A Shocking Delight

by Beverley, Jo

  “I know that, I assure you.”

  Lucy walked back to Lanchester Street considering Maria’s words. They contained a warning and she was sure it was justified but she, like her mother, had no choice. If her mother had been able to use passion to overcome her father’s steely will, she should be able to overcome David’s even if it proved as strong.

  The only question was whether she should.

  Chapter 24

  She returned to find Clara alone in the drawing room, reading. The normality of that seemed shocking.

  “Mother’s still in bed,” Clara said, “prostrated by her efforts.”

  “Her triumphant efforts,” Lucy said. “I’m sorry to have left early.”

  “It did all go wonderfully. It’s a shame, really, to do that only once. I wish I could have my own ball every year!”

  “We have to allow each new wave their chance.”

  “Did you have a ball?”

  “Of course. At assembly rooms like yours, but simpler. Most in attendance were old friends.”

  Lucy went to her room to take off her bonnet, gloves, and spencer. She thought of writing in her journal, but any thoughts would be too dangerous to commit to words. She did need to plan, however. One thing was clear—she’d get nowhere until she and David were together again, but he was in Devon and she was a day and a night’s travel away.

  She could simply go. She had some money with her and a trip to her bank would provide as much as she wished. She could hire a chaise and leave.

  Yet she couldn’t. There’d be an instant hue and cry. Even if she delayed detection, she’d eventually be pursued and caught before she reached Devon. The scandal would be horrendous, which wouldn’t help her cause at all.

  Oh, for an enormous kite to take her there within hours!

  It seemed intolerable to be balked, but truly, she could see no way. Yet. Though her need felt urgent, it wasn’t. Nothing terrible was going to happen if she didn’t reach David in days or even weeks.

  She tried to come up with a plan, but an hour devoted to the problem didn’t present a solution. She and her father had sometimes talked over a tricky problem and two heads had proved better than one, but she certainly couldn’t discuss this with him. He’d lock her up!

  Who else? Betty was on her honeymoon, and in any case she would be horrified. Even Maria would feel duty bound to prevent her from such an act. She could talk to David. But he was the problem.

  Her scrambling thoughts were getting her nowhere and she needed to rest her mind. She’d join Clara and read one of her novels. Perhaps one of the plots would inspire her. After all, Laura Montreville had gone to Canada, but through abduction.

  Both Self Control and Love and Horror reminded her too much of David, however, so she chose The Animated Skeleton.

  Clara smiled when she came in. “What book do you have today?”

  “The Animated Skeleton.”

  “I haven’t read that. You must tell me all about it.”

  “Wouldn’t you prefer to read it without knowing?”

  “I like to know what to expect. Surprises are so often unpleasant.”

  “You’re right,” Lucy said. “And secrets.”

  “Oh, secrets are more fun.”

  Clara returned to her own novel, and Lucy opened hers, but her mind was now stuck on secrets. She hadn’t uncovered David’s secrets, and there clearly were significant things she didn’t know. He’d admitted it. Maria’s “ah” had confirmed it.

  Why had Maria reacted that way? She’d said something about David having been in the army? Surely he hadn’t. The more she thought, the more sure she became that one or more secrets might have sent him off to Devon. But what could they be? If she pressed Maria, would she tell all? Could Lady Amleigh be persuaded to? What of Mr. Delaney, who’d seemed familiar with David in some way? Lucy couldn’t imagine approaching any of them about this.

  She turned pages, pretending to read, but trying to imagine any secret that would prevent their marriage. The dramas and scandals surrounding him were the opposite of secret and not his fault. His seat was set in countryside that included cliffs and mists, but that wasn’t a secret, either. In fact, he’d made a point of telling her.

  Smugglers operated in his area and he didn’t intend to do much about it, but that seemed to be the case all around the coast. It was neither secret nor shameful.

  So, what?

  A marriage?

  Betty had talked of a novel where the wicked king had kept his mad wife in a nunnery and pretended she was dead so he could attempt to marry the heroine. . . .

  “I don’t like Siegfried. He’s always bemoaning his fate.”

  Lucy dragged her mind back to the drawing room. “What?”

  “The Sicilian Curse. Siegfried is pursuing the bandits who have captured Isabella, but he’s ended up in the dungeon of Duke of Malbrocaccia and he’s bemoaning.”

  “A hero should never moan,” Lucy agreed. “But is his love for Isabella impossible?”

  “Of course. She’s betrothed to the King of Sicily.”

  That would be a surprise to the current King of Sicily, Lucy thought, but she didn’t complicate the conversation with reality, especially as Clara had returned to her book.

  Complicate with reality . . .

  Despite peculiarities, she lived in a sane, modern world. David couldn’t possibly keep a wife secret from his sister and friends, and none of them would condone such a thing. Maria certainly wouldn’t.

  “What sort of hero will you marry?”

  Lucy suppressed a sigh. “None of them. Such an odd lot.”

  Clara giggled. “I mean, what sort of man will you marry?”

  “A sensible one.”

  “How dull.”

  “There are worse things than dull—such as Stevenhope.”

  Clara giggled again. “Imagine poetry morning, noon, and night.”

  “Excruciating poetry.”

  “Oh, you must be particularly sensitive to that. I do wish you’d share a stanza or two.”

  “Not yet.”

  “You must wish for something more than sensible,” Clara persisted. “How should he look?”

  Tall, broad shouldered, honey brown hair . . .

  “Not much taller than I,” Lucy said. “And brown haired. Brown hair is trustworthy.”

  “You don’t have a romantic soul!”

  “Alas, I fear you’re right. What is your ideal man?”

  Clara looked into a dream world. “Quite tall. Blond hair, but not too pale a blond. Smiling eyes and a kind heart.”

  Pricked by jealousy, Lucy said, “That sounds like the Peasant Earl.”

  “Wyvern?” Clara stared at her. “I’d never marry him.”

  “Not even to be a countess?”

  “What good would that be when he goes mad?”

  “Clara, he’s not going to go mad.”

  “How can you know? His father was merely eccentric when young.”

  “Eccentric,” Lucy pointed out. “Like Poodle Byng with his silly dog and the man who dresses only in green.”

  “Perhaps, but he did create a torture chamber, complete with waxwork figures to be tormented.”

  “Clara! That’s impossible.”

  “No it isn’t! Town was agog during the court hearings on the title, and stories swirled.”

  “Stories were invented, you mean.”

  “Not at all.” For once, Clara was annoyed. “Come to the library. We have illustrations.”

  Lucy desperately didn’t want to, but knew she must. Here was a secret worth preserving—that he had inherited insanity.

  As they entered the room, she noticed how carelessly Clara invaded the room. Clearly it wasn’t a sanctum at all. Perhaps nothing in her current world was as it seemed.

  Clara hunted through some portfolios and brought one to the table. “These were on sale last year and Mama bought a set.” She untied the laces and opened the boards to reveal a set of prints. The first was tit
led, “Crag Wyvern.”

  David hadn’t exaggerated the ominous peculiarity of his house. The rectangular stone building stood tall on a steep headland, truly not far from the cliff edge, showing only arrow slits to the world, and backed by billowing storm clouds.

  “Unpleasant,” Lucy said, “but many people have built odd homes. Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill. Sir William Beckford at Fonthill Priory.”

  “Beckford’s deranged,” Clara pointed out. “He built that huge place and lives alone in it, and Fonthill at least has windows. Wyvern’s place does have some, but they’re inside.” Clara flipped through a few sheets. “Here. A courtyard with trees and gardens.”

  Lucy relaxed. “And good-sized windows all around. I see a fountain as well.”

  “There was a detailed print of that, but Mama removed it. From the glimpse I had,” Clara said in a whisper, “it showed a dragon behaving most improperly with a naked lady.”

  Not wise to challenge a dragon . . .

  Dear heaven!

  Clara was flipping through prints of medieval-style rooms that certainly looked unwelcoming. She paused on a sheet. “There! I told you so.”

  Lucy took one look and then shut the portfolio. The picture had indeed been of a torture chamber, including a rack, shackles on the wall, and a brazier full of implements. As Clara said, there had been figures howling in torment as the instruments were used by what might have been other waxworks, but had looked like real people.

  Aunt Mary should have taken that print away, too. She should have burned it. No wonder Clara had been driven to the extreme of warning her.

  “I’m sorry I doubted you. Hard to believe anyone could be so vile.”

  “Oh, not really,” Clara said, putting away the prints, and switching mood in her usual unpredictable way. “After all, people go to see Madame Tussaud’s waxworks when they’re in Town, and some are quite horrid. Victims of the guillotine and such. I understand the Mad Earl had her create the figures for his dungeon.” But then Clara turned to fix Lucy with an anxious look. “So you see.”

  “Yes, I see. Thank you.”

  “You have many other suitors,” Clara said and returned to the drawing room.

  Lucy remained, desolate, facing reality.

  His house was as bleak as he’d said, and the setting every bit as harsh. That could be endurable, but his father truly had been mad, and viciously so. What’s more, hadn’t the earls of Wyvern been described as odd for generations?

  She found a guide to the peerage and looked them up, but such a book didn’t give scandals. All she learned was that none of them had been long lived and they had produced few children.

  She replaced that book and sought a guide to Devon. She found one which gave gossipy details about notable places. Crag Wyvern got three pages and travelers were encouraged to make the arduous journey to the remote coastal spot to admire the stark medieval grandeur. They were warned, however, not to attempt to see inside the house, for the earl permitted entry only to select guests.

  Ones who enjoyed lewd fountains and torture chambers, Lucy supposed.

  The book was eight years old. Did David keep out visitors? Did he . . . ? No, she wouldn’t believe that he amused guests with the rack or burning hot pincers.

  There were numerous anecdotes, designed to amuse and titillate the reader. The first earl was supposed to have killed a dragon. There was a footnote explaining that a wyvern was a winged dragon with a serpent’s tail. He’d designed Crag Wyvern to be proof against further dragon attacks. The dragon’s hide was nailed to the wall of the great hall. There was an illustration.

  His son, the second earl, had kept a fire burning on the battlements every night, all year round, to ward off marauding dragons. That had been a command in his father’s will, but he had also been notorious for holding depraved parties that might have inspired the later Hellfire Club.

  The third earl had died young by riding his horse off a cliff. It had been judged an accident, but the book enjoyed reminding the reader of the insanity in the family.

  David’s grandmother had fallen to her death from the battlements. The disturbing detail was that her body hadn’t been found for twelve hours. What a bleak life that implied.

  Her son had been the Mad Earl. Perhaps the earls had merely been eccentric until she brought true insanity into the family, but David had her blood through his father, the Mad Earl.

  According to the guide, the current earl was unmarried and without issue, but that had been the known situation at time of writing. David had been born by then, but thought to be the son of Miss Isabelle Kerslake and the smuggler with the odd name. Melchisadeck something.

  Why had the earl ignored his legal heir? When she’d asked David, he’d turned cold. Because it was evidence of insanity in his bloodline? The father in The Peasant Earl had kept his existence secret because . . .

  She would not bring novel fancies into this! These matters were real and could shape the rest of her life. Were the children of a madman inevitably insane?

  No. Only think of the poor mad king. He had many children, and though some were eccentric, none showed signs of derangement. Princess Charlotte, his granddaughter, was completely normal.

  She’d seen no trace of insanity in David or his sister. Surely if it lurked there, it had to show at times. Maria had described him as the levelheaded one of the pair. If Maria knew of mental instability in David, wouldn’t she have felt obliged to warn Lucy?

  Lucy put the book back onto the shelves and went up to her bedroom. She must analyze the situation as if it were a matter of trade. There was no place for emotion in trade. Emotion led one astray. Led to bad bargains. Her decisions now would shape her life.

  She would write in her journal to clarify her thoughts.

  There is no reason to believe

  That David is insane.

  However, I have heard

  Of occasional madness,

  As with lunatics.

  If he has fled because of

  Impending derangement,

  I must follow to find out.

  There. The truth had emerged. She must find a way to get to Devon, but all the difficulties remained.

  If I ask to go, no one will permit it.

  If I leave on my own, I will be pursued.

  If only there were balloons or kites

  To waft me there and back in hours!

  My father has pigeons, which fly with speed,

  Carrying information that helps

  Him triumph over competitors.

  I’m tied to the ground, but if I

  Could go and no one know . . .

  Impossible, especially when her father’s wedding was only a week away. She couldn’t be absent for that.

  Lucy paused, an idea stirring. It shocked her so much the pencil fell from her fingers. It couldn’t be done. Of course it couldn’t. But if it could . . .

  She closed her book, thinking over it some more. The challenges were considerable, but she’d not been raised to quail at challenges. The biggest challenge was that she needed help.

  She doubted Maria would support the deceit. Despite her unconventional marriages, she was a conventional lady. Even Betty might balk, but in any case she was on her honeymoon. Who was unconventional but trustworthy? As she’d realized, she was sadly short of friends.

  The Delaneys? She hardly knew them, but Mrs. Delaney had given their address and a meaningful invitation, as if she’d expected Lucy to need help. Hardly help such as this, but she remembered how Mr. Delaney had neatly claimed her from her suitors. Despite his careless manner and unfashionable dress, he’d been master of that situation. What he set out to do would be done, no matter how outrageous.

  Moreover he had seemed to know David quite well. He might know the best way to get to Crag Wyvern. Both David and the guidebook had described it as remote and implied some difficulty in traveling there.

  Of course, the Delaneys might also know potent reasons why she shouldn’t go. Then the
y could tell her. Otherwise, she was determined on her plan.

  She’d not only settle the matter of his mental stability, but she’d be able to see just how horrible his home, his estate, and his area were. She’d be able to make a sane decision. If marriage was impossible, she felt she’d die of it, but she knew that despite poetry and novels, people didn’t die for loss of love. She’d recover and she’d find a new path for her life. If she didn’t cut through all this, however, she’d linger in misery all her days, haunted by what might have been.

  Chapter 25

  She sent round a note and was invited to call. When she arrived, Eleanor Delaney greeted her with a relaxed ease that implied that her being there was the most normal of circumstances. Indeed, it felt it.

  The drawing room was casual in the extreme, and scattered with books, handicrafts, and children’s toys. Three children were playing there, a boy and two little girls, one dark haired, one with her mother’s auburn hair.

  Eleanor introduced Lucy to her daughter Arabel, and to Arabel’s friend Delphie and Delphie’s brother Pierre. The lad bowed but returned to a book. Both girls curtsied and were eager to show off a collection of dolls. Oddly, the favorite of both, called Marriette, was made of twigs and scraps of cloth.

  “Toys have significance according to circumstances, don’t they?” Eleanor said. “Did you have a favorite doll?”

  Lucy thought back. “I had pretty ones and I remember enjoying dressing them in different ways, but I left them behind without a qualm.”

  “As did I, as perhaps Arabel and Delphie will. Arabel is quite fond of a toy soldier and recently made a sword out of sticks.”

  “Don’t you mind?”

  “To what purpose? She will be what she will be.”

  That echoed Maria’s thoughts.

  “I wanted to be my father’s heir.” It no longer hurt to say it.

  “If Nicholas were your father, you would be.” Eleanor wrinkled her brow, smiling. “If you can untangle that.”

  “I can. My father shattered conventions to become what he is, but chooses convention for me.”

  “Perhaps he understands how hard it is to take unconventional roads, as he and your mother did.”