The Chocolate Debutante (The Royal Ambition Series Book 5)

by M C Beaton

  Susan had taken off her bonnet, and her golden hair gleamed in the candlelight. She stretched out her hands in a gesture of appeal. “Do not harm me,” she said.

  One man looked at the other and said, “Should we do this? We could turn her loose here and no one would know.”

  “She’d know somehow,” said the other one gruffly. “Let’s get it over with. Out, miss.”

  She, thought Susan bewildered. She? Some woman was behind this. Who? Not Harriet. Could it be Aunt Harriet? She had a sudden mad idea that her aunt had become weary of her chocolate eating and laziness and had decided to get rid of her.

  She was bundled out into a closed carriage, one man driving, the one with the gun beside her in the carriage. She watched where they were going, down Ludgate Hill and so to Holborn, and then the carriage lurched over the broken cobbles and into the maze of the Rookeries and stopped.

  “Out!” commanded the man with the gun.

  Her only thought was that she was miraculously still alive. She thought they had been moved by her plight and were allowing her to live. She cast one frightened look at her captor, who had swung open the carriage door, and plunged out. The driver whipped up the horses and the carriage lurched crazily off down the narrow mean street.

  Susan stood and looked around her. The rotting houses hung over the street, blocking out any light from the sky. The stench was vile. By the light of a brazier nearby, dark figures stood huddled. She was aware of more figures huddled in doorways. It was like being in a nightmare forest surrounded by wild animals.

  And then a woman caught her arm and screeched, “Here’s a pretty miss!” Susan wrenched her arm free and started to run. A foot shot out of a doorway and tripped her up and she fell headlong. She twisted around to get up and found she was encircled by people, their faces lit by another brazier, looking like evil faces in hell. The women were grinning, and naked lechery gleamed in the men’s eyes. Now Susan knew why she had been left in the Rookeries.

  But finding a desperate courage, she struggled to her feet, her golden curls spilling down to her shoulders. In a quiet voice that was more effective than a scream, she said, “Will no one help me?”

  Cackling, laughing, grinning, the horrible smelly crowd moved closer, and their dirty, clawlike hands stretched out toward her.

  A procession of carriages moved along Plum Lane. In the lead was Harriet with her maid, two burly grooms, and two footmen. Behind her was Lord Dangerfield in his carriage, with his servants, and behind that came Charles Courtney, who had seen Lord Dangerfield hurrying from the opera after being addressed by one of Harriet’s servants and had followed him and learned of Harriet’s urgent request.

  Harriet’s two grooms kicked in the door of the house in which Susan had so lately been held prisoner. Harriet rushed in after them, calling, “Susan!”

  “Bring lights,” shouted Lord Dangerfield. Lanterns were lit. In a small room off the dingy hall they found Susan’s bonnet lying on the dusty floorboards.

  Harriet numbly picked it up. “Where can she be? Who can have done this?”

  Lord Dangerfield gathered her to him and held her close. “Stay here. I and my servants and Charles will ask people in the lane if they saw anything.”

  Harriet sank down in the chair on which Susan had waited and buried her face in her hands.

  After what seemed an age, Lord Dangerfield returned, his face stern. One man farther down the lane had told Charles Courtney that he had seen a young girl being taken off in a closed carriage by two men. But where the carriage had gone or what had happened to Susan, no one could tell them.

  Jack Barnaby was a burglar and therefore among the aristocracy of the criminal classes. He was strolling through the Rookeries, thinking what a fine, warm night it was and how good it was to be alive. He did not notice the smell or the rags or the bundles of human misery lying in the doorways. He had grown up in the Rookeries and the slums were home to him. He was unusual in that he was tall, almost six feet in height, and broad-shouldered. But only the strong grew past childhood in the Rookeries.

  He turned one twisting dark corner and stopped short at the tableau in front of him. By the light of a flaming brazier stood a golden girl, the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. She was surrounded by a crowd of men and women. He walked forward in time to hear her clear voice, “Will no one help me?”

  He strode forward and thrust his way to the front of the crowd. “Come with me,” he said.

  Susan stared up at him. He turned around and started to walk away. It flashed through her mind that he was one person as opposed to this terrifying mob, and so she followed him while the crowd fell back, muttering. Jack Barnaby was greatly feared.

  He waited on the corner until she came up to him and then continued on his way. Susan stumbled after him along the smelly lanes and alleys. He would probably make her his doxy, she thought miserably, but at least she would be alive.

  He stopped at a low doorway and took out a key. “In here,” he said.

  Susan walked in and followed him up a rickety staircase to a door at the top which he kicked open. The room she entered was relatively well furnished.

  “Sit down,” he said. Susan took a chair by the empty fireplace, feeling her way through the gloom. He lit a branch of candles, held it up, surveyed her in silence, and slowly shook his head in wonderment.

  Then he picked up a squat bottle and held it up. “Gin?”

  Susan nodded dumbly. Jack Barnaby was not a savory-looking character. His face was pitted by smallpox, his nose was bent, and his toothless mouth very thin and hard.

  He poured her a glass of gin and she tossed it straight back, gasping and spluttering as the fiery liquid worked its way down.

  “Why are you here?” he asked, sitting down opposite her and leaning forward and refilling her glass.

  “I do not know. I am in the Rookeries, am I not?”

  “Yerse, so you’ve heard o’ the Rookeries?”

  “Everyone has,” said Susan, repressing a shudder.

  “So how come you’re here?”

  “I was abducted, I was taken by two men. I am engaged to a Mr. Charles Courtney. I received a note to say that he had a mistress in keeping, and if I went to an address in Plum Lane, I would find out. So I did. And… and two men, one had a gun, forced me inside the house and then, when it was dark, they turned me loose in the Rookeries.”

  “It’s a neat way o’ murder,” said Jack with something like admiration in his voice.

  “Are… are you going to murder me?”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to make me your doxy?”

  “No, got one.”

  “So what are you going to do with me?”

  Jack surveyed her. He knew she was probably a virgin. He could get a high price for her. But there was something about her beauty and fragility that tugged at a part of his memory. There had been a seamstress once when he was a child who had ended up in the Rookeries under the protection of a brutal man. She had been kind to young Jack. She had had a sweet smile and pretty, fair curls. Her protector had beaten her to death, but she had remained somewhere in Jack’s memory as the only person who had ever shown him any kindness.

  But the words that came out of his own mouth surprised him. He found himself saying, “Drink up and I’ll take you home. But we’ll wait until the streets are quiet.”

  The Bow Street Runners had been called out to search for Susan, and the parish constabulary and the watch.

  Harriet sat by the drawing room window while behind her Lord Dangerfield paced the drawing room. Charles Courtney was crying quietly, but Harriet was beyond crying. She was sick with worry and becoming convinced that she would never see Susan again.

  Not once did Lord Dangerfield think that his former mistress might be behind such a plot. He had questioned and questioned Courtney as to who could have known of the engagement so soon, who would wish to stop his marriage. He had visited Sir Thomas Jeynes and threatened him, but the sur
prise and amazement on that gentleman’s face looked all too genuine. Now he was back with Harriet and wishing desperately he could do or say something to alleviate her misery. He glanced at the clock. Two in the morning! He longed to urge Harriet to go to bed but knew she would not follow any such suggestion.

  Harriet was obviously hanging on to the hope that if she stayed awake, if she prayed very hard, then somehow Susan would be found safe and well.

  And then from outside came the voice of a female raised in drunken song. The night was warm and so all the windows were open.

  “I am a country lass,

  But newly come to Town,

  My cherry’s still intact,

  My hair it is worn down.”

  “I’ll silence that vulgar jade,” said Lord Dangerfield. He strode through the french windows and out onto the narrow balcony that overlooked the square.

  He stared down in amazement. In the flickering lights of the parish lamps he saw Susan, a tipsy, singing Susan, leaning on the arm of a villainous-looking man.

  “It’s Susan!” he cried. He ran back through the drawing room and rushed down the stairs with everyone—Harriet, Charles, and the servants—hurtling after him.

  Jack saw them coming and took Susan’s hand from his arm and gave her a little push forward. Harriet gave a strangled sob and rushed to gather the girl in her arms. Lord Dangerfield set off after Jack, grabbed him by the shoulder, and swung him around. He was about to punch him in the face, when Susan struggled free of Harriet’s embrace and shouted, “He saved me. You must not hurt him!”

  The earl dropped his fists. “Who are you, fellow?”

  “None o’ your business, cully.” Jack turned again to walk away. And then he heard Susan say the magic words: “Do… do not let him go. He musht be rewarded.”

  He stopped in his tracks.

  “I wash taken to the Rookeries,” said Susan, swaying in Harriet’s embrace, “and would have been murdered had Jack not reshcued me.”

  Jack surveyed the earl. His eyes fastened on the diamond buried among the snowy folds of the earl’s cravat. “That diamond’ll do very nice,” he said laconically.

  The earl pulled out the stick pin and handed the diamond over.

  Jack stuck it in his greasy shirt, grinned, winked at Susan, and made his way rapidly out of the square. He guessed the runners were probably looking for the girl, and rescuer or not, they had only to see him to drag him off to the nearest roundhouse.

  Susan was tenderly helped indoors and up to the drawing room where, with Charles’s arm about her shoulders, she told them of her adventures. “How could you even think I would keep a mistress when I have you?” he exclaimed. Susan gave him a drunken, doting smile and so missed the odd little look the earl flashed in Harriet’s direction or the way Harriet suddenly looked at the floor.

  “Oh, there’sh shomething elsh,” said Susan, looking suddenly weary. “He said she.”

  “Who?” asked Harriet sharply.

  “One of my captors. He wash all for letting me go in Plum Lane but the other said she would find out.” Susan giggled and hiccuped. “For one mad moment, Aunt Harriet, I thought he meant you and you’d become too tired of my lazhiness and chocolate eating.” And with that, Susan suddenly closed her eyes, leaned her head against Charles’s shoulder, and fell fast asleep.

  Harriet stared at the earl and said in a thin voice, “Could this she be a Mrs. Verity Palfrey?”

  His face looked stern. “I shall go and find out,” he said quietly. “I bid you good night.”

  When Verity was roused by her maid and told that Lord Dangerfield was demanding to see her, she did not fear any recriminations. She could not possibly have been found out. Her agent in the city, who served several other people, had bought the property in Plum Lane recently in his name. This was a precaution Verity took, as she often also bought slum property and was not eager that the ownership should be traced to her. Only her lawyers knew she was the real owner, and they would not talk. And so she merely thought the earl had come to his senses and asked that he be shown upstairs.

  The earl strode into the bedroom and stood looking at her as she lay propped up against her lacy pillows. He knew it would be useless to ask her if she had been behind the plot to kill Susan, and so he said, “I am giving you a chance to escape, a chance, madam, you do not deserve.”

  Verity turned pale. But she said lightly, “Are you foxed? I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about.”

  He came and stood over her. “The runners will soon be here. Your minions were recognized. Miss Colville is safe and well, thanks to a miracle. Now, you can lie there and protest your innocence as time passes, time during which you could be leaving the country, never to return. What you had planned for Miss Colville was terrible. You are a monster. If you are here in the morning, I will send the runners to arrest and interrogate your male servants. And they will talk to save their necks. How I ever became involved with scum like you is beyond me.”

  Verity began to tremble and cry. “I was jealous. Cannot you see that?”

  “You fool! Had you been jealous of the girl’s aunt, you might have had reason. But to be jealous of a green chit! Get you gone, madam, and never return to this country again.”

  He turned and strode out. He would need to allay Harriet’s fears by telling her the name of the culprit and Harriet, the virgin, would despise him from the bottom of her straitlaced heart for having put her niece in deadly peril through his involvement with a harpy.

  Sir Thomas Jeynes was strolling home in the dawn light. He found his steps leading him toward Verity’s house. Now that her liaison with Dangerfield was over, perhaps she might be interested in favoring him with some pleasure.

  To his surprise, her house was lit from top to bottom and servants were frantically loading up luggage on the roof and in the rumble of a traveling carriage outside.

  The street door was standing open. He strolled in and nearly collided with a footman who was struggling under the weight of a large trunk.

  “Where is your mistress?” he demanded.

  The footman jerked his head in the direction of the upper regions and began to carry the trunk out to the carriage. Sir Thomas ran lightly up the stairs.

  He found Verity in traveling clothes, slamming down the lid on another trunk, surrounded by maids.

  “What’s amiss?” he asked.

  “Get out of here!” Verity shouted at the maids. “Don’t come back until I call you.”

  When the maids had scampered from the room, she crashed the door shut behind them and faced him with glittering eyes. “I am leaving the country,” she said. “I am ruined.”

  “What has happened?”

  In a flat voice she told him of the plan to get rid of Susan and Dangerfield’s threat.

  “You fool,” he said.

  “Fool and double fool,” said Verity wearily. “It was not the chit he was after all the time, but that frump of an aunt.”

  “You jest.”

  “No, I had it from his own lips. Oh, Thomas, come with me. I cannot bear to be alone.”

  He gave her his wolfish smile. “You should have thought of what you were doing before you got rid of me to take up with Dangerfield. Had you told me of your plan, I would have stopped you. There are other ways. But subtlety was never your strong point. Enjoy your exile.” He began to laugh, and, still laughing, he made his way out.

  But when he reached the end of the street, the smile died on his lips. Harriet Tremayne, by all that was holy! So much easier to get his revenge on Dangerfield through a spinster like Harriet than a glowing girl like Susan who was already betrothed.

  Lord Dangerfield had returned to Harriet’s in Berkeley Square. He hoped partly that she had gone to bed and so he could put off the moment when he would see the distaste in her eyes, and partly that she would be awake so that he could get the whole sorry business over and done with.

  But there were lamps still glowing in the drawing room, and a
s he approached the house, he saw two runners leaving.

  He knocked and was admitted. Miss Tremayne, he learned, was still awake. He went slowly up the stairs to the drawing room, his feet like lead.

  Harriet turned around wearily when he was announced. “Oh, it is you, my lord,” she said. “I have just informed the runners that Susan is safe and well. There is now the question of this woman…”

  “May I be seated?” She nodded. The earl sat down.

  He took a deep breath. “Mrs. Palfrey was behind the outrage.”

  How large her eyes were, he thought.