by M C Beaton
“I have an excellent steward,” said Lucy in surprise. “I told you, Ann. Without Guy taking thousands and thousands of pounds out of the exchequer of the estate, we should soon be extremely prosperous again. Did you not notice? All the houses in Standish have been repaired and the church has set up a clothes fund. And not before time. The people were so poor and ill-cared-for that they were on the point of burning Standish to the ground! How Guy could let things come to such a pass…”
“Well, he could and he did and he did not care a rap for anyone other than himself. Which is what I want to talk to you about. Do you remember his last words?”
“Often,” said Lucy in a low voice. “To think that he did love me.”
“Fiddle! That young man was selfish to the last—and his last dying thought was that you should not be happy!”
“Oh, no,” said Lucy, her eyes filling with tears. “He must have meant it.”
“Oh, Lucy, I would not hurt you for worlds, but did he ever do anything in the short span of your marriage that showed he cared one rap for you?”
Lucy thought. She remembered Guy saying her parents had bought his title, she remembered his infidelity, his lies, his gambling, and his drunkenness. And she then remembered the times he appeared warm and caring.
“Oh, I don’t know. I can’t think,” she said wretchedly.
“You see, there is Habard to think of,” said Ann, twisting a piece of silk round and round in her thin fingers.
“But you said… we finally agreed that he had only been philandering.”
Ann looked out at the gray autumn sky and the clouds of scarlet and gold leaves hopping and tumbling across the lawns. “Well…” she said hesitantly. “It appears that he should marry you.”
“Marry? What can you mean?”
“It is put about that his mama was not in residence and that you were alone together at Mullford Hall.”
“Is there no end to all this spite and malice?” said Lucy. “Not only was his mother very much in residence but most of his relatives.”
“But the Duchess is saying herself that he sent them all packing and that she herself went off on a visit the last two days, leaving you alone together.”
Ann watched as Lucy’s face turned scarlet. Lucy was remembering how glad she had been when the Duchess had not joined them for dinner and how she had assumed that Her Grace was sulking in her room, having her meals from a tray.
“But Simon would never… he would have told me!” she said.
“Are you sure?”
“He is a gentleman!” said Lucy hotly.
“A gentleman who has not been near you since Guy’s death,” said Ann, picking up her sewing and stabbing a needle into the brocade.
“But how could he?” said Lucy reasonably. “There were ugly rumors. We were both being accused of the murder. To have been seen together at all would have been folly.”
“But he could have written to you.”
Lucy gave a little sigh and echoed sadly, “Yes, he could have written to me.”
“Well, either his mama is lying, which from all accounts is a thing she does quite often, or you are compromised. But one way or t’other, the world believes you to have been compromised and Habard is expected to make an offer when your period of mourning is over.”
“I cannot marry him.”
“I thought you cared for him.”
“Oh, I did,” said Lucy. “But perhaps I was mistaken and besides you are probably right. He was probably only amusing himself. It’s all my fault. I wanted to make Guy jealous and I asked Simon to be my lover.”
“You what?”
“Well, you suggested…”
“Oh, my wretched tongue. This is dreadful.”
“I did not sleep with him,” said Lucy in a low voice. “He… he kept suggesting I try to repair my marriage… even when I threw myself at him.”
Ann’s thin face registered every degree of surprise.
“I think the man must have been in love with you after all,” she said at last.
But Lucy shook her head. “There were times,” she sighed, “when I began to think his feelings might be deeply touched. But I was there and I was available. That is all. I shall not see him again.”
“Fiddle,” said Ann briskly. “You cannot molder here in the country forever. Come back to Town with us for a few weeks.”
“I am quite happy here,” said Lucy. “I have so much work to do, it stops me from… thinking.”
Lucy suddenly felt she had to get away from her friend. She wanted to be alone to think.
“I feel very hot indoors,” said Lucy, rising to her feet. “I think I shall go for a walk on the grounds.”
Ann opened her mouth to point out that the room was in fact becoming very chilly but she saw the distress in Lucy’s eyes and contented herself by saying instead, “I shall not accompany you, Lucy dear. Giles is to join me presently.”
Lucy walked out of the house into the flying wind under the flying clouds. The cloak she was wearing was the one she had worn when he had walked with her in the gardens.
Then she remembered the intensity in his voice when he had held the swing and said, “You enchant me.”
But Lucy could not believe he loved her. The Marquess had taken away from her all self-esteem. She no longer saw a pretty girl when she looked in the glass but an insipid and colorless blond.
The blast from a horn blown on the wind from the direction of the south lodge made her frown.
Visitors.
For once, she was going to hide and leave Ann to do the entertaining.
She hid behind the wide, dark green skirts of a cedar and watched.
A muddy traveling carriage flanked by outriders appeared at a bend in the drive.
Seated on the box with his coachman beside him, his long hands holding the reins, was the Duke of Habard.
Lucy stepped out from the shelter of the trees.
His head jerked around and he reined in his team and then sat for a few moments looking down at the reins in his hands.
Then he gave instructions to the coachman who took his place and he jumped lightly down.
He was dressed in a scarlet garrick redingote with a top hat with vertical sides and a narrow brim set to a nicety on his crisp black hair.
He was more handsome than she had remembered, and more formidable.
“Lady Standish,” he said, making her a low bow. “I present my compliments and also my condolences over your bereavement.”
“Thank you,” said Lucy faintly.
He surveyed her in silence and Lucy felt constrained to speak.
“Did you… have you come to stay with us, Your Grace? I did not receive your letter.”
“I came without writing first,” he answered. “Pray forgive me. I have a certain business matter to discuss with you. If my stay will inconvenience you, I can put up at the inn at Standish.”
“No, Your Grace, we have plenty of bedchambers. Mr. and Mrs. Hartford are in residence and they will be delighted to see you.” Why are we so formal? thought Lucy wildly. Is this the man who kissed me so passionately? “If you would care to accompany me to the house…” she began.
“No,” he said. “I think not. What I have to say to you is better said in private.”
“As you will,” replied Lucy nervously, looking around. “There is a summer house over by the lake, a gazebo, out of the wind.”
She turned and led the way across the shaggy autumn lawns, through the swirling clouds of colored leaves, her blue coat billowing about her slight figure.
“And how are things in Town, Your Grace?” she asked, determined to be as formal as he.
“Very bad.”
“The economy?”
“No. The scandal. It is that I wish to discuss with you.”
“Oh,” said Lucy ineffectually. The wind was ruffling the waters of the lake. A mallard duck bobbed past and disappeared among the reeds.
The gazebo was perched on a little kn
oll beside the lake. The wind whistled eerily though the criss-cross latticed slats over the windows like a dirge for summer past.
He indicated one of the stone seats and then sat next to her, arranging the skirts of his coat.
His face looked harsh and set and two grooves she had not noticed before ran down either side of his mouth. His eyes were hooded by their drooping lids. He slowly drew off his gloves, turning the soft leather this way and that in his long fingers.
“Has Mrs. Hartford said anything to you about London’s latest scandal?” he said.
Lucy blushed painfully. “She said your mama was putting it about that she was not in residence when we… when we were together.”
“Exactly. I made her deny the rumor, which she did by weeping and saying pathetically to her court of spongers, ‘Simon has commanded me to say that I was present.’ She was, in fact, there, you know, sulking in her rooms.”
“Well… that was all very long ago,” said Lucy, and it did seem to belong to another sunny world, far away on the other side of the black pit of her husband’s death.
“But the gossip is very present,” he said. “I do not care for myself. But you are very young and should not have your life blighted so.”
“I do not plan to return to London,” said Lucy, looking unseeingly out at the water, “so what society says about me need not affect me.”
“That is the way you feel now,” he said, “but that feeling will not last forever. Marry me.”
“What?”
“I am asking you to marry me.”
“Guy asked me, just as he was dying, not to marry again. He said he loved me. I gave him my promise.”
“Selfish unto death,” said the Duke coldly. “Do you know why I did not come near you? Because there were already ugly stories about that we had conspired to have your husband killed. Did you think me unfeeling and callous?”
“Yes.”
“Did you think perhaps I had killed Guy?”
Lucy looked down at her shoes and said nothing.
“I see that you did. Never has my character been more maligned. I assure you, it will be the sensible thing to marry me.”
“It would be shocking… so shocking, so soon after Guy’s death.”
“It is months since Guy’s death. A year is not yet up. I suggest we become unofficially engaged.”
“And this is the business proposition you mentioned earlier?”
“Yes.”
“I have already been married once through a business proposition. I do not care for another.”
“I see,” he said in a low voice. “I thought it would be thus.”
“Thought what would be thus?” said Lucy crossly. Oh, why didn’t he take her in his arms? Why did he sit there, so aloof, so elegant? Had he never cared for her? Obviously not.
“I feel you really cared for your husband deeply.”
“Oh,” said Lucy, looking away. Well, her pride was not going to let her correct him. If marriage to her was only to be in the nature of a business proposition, then she wanted none of it.
She arose and shook out her skirts.
“I must refuse your kind offer,” she said coldly. “But you are welcome to stay as my guest. The Hartfords will be delighted to see you again. Our cook does fairly well but not quite in the grand manner of a French chef….”
She led the way out of the gazebo, talking lightly all the while, without ever looking back to see if he were following her or if he had accepted her invitation.
Chapter Eight
The Duke had elected to stay and had retired to the rooms allotted to him. Lucy found herself relieved to find that the Hartfords had gone to the village. She felt she could not bear to face Ann’s questioning and hopeful eyes.
Her husband’s effects, desk, and papers had been put away in an unused servant’s room at the top of the house. Lucy had not looked at any of his belongings, but all at once she was overcome by a desire to search for evidence of his infidelity. To search for anything that would remove the guilt engendered by his last words.
The room smelt damp and musty and unaired. The papers which had been strewn about his study when it had been ransacked had all been collected into neat piles and placed on top of the desk.
The steward had gone through them to take away any outstanding bills and deal with them. Lucy’s face suddenly went hot at the idea of the steward having come across the sort of evidence she herself was looking for.
She pulled up a hard kitchen chair, sat down in front of the desk, and lit a candle, for the day was growing dark as black clouds massed in the sky above.
The papers were mostly letters from friends discussing arrangements to meet at prize fights or cock fights or coffee-houses.
There were no letters from women. Lucy discovered this after more than an hour of diligent reading.
Perhaps, she thought, she should have looked through bank letters and bills before the steward took them away. Although he had given the diamond earrings and pendant to Harriet, he had bought them for her, but the bills might have revealed evidence of other trinkets.
The desk was a tambour-fronted bureau, its top rolled back to reveal the flat top of the desk with its little pigeon-holes and drawers. She pulled open drawer after drawer in front of her, having already searched the larger ones below the desk top.
But all the papers seemed to have been removed and laid on top. One of the small drawers would not open. Feeling sure mere would be nothing in it either, she somehow felt impelled to force it just to see.
She picked up a chisel-ended poker from the hearth and carefully inserted it under the drawer and yanked it up. There was a sharp splitting sound as the front of the drawer came away completely and fell in two pieces in front of her.
“Now I have ruined a perfectly good desk for nothing,” mourned Lucy. The drawer was empty and she was about to rise when she sensed rather than saw a cavity at the back.
She held a candle up to the drawer and saw there was indeed a secret space at the back of the desk. She thrust her hand in and with a gasp of triumph felt a thick bundle of paper, which she pulled out.
Poor Lucy found herself looking down at all the evidence of her husband’s infidelity that she could possibly require. There were letters from Harriet Comfort, and not only from her but from various other ladies of the demimonde who seemed delighted to flatter her late husband by praising, in quite startling detail, his prowess between the sheets.
She thrust the letters away from her finally, in disgust, and, as she did so, a small thick diary fell to the floor. She picked it up and turned the pages, looking curiously at the neat rows of figures. At the end of the book, in front of the last section, the Marquess had written, “If I should die, this is of Nashinul importance.”
He never could spell, thought Lucy ruefully, tucking the diary into a pocket in her apron to study it more carefully later. Then she took the pile of love letters, put them in the fireplace, and then thrust the candle through the bars, watching them turn brown, curl up, and finally catch fire.
If only Simon loved me, thought Lucy sadly, then I should accept him on the spot, for these letters have proved that Guy was never faithful to me. In fact it seems he began being unfaithful to me from the day we married.
But there was nothing else to do except pray to get through the evening ahead with a modicum of dignity.
It was better than she expected. Ann and her husband were delighted to share the dinner table with the Duke of Habard and talked so gaily that they failed to notice that the elegant Duke was somewhat more somber than usual.
He looked heartbreakingly handsome, thought Lucy. His evening clothes were perfection, and only his eyes were as hard and cold as the diamonds in his stock and on his fingers.
“I have been wondering about Standish,” he suddenly said when Ann paused for breath. “I cannot believe that his death was the result of some footpad’s greed. If he had been stabbed or bludgeoned, it would seem more likely. But footpads
do not normally shoot people, nor do they frequent the fashionable squares of the West End as much as they used to. There are very nasty rumors about Barrington. And Standish was involved with Barrington. Sir Percival Burke became very bosky at White’s and started to mutter sinister remarks about Barrington having power over him. The next day, Sir Percival was found floating down the Thames.”
“Oh, the bill broker fellow,” said Giles Hartford comfortably. “Well, he’s not sinister, you know. He fleeces young men of their lands and property, but so do all the other bill brokers and money lenders, not to mention the gaming hells. Ain’t anything sinister about that. Just sad.”
“I have heard that Barrington craves power and a peerage or a knighthood, at the very least,” said Habard as if Giles had not spoken.
He turned to Lucy and spoke to her directly for the first time since he had proposed to her in the gazebo.
“Did Standish say anything… or leave anything in his papers that might…?”
“Oh, a most odd thing,” cried Lucy, suddenly remembering the diary. “Wait!”
She ran from the room and Ann watched the way the Duke’s eyes followed her retreating figure.
In a short time Lucy was back, the diary in her hand. “Only see,” she said, bending over the Duke’s chair with the diary. “Where he wrote that bit about his death and it being of national importance.”
Ann noticed with wry amusement that in her excitement Lucy was leaning over the Duke, pressed against his shoulder, and that a faint flush was mounting to the Duke’s cheeks.
Lucy was dressed in severe mourning but the black enhanced her fair looks, and the little lace cap, which she had donned in the hope that the Duke would realize she had joined the ranks of the dowagers, had slipped slightly to one side and gave her a frivolous, coquettish appearance.
“It is some form of code,” said the Duke slowly. “It’s probably very simple. The numbers represent the different letters of the alphabet. Let me see.”
“Oh, we cannot possibly leave you gentlemen to your wine with all this excitement,” said Ann. “Let us all retire to the drawing room and find pencils and papers. This is the best party game ever.”
