“He was Baron Dandridge then, just a simple baron was Lockridge Wyndham, but he helped us, tried to save us, but he couldn’t, no one could, and we decided then that we would take care of him as best we could in case he lost everything. Aye, and that miserable king did strip us and our abbey to the bones, he and that miserable Cromwell and his bully boys. Then the baron did die, too soon, poor man, before his son knew what was what, but all the clues were there and several more generations spoke of the treasure and then even that stopped. All the Wyndhams have been ignorant and stupid. Even now you’ve given it up. So I had to come to you. Now, what do you see?”
And she said slowly, “I see a nine. I see another nine, but it’s backwards.”
“Do you now, Countess? Well, maybe yes and maybe no. You write those little songs, aye, they’re clever, so why aren’t you clever about this? Don’t be so blind, or the next time I come to you, you’ll regret it. Monsters never die, they live on and on. Don’t you forget that.”
And the shriveled old monk was gone and she was left in the midst of the flowers, but then they were wilting, turning brown, shriveling just as the monk had been shriveled, and the clean, clear air darkened and it became cold and colder still. Then she cried out, wanting now only to get away from all the rot and the devastation.
“Hush, love, it’s all right.”
His voice jerked her awake. She opened her eyes to see him standing over her, a white bandage around his head.
“You look like a pirate, dashing as the devil, ever so rakish. I wish you could capture me and carry me away with you. I’d fight you, but I wouldn’t mean it.”
“All right, I’ll carry you away, but first, you’ve got to get completely well again. I’ll tell you, Duchess, I’m damned tired of your being hurt.”
“No more so than I am. You must have a black patch, Marcus. And your shirtsleeves need to billow out more. But you’re so beautiful, yes, take me with you, to a pirate’s island far away, perhaps beyond China but south where it’s warm and we could just lie about and—”
She stared up at him then blinked and blinked again. “Perhaps I’ve gone mad.”
“No, that’s a fantasy I would gladly give to you if I could. Now, how do you feel?”
She fell silent for a moment, querying her body. “My side hurts, but I can stand it. I feel heavy and dull otherwise, it’s strange, as if everything were going more slowly than it usually would. How does your poor head feel, Marcus?”
“My poor head is harder than a walnut, you know that. Now, about this heaviness you’re feeling.”
“And your hand. What happened to your hand?”
“The bastard who shot us hit me in the head, then you, madam, like Saint George, jumped all over me and then he shot you in your side and my hand when I pulled you against me. All in all we were both very lucky.”
“Who did it, Marcus?”
“I don’t know, but Badger left this morning for London, to see if our precious Colonial Wyndhams are there.”
“Surely Aunt Wilhelmina couldn’t have shot us.”
“No, but she could have hired someone. Badger will discover the truth. If he needs help, he’ll hire a Bow Street Runner. I don’t want you to worry, all right?”
She nodded. “You called me love.”
“Yes, I did.”
“This was the second time you called me ‘love.’ ”
“Many more times than that, Duchess, you were just too far under the hatches to hear me.”
“I like it, Marcus. If you’d wish to say it again, I won’t be disagreeable about it.” She paused just a moment, saw that he was frowning, and was afraid that he hadn’t meant it, had just said it because he thought she was going to die. She said quickly, “You woke me up from the strangest dream. I was sitting in this field of flowers . . .” She told him the scents and the incredible colors of the flowers, of all the beauty that surrounded her, then about the ancient monk and what he’d said and how he’d been angry with her.
“So it could be Janus-faced nines or not. The monk said maybe yes, maybe no, the miserable lout. He said the monster lives on and on. All of it just more of a muddle. Now, Duchess, how did you know the name of that Wyndham ancestor?”
“Lockridge Wyndham,” she said. “I don’t know. The monk said he was the Baron Dandridge, then he said his name. It wasn’t scary until the end, when all the beautiful flowers wilted and browned and rotted, all in the space of a few moments. But the monk and what he said to me, Marcus, I don’t understand that.”
“I don’t either, but I refuse to accept it as some sort of visitation.”
“Then what?”
“God knows. You must have read about Lockridge Wyndham in the family Bible, yes, that’s it.”
Suddenly there was stark terror in her eyes.
“What? What, damn you, what’s the matter?”
“Oh no, Marcus, oh no.” Then her back bowed up and she grabbed her belly, all the while crying out, “No! No! Marcus, please, no, no!”
Not even an hour later, just as the clock struck noon, she miscarried, blood gushing out of her, her body twisting and arching with the vicious cramps. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, it was over. She lay now in an exhausted sleep, her face shiny with sweat, her hair in a lank, dull braid. Her lips were so pale they were nearly blue. The wound in her flank had bled more, running together with the blood from her womb, and he’d known she would die, but she hadn’t. At least not yet she hadn’t.
Marcus said nothing. He simply looked down at her.
“I’m sorry, my lord,” Doctor Raven said as he wiped his hands. “I thought it might happen, but I didn’t want to worry you more. These things happen all the time, but I’m sorry it had to be this way.”
Maggie and Mrs. Emory had cleaned away all signs of the miscarriage. The Duchess at least was clean, all the blood gone and she was just lying there, bloodless, swathed in white, the bandage around her belly white, the cloths between her thighs white, her nightgown white.
“She’ll be all right.”
But Marcus doubted that very much.
Doctor Raven was pleased he was alone with her. It was the first time her husband had left her, and now she was awake.
He merely smiled at her, waited a moment until recognition came into her very lovely blue eyes, then he leaned over her and gently laid his hand to her chest.
“Your heart is steady and slow. Is there any pain in your belly?”
She shook her head.
“I’m sorry about the babe, but there will be others, my lady. There is nothing wrong with you. It was the fall, the trauma to your body. I told his lordship that you’re young and healthy. Yes, there will be an army of babes if you want them, once you’ve mended.”
She shook her head again. “No, there won’t be more babes. This was the only one and he wasn’t meant to be alive.”
Doctor Raven didn’t understand her. He gently lifted her hand and closed his eyes as he felt the flutter of her pulse. “Please, try to relax.” She lay quietly then, her pulse slow, and he saw the tears seeping beneath her closed lashes. She didn’t make a single sound.
He heard the firm footsteps and automatically stepped away. Marcus gently dabbed the tears from her cheeks. “Shush, love. It’s all right now.”
“No, nothing’s all right. Well, for you I guess it is. Everything is now the way you wanted it.”
“Duchess—”
“I want to kill the man who shot us.”
He drew back in surprise, then felt intense relief flow through him. “But I want to kill him too. How will we resolve this?”
She didn’t answer him. She was asleep again.
“My lord.”
“Yes,” Marcus said as he turned to see Spears in the open doorway.
“I have a message from Badger.”
Marcus faced his mother from across the morning-room table. “I didn’t know she was pregnant, Marcus. Dear God, this is all incredible and here I was jesting about
it and loving mysteries. I’m a fool. I’m very sorry.”
He said nothing, merely played with the doubtless delicious casserole of whitefish made with white wine and tomatoes that Badger had prepared before he’d left for London.
“You impregnated her very quickly.”
“Yes, probably on our wedding night.”
“I don’t like this violence, my dear, this wretched continued violence, all directed toward the Duchess, except for this last time. Who was that horrible man trying to kill? You or the Duchess?”
“With so many shots, I’ve come to the conclusion that he was shooting at both of us. Of course, the Duchess has been attacked twice already. God knows.”
“Spears told me you’d gotten a message from Badger.”
Marcus nodded. “He’s on his way back soon. There’s nothing more he can do there. All the Wyndhams are in London. Ursula was ill with a bad cold and so was that bloody dandified Trevor who looks like a centaur riding my stallion, so Lambkin tells me with a dollop of awe in his voice. As for Aunt Wilhelmina, evidently the old bat never went near her sick children for fear of catching something herself. As for James, he was staying with a young man he met their first day in London. He was out in Richmond. Badger rode there to make certain, spoke to one of the grooms and was told that Mr. Wyndham had indeed been there, though the young men had been ripping themselves up with brandy and card playing. So you see, all of them appear to have been there, but Badger couldn’t really swear to it. Even if he’d seen each and every one of them and had witnesses swear to have been with them, it still doesn’t mean they’re innocent.”
“It’s that miserable old hag.”
“That would be nice. As I said, any of them could have hired someone to do it, even that miserable old hag.”
Aunt Gweneth came into the breakfast room, kissed her sister-in-law’s offered cheek, smiled at Marcus, and said, “That Doctor Raven seems a pleasant young man.”
Marcus grunted. “He’s young all right.”
“What does that mean, son?”
“It means I’m a fool. George is good, no matter his bloody young age.”
“He’s older than you are, Marcus. I asked him. He’s twenty-eight.”
“Yes, but I’m her husband and he isn’t.”
His mother grinned at him. “So, you’re a dog in the manger. How very odd, my dear, to see a jealous side to you. I always thought you so above such petty emotions. How refreshing to find you delightfully human.”
Marcus forked down a piece of bacon. “I know. I find it odd myself.” He gave his mother a lopsided grin to which she remarked, “That smile of yours always melted any female heart in the vicinity, even your mother’s. Now, tell Gweneth then about what Badger discovered in London.”
As he spoke, Aunt Gweneth frowned, the muffin in her left hand still untouched. “It must be something to do with the Wyndham legacy.”
“I believed that when the Duchess was struck down in the library and that old book stolen, but now? With so many shots, Auntie, he must have been after both of us. The treasure? Neither the Duchess nor I have the foggiest notion where that wretched treasure is or if it even exists.”
“Actually,” Patricia Wyndham said, rising from her chair, “I believe I just might have an idea. I’ve been thinking about it a good deal, Marcus. Would you please fetch the Duchess’s drawings for me? I’d like to study them, then we’ll see.” She beamed at her son and her sister-in-law, and left them motionless and speechless in the breakfast room.
Marcus stared at the pages stacked neatly in her small desk. He’d lifted out the drawings she’d made of the well and found other pages were beneath them. Sheet after sheet of music and the words written beneath the notes. The words on one sheet caught his eye and he read:
“ ’E ain’t the man to shout ‘Please, my dear!’
’E’s only a lout who shouts ‘Bring me a beer!’
’E’s a bonny man wit’ a bonny lass
Who troves ’im a tippler right on ’is ass.
And to hove and to trove we go, me boys,
We’ll shout as we please till ship’s ahoy!”
Then he softly began to sing it, a melody very familiar to him, one every lad in the navy sang over and over again, laughing and toasting one another. Still, he couldn’t believe it. The Duchess was R.L. Coots? She’d written all these ditties? He leafed more slowly through them, recognizing nearly all of them. There were at least twenty of them. Beneath the sheets of music were correspondence and legal documents. He smiled. Lord, she’d made a hefty sum on the more recent ones.
She’d supported herself and Badger. She’d done it alone. She had guts, this wife of his. He felt a spurt of pride that made him go soft inside. Pride and something else, something that was already there, deep and endless, this something that was surely love and he had it bad, no, no escape for him nor did he want to. Perhaps he’d loved her from the time she was nine years old and he’d called her the Duchess for the first time. God, he didn’t know, but it was there now, this well of love for her with its unplumbed depths he knew would always be there for him.
Very carefully he returned all the sheets of paper back into the original order. He shut the desk drawer.
She was sleeping soundly, on her side, her hair tumbled around her face and down her back. He saw the even rise of her breasts. He remembered his accusations when he’d gone to Pipwell Cottage. A man had to be keeping her, surely, for she was just a girl, naught more than that, and naturally helpless, as all females were, all of them needing a man to protect them, to support them, to care for them. She’d probably wanted to cosh him, ah, but then she’d been the Duchess, the original Duchess who, to protect herself, had simply drawn away into herself and said nothing, just became still and aloof, and terribly and completely alone. That Duchess would never have thrown a saddle at him, struck him with a riding crop, or hit him with her riding boot. Ah, but she’d written all these songs, that Duchess who was now his, and different too, because if he riled her sufficiently now, she’d likely shoot him.
She’d done it all by herself.
She’d never told him.
As he walked back downstairs, he heard Spears singing in his mind, ditty after ditty in his rich melodious baritone. The sod knew. Badger had told him. Probably even Maggie and Sampson knew. Everyone knew except him.
Why hadn’t she told him?
He handed his mother the two drawings then left the Green Cube Room, whistling a ditty that was surely too risqué for a lady to have penned.
He prayed both of them lived a very long time. He wanted every minute of it with her.
28
BADGER WAS NEARLY frothing at the mouth as he said to Spears, Sampson, and Maggie, “Any of the bleeding bastards could have done it, any of them. Damnation, if they didn’t have the guts for it themselves then they hired someone, aye, the miserable scoundrels. That old besom’s behind it, you know she is.”
“Mr. Badger, calm yourself. Anger won’t help us find the truth here. You said it appeared that they all had alibis. Perplexing, most upsetting actually that you couldn’t find out anything definitive. It is unsettling for all of us.”
Maggie, who’d been studying her thumbnail, said, “Maybe we’re looking in the wrong direction. Maybe it’s someone right here. What was that man’s name in the village? The man who owns that bookstore and is another Wyndham bastard?”
“I don’t remember,” Badger said, looking at her thoughtfully. “But that’s a good idea, Maggie. I’ll ride over there this morning and have a very nice little chat with the man.”
“You be careful now, Mr. Badger. He might be a villain. We’re abounding with villains.”
He didn’t take her words at all lightly. “I will, my dear. Incidentally, that gown you’re wearing is most becoming. That shade of pomona green complements your brilliant hair to perfection.”
“Thank you, Mr. Badger,” she said, giving him a teasing grin.
“I,” Spears sai
d judiciously, “would prefer a soft yellow on you. The green is too overbearing, too certain of itself, it overwhelms. Yes, softer colors would be more the thing on you, Miss Maggie.”
Sampson looked at her only briefly and said, “Who cares what color she’s wearing?”
Maggie laughed, patted both her glorious hair and her beautiful gown, and took her leave. She said over her shoulder, “Sampson is right, you know. Now isn’t the time for undue vanity. I’m going to the Duchess now. The poor lady’s feeling restless and bored. Perhaps the earl will let me wash her hair this morning. He’s been hovering over her, treating her like a half-wit, she complains to me, but he’s worried and I like to see a man so smitten. It’s about time, I say.”
“The earl,” Spears said, “has at last realized how very lucky he is. I too am heartened he has finally succumbed. However, he has also been acting strangely for the past three days. I don’t understand it.”
Badger said, “You’re looking for a mystery that isn’t there, Mr. Spears. He’s just very worried about the Duchess. Damn, why did she have to miscarry the babe?”
“Another score to settle with the person who shot them, Mr. Badger,” Spears said. “It deepens her depression. She blames herself, which is ridiculous, but true nonetheless.”
“She’s also told his lordship that he now has his way. He’ll never have to have a child by her body.”
“What has he said to that, Mr. Badger?”
“I don’t know. Both of them have closed down tighter than castles under siege.”
Spears said, “True, Mr. Badger, but I think there’s even more to it than that, although the miscarriage is more than enough.”
“I would say,” Sampson observed, “that the entire staff is dreadfully worried. The countess is very popular with them. As for the earl, his concern for her has brought them to viewing him as a just master and a husband who is on the mend, so to say. Indeed, I feel they’re quite coming to respect him in full-measure, no mean feat that.”
Wyndham Legacy Page 32
