She slept again and, when she finally awoke fully, the sunlight was streaming into her chamber and Arabella was at her side, anxiously patting her hand. ‘Dearest Minette, wake up, love. Indeed, I would let you sleep on, but Mr Pillson is here and must talk with you.’
Minette put a hand to her head. ‘Mr Pillson?’
‘The local magistrate,’ Arabella explained. ‘You met him last night at the ball. He has to investigate Frank—Frank’s—death, you see, and he has been waiting to talk to you. Philip would not let you be disturbed before. But it is noon, and we cannot keep the poor gentleman waiting any longer.’
‘No, no, of course not; I will get up. Send Becky to me, would you, my love?’
She entered the morning room to find Rochford with Mr Pillson, a portly gentleman with a complexion that resembled the colour of his favourite claret and a bulbous nose. He bowed politely, but the look he shot her was one of deep suspicion. Rochford was frowning and, although he led her courteously to a chair and saw her comfortably seated, his hand was cold when it touched hers and his nostrils quivered slightly as though detecting a noxious odour.
She had allowed Becky to dress her as she wished, and the abigail, with a sense of the occasion, had arrayed her young mistress in a gown of soft, grey merino and draped a black lace shawl around her. Her hair was simply dressed in a chignon, her ringlets tamed so that just a few errant wisps escaped to shadow her smooth forehead. She looked quite different from the triumphant, vital creature in crimson who, last night, had been the radiant centre of admiration and interest. But if Rochford was sensible of the contrast, he made no sign.
‘My dear,’ he began and she shivered at the ice in his voice. ‘My dear, Mr Pillson has a few questions to ask you regarding the events of last night. I beg you not to distress yourself. I have already told him all that is needful; he merely wishes to assure himself you have nothing to add.’
She brought a handkerchief to her white lips and tried to smile. ‘I do not think I shall be of much assistance to you, Sir. I can recollect very little.’
‘Yes, yes, that is the shock, no doubt.’ He cleared his throat and cast a look under his brows at Rochford. ‘The thing I find difficult to understand is why you and the Duke should have been spending the night at this cottage in the first instance.’
‘It is hardly your affair it I seek privacy with my own wife.’ Rochford seemed to be holding his temper on a tight rein.
‘No offence, your Grace, but I should have thought privacy was obtainable without leaving this house. It is large enough, after all.’
‘There is every offence, but if you insist on delving into our affairs, I may point out that this house is full to overflowing with servants by day and night, and it is almost impossible to achieve any privacy. It is for this reason I furnished the cottage to which we were able to escape and enjoy our seclusion.’
Mr Pillson went doggedly on despite the Duke’s hauteur and Minette’s evident distress: ‘I will not say I do not believe you, your Grace, but I have to take into account some circumstances that are not fully explained by your statement.’
‘For instance?’
‘For instance, the fact that Clareville had been badly beaten about the face before he died; the fact that it is rumoured all over the village that you and the Duchess have not been living as man and wife; the fact that Clareville had a bad reputation with women; and the fact that I am informed by Dr Eastwood that your lady wife’s injury is more consistent with a bullet than with a burn.’
Rochford crossed to Minette’s side and took her hand in his. ‘You may disregard the gossip. We are very happily living as man and wife, I assure you.’ He bent and kissed her lips. ‘Is that not so, my love?’
She lifted her hand to caress his cheek, swallowed a sob and said in a sweet, hesitating voice, ‘It is true, Mr Pillson. I am such a shy, ridiculous, little creature that I cannot bear to have the servants knowing—perhaps overhearing—I begged my husband to find a place where we could be quite alone and where I could be—unconstrained—by their presence.’
Mr Pillson bowed solemnly. ‘I see.’ He turned back to Rochford. ‘And how do you explain the marks on Clareville’s face, your Grace?’
‘No doubt his horse’s hooves caught him. The animal plunged wildly, terrified by the conflagration.’
‘No doubt.’ Pillson pursed his lips and was silent for a moment. ‘Why was Clareville at the cottage at that hour of the night? A coincidence, you would say?’
‘Why not? You yourself said he had a bad reputation with women. No doubt he had been down to the village to tryst with some accommodating female and saw the flames while making his way back through the woods.’
‘And lastly, your wife’s injury.’
‘The injury has been dressed, and I would prefer not to disturb the doctor’s handiwork. However, you may see for yourself how my wife’s arm is scorched around the bandage.’
Mr Pillson gravely studied Minette’s arm reddened by powder burns from Clareville’s pistol discharged at close range. Then he took off his spectacles, wiped them with his handkerchief, and placed them in his pocket.
‘You have an explanation for everything, my lord Duke. I have no desire to make unwarranted trouble for you or your family; but within these four walls, I take leave to tell you that I do not believe a word of it. However, the truth died with Clareville, and he is no loss to the County. I shall make my report to the Crowner, and you may settle the rest with your conscience.’
‘My conscience will not trouble me, I assure you.’
Mr Pillson glanced at Rochford’s scarred cheek, and an acid little smile appeared on his thin mouth. ‘No, I do not suppose that it will.’
Rochford rang the bell, and presently Sturridge appeared to usher the magistrate from the room. Minette, left alone with the Duke, stole a look at his forbidding countenance and turned quickly away. Never, even at their first meeting, had he looked so cold, so distant from her.
‘I suppose we must discuss what is to be done.’ Rochford had turned away and was staring into the fire as she had first seen him, with his handsome profile presented to her.
‘I suppose so.’
‘I have not yet consulted an attorney, but I assume there must be some formalities to be gone through to annul a bigamous marriage.’
‘Yes, I expect so.’
‘You will return to Sussex with your grandmother at once. I shall put it about that events have left the old lady distraught and she insists on returning to her home. Naturally, you will accompany her.’
‘You cannot wait to be rid of me, can you?’
‘Do you blame me?’
She shook her head. ‘No, I do not blame you for anything. You have been most shamefully used and have acted honourably in all ways.’
His lips tightened. ‘I do not want your approbation, I thank you, Ma’am.’
She winced, hurt beyond measure by the snub and the icy tone in which it was uttered, but managed to say calmly, ‘And after you are free? What will you tell the world?’
‘I have not yet considered.’
‘No?’
‘I wish to God I had never met either of you,’ he burst out with unaccustomed violence. ‘Cheats, liars, wantons, the pair of you!’ He strode around the room as though his anger could not be contained. ‘Eugénie was bad enough, but at least she never pretended to offer love. I knew when I married her that it was my title and fortune she wanted. But you—you were not content with that. You had to worm your way into my heart, make me believe—while all the time you and that old witch were making a game of me and laughing, I do not doubt, over your easy conquest.’
‘No, oh no, my dear love!’ She hardly heeded his insults in her need to assuage his pain. ‘It was never a game with me. I have never laughed at you. I love you.’
He stopped abruptly, staring down into her upturned face. He gripped her arms and, for one moment, she thought he would kiss her. But, instead, he spoke words that burned into
her consciousness. ‘You blaspheme when you talk of love. It only makes me despise you the more. I do not wish to behave any more ungentlemanly than I have already, so I must beg you to leave me on the instant. I swear, I cannot be answerable for your safety if you do not.’
There was something dark in his face that she had never seen there before. Frightened, she rose from her seat, darted past his looming presence, and fled.
Twenty-Six
It was hardly to be expected that Madame de Montauban would take kindly to the frustration of her schemes or that she would refrain from pouring her vitriol upon her granddaughter’s innocent head. The journey into Sussex was accomplished to an unceasing litany of complaint and censure, which Minette had not the spirit to counter. She let her grandmother talk, too sunk in wretchedness to care for the injustice.
‘I say nothing of your willful disobedience,’ the Marquise was saying, inaccurately. ‘To have left all Eugénie’s jewels and clothes behind when I had expressly told you to pack them was an act of madness. Who can say if Rochford will return them to her?’
‘Why should he? He thought he had bought them for his wife. She was never his wife.’
‘And neither are you! Oh, I have no patience with either of you. How is she to live, the wife of a mere sea captain? My granddaughter!’
‘Charles is not a mere sea captain. He is the junior partner in an extremely successful shipping company. Eugenie will have a very good house in Marseille and probably in Paris, too, in a few years.’
‘Bah! When she could have been a Duchess!’
Minette turned her face to the window and closed her eyes. Her head ached almost as much as her heart, and she felt slightly sick with the motion of the carriage. It occurred to her that she had not eaten since her dinner party the previous night. No wonder she felt light-headed.
But, although a bowl of soup and some bread upon their arrival settled the sickness, nothing availed to assuage her heartache over the next few days. She donned her old, plain gowns and slipped back into her accustomed role as her grandmother’s nurse, servant, and general factotum. Pale and wraithlike, she drifted around the little house, her mind so obviously elsewhere that even her grandmother ceased to berate her and, instead, besought her to enliven herself a little.
One afternoon, about ten days after their departure from Camer Castle, Madame de Montauban called Minette into her private sitting room. ‘I have received word from Eugénie,’ she told her with a little moue of distaste. ‘She and Charles are together in Marseilles.’
Minette laughed. ‘So this is what all your plots have come to. Your most beloved granddaughter is Madame Charles D'Evremont, and I am nothing more than Rochford's discarded mistress.’
The Marquise glared at her granddaughter over the top of her lorgnette. ‘You may be more than that yet. You may be the mother of his bastard.’
‘Do you think I would be base enough to hold him on such a chain as that?’
‘I thought you loved him so desperately you would be glad to hold him on any chain.’ Madame’s voice was derisive.
Minette smiled waveringly. ‘I do love him most dearly. I could never care for another man, and so I have no doubt I shall be alone for the rest of my life. But, do you know Grandmère, I do not regret one moment of my time with him. It was—magical.’
‘Oh, spare me your raptures. All I know is that you must have played your cards very badly to allow him to escape your toils so that he will not now even keep you as his mistress.’
Minette stared at her grandmother. 'Played my cards? Is it beyond you to imagine that I gave myself to him to make him happy and not as part of your schemes? Can you not conceive of disinterested devotion?’
The Marquise snorted. ‘Disinterested devotion? Fiddlesticks! You would tell me you fell in love with that hideous face?’
A singularly beautiful smile curved Minette's soft mouth. 'What are his scars to a woman who has lain in the heaven of his arms? Less than nothing! I loved him almost as soon as we met.’
The Marquise rose from her chair and, for the first time in her life, she laid a hand on Minette’s cheek and kissed her. ‘You are a good girl, and you deserve your good fortune. I have done my best for you.’ She lifted her head and said over Minette’s shoulder, ‘It is for you to make her life’s happiness now, Monsieur le Duc.’
Minette never noticed when her grandmother left the room, for she was in Rochford’s arms, his mouth covered hers, and her fingers were twined in the warmth of his hair.
A little time later, she was seated beside him on the sofa, cradled within his arms, her hands clasped in his. With her lips still burning from his kisses, she was too content to care very much how he came to be there. But she did murmur into his lapel, ‘Why did you come? What made you?’
‘Your grandmother sent for me. It is a letter I shall cherish forever. Without one unpleasant word or phrase, she managed to convey to me that I was a brutal, senseless philistine who had cast away the greatest treasure the world held for me. You were only too far above me but, as you were about to go into a decline and expire, I should come and hear the truth for myself. To be honest, this was the conclusion I had pretty much come to myself.’ His arm tightened around her. ‘I did not really need to hear your words to know that I had been a fool. But, sweet, loving, little Minette, I am so very glad I did.’
She lifted his hand to her lips and kissed the palm. ‘I do not know what I should have done if you had not come to me.’
‘As I told you, I have it on excellent authority that you would have gone into a decline and died.’ He pulled her closer with a half-laughing shudder.
‘No, I should not have because—’she glanced up at him with a smile combined of mischief and a little apprehension‘—because I should have had something to live for, even if you had not come for me.’
‘Something —?’ He pulled away from her and took her by the shoulders. This time, there was joy, not darkness, in the face he bent to her. ‘You are with child?’
She nodded laughing. ‘I was not sure before, so I did not tell you—but, yes, I am.’
‘We must be married as soon as may be!’
‘Are you free yet?’
‘Oh, there must be a quiet annulment. Trust me, no one will know. I still have some power in the world. Then we will slip away quietly to the parson here and be married by special licence. Who is to know or care if Philip Clareville and Minette de Saint-Saze are married or connect them with the Duke of Rochford and his bride?’
She folded her hands demurely in her lap. ‘Shall I have to go through life being called Eugénie?’
‘On formal occasions, I am afraid you will. But at home with me and Bella, you will be our own sweet Minette.’ He pulled her closer. ‘It is a small price to pay for a lifetime’s happiness. Do you not agree?’
‘Yes, but it is as well Génie will be living in France. It would be confusing to have two sisters both called Eugénie who look exactly alike.’
‘Not confusing for me. I shall never be in any doubt as to which twin is which. Mine is more beautiful, more loving—and much, much more desirable.’
‘I daresay Charles would say the same.’
‘Yes, but he would be mistaken.’
Epilogue
The shadows were lengthening at last as the perfect, summer afternoon faded towards twilight. Madame D’Evremont was seated upon a bench in the fragrant rose-garden at Camer Castle, a pretty, golden-haired babe sleeping against her breast. Minette, Duchess of Rochford, watched her sister with a smile and laid a hand upon the swelling curve of her own slight form. ‘He kicked,’ she murmured.
‘He may be a she,’ Génie reminded her.
‘No. In our family girls come in pairs.’
‘True.’ She lifted one of the sleeping baby’s hands and kissed it. ‘My precious little boy bébé.’
‘Could you really have given him to the Bovarys? If your Charles had not returned.’
Génie shuddered. ‘Do not sp
eak of it. Of course, I could not. When your child is born you will understand.’
‘I understand now.’ She looked up, and a radiant smile lit up her lovely face as she saw her husband coming towards her with the setting sun at his back. ‘Philip!’
Rochford kissed her hand and bowed a little stiffly to his sister-in-law. ‘I have had a letter, my love. From Lady Talgarth.’
‘Not—not bad news, I hope.’
‘Not at all. She writes that the climate in Rome has done William a world of good. He is so much improved he has embarked on another play and, indeed, has sent us a fragment enclosed in his mother’s missive.
‘I am so very glad. Read it to us.’
He seated himself beside his wife, encircled her waist with a protective arm, and commenced to read:
Roam on, my soul, through this enchanted sphere,
O’er oceans of bright fortune, realms of fire.
Vain wanderer, cross not that dread frontier,
But live to love, find freedom in desire.
The End
Table of Contents
Copyright
By the same author
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Magical Masquerade: A Regency Masquerade Page 19
