail.

  Penelope stared at the Earl in horror. He could not mean to shoot Augusta in cold blood.

  She darted forward and knocked his pistol in the air, jerking the Earl’s finger in the trigger. The pistol went off but the ball went sailing harmlessly over Augusta’s head.

  The Earl turned and glared down at Penelope. “You little … accomplice !” he hissed.

  “I—I’m not !” cried Penelope. “Did you not receive my letter?”

  But the Earl, who had left London long before Penelope’s letter was even due to arrive, was too angry to listen.

  A roar from the crowd made him turn around.

  A squally wind had suddenly filled the sails of the Mary Jane and swung her round while the sailors were gazing openmouthed at Augusta struggling in the water. The great schooner bore down on her and the bow hit her full in the back of the neck before she went under. The sailors leaped to the ropes, and the Mary Jane narrowly missed colliding with the quay. When she moved off again, there was no sign of Augusta.

  “Get a move on, man,” said the Comte to Captain Jessey, “or I’ll tell the world about your smuggling activities.”

  “Smuggling is one thing. Spying’s another. Can you swim?” asked the Captain mildly, rubbing the stubble on his chin.

  “No, I can’t,” said the Comte testily. “What’s that …”

  He got no further.

  With one massive blow Captain Jessey sent him sailing over the side.

  The Comte struggled and choked and flailed his arms. Suddenly, like some great monster of the deep, the dead body of Augusta surfaced in front of him, her sightless gooseberry eyes staring straight at him and her mouth stretched in an awful smile.

  The Comte raised his arms in panic
and sank like a stone.

  Mr. and Mrs. Jennings, hurrying down to the quay, stared in amazement at the scene in front of them. A crowd was slowly moving away like a theater audience leaving when the show is over, gossiping and exclaiming and heading for the nearest alehouses to discuss the drama further.

  Penelope, her long blond hair blowing in the wind and her cloak billowing out around her slim body, was staring up into the face of a tall man with copper-colored hair.

  Mrs. Jennings came bustling forward. “What’s all this, Miss Vesey?” she demanded. “We was that worried about you, but we couldn’t get into Dover sooner because of the state of the roads.”

  Penelope remained silent, staring up at the Earl with a pleading look on her face.

  “Go, Miss Vesey,” he said in a quiet voice. “Think yourself lucky I do not put a bullet through that beautiful head of yours.”

  Penelope opened her mouth and then closed it again. What was the use? He was determined not to believe her. And he was little better than a murderer himself. He had been going to shoot Augusta as he would have shot a mad dog.

  “Thank you for coming to collect me, Mrs. Jennings,” said Penelope in a low voice. “Please take me home.”

  “That I will,” said Mrs. Jennings in a motherly voice but with a hard look at the Earl. “Mr. Jennings, do you but stay here and find out what has been happening. I will take Miss Vesey to the Green Man for some refreshment.”

  Without another look at the Earl, Penelope allowed herself to be led away.

  “Now, sir,” began Mr. Jennings.

  “But the Earl replied before he could go on, “I have no intention of giving you any explanation, sir, whoever you are. Miss Vesey may tell you what she pleases. And, now, if you will excuse me, I will go in search of the local magistrate. It is as well I go in search of him, before he comes in search of me. Good day to you!”

  An hour later the Jenningses were sitting in the inn parlor and listening openmouthed to Penelope’s tale of blackmail and murder and treason.