by Mary Balogh
And yet, Christopher discovered when he had finally been abandoned to his own devices in the doorway of the antechamber to the throne room, the presentations to the queen had barely begun. The doors into the inner sanctum were open, and people were beginning to file through, but the antechamber itself still swarmed with people.
And Elizabeth was still there, he saw, hanging back so that she would not see him. He should not have come, he thought immediately. She would be annoyed to see him there. She would think that he did not trust her. But he had wanted to see her more than anything in the world. And there had been almost a compulsive need to see her, as if even now she was not safe from all harm.
She was with Poole close to the door into the throne room. But she was looking pale and bewildered. And he was looking stiff and furious. Alarm bells sounded in Christopher’s mind. Something was wrong. She had not after all been able to resist telling him the truth.
Or more likely he had discovered it for himself somehow. They were not about to have a public row, were they?
And then someone touched his sleeve. He nodded politely at Lord Hardinge, husband of one of Nancy’s newly formed friends. But the man had not approached him merely to greet him.
“A word with you, Trevelyan,” he said, and they stepped back, just beyond the doorway into the antechamber.
Christopher raised his eyebrows.
“I saw you arrive,” Lord Hardinge said. “You may wish to turn tail and make your way back the way you came, old chap. The cat is out of the bag.”
Poor Elizabeth, Christopher thought. Her efforts to save Poole from public humiliation were about to explode in her face. Someone had heard wedding bells.
“Someone—I have no idea who—has circulated the rumor that you were the masked rider who kidnapped Lady Elizabeth from her wedding to Poole a while ago,” Lord Hardinge said. “And that the two of you spent a few weeks, er, cohabiting. I don’t know if there is any truth in the story, old chap, but there does not need to be in a situation like this. And Landsdowne has just been idiot enough to whisper the story in Poole’s ear. A nasty situation, Trevelyan. I would make off with all haste if I were you.”
Christ! It was far worse than he had thought from that one glance he had had of them. And somehow, Christopher thought as he nodded a curt thanks to Lord Hardinge and turned to stride into the antechamber rather than away from it, Martin was responsible for this. What better way to stop Elizabeth from marrying Poole and to ensure that she would want to leave London behind her for a long time to come?
Elizabeth and Lord Poole had reached the open doorway by the time Christopher had elbowed his way toward them. A gorgeously uniformed court official had turned toward them for their names so that he could lead them forward to the throne and present them to the queen. But Lord Poole stopped to face her, and he spoke to her in an appallingly distinct voice. It carried at least halfway across the antechamber.
“No,” he said, “I cannot do this. I cannot have my name linked with a fornicator. I cannot bow to my queen with this woman by my side.”
Elizabeth, Christopher saw, somehow as if time had been suspended and was moving at only a fraction of its normal speed, raised her chin. She was facing the appalling ordeal of having to tum back into the room and walk through it and past more than half the beau monde, most of whom had heard what Poole had said, and all of whom must have heard the gossip that Hardinge had just repeated.
Christopher stepped forward, ahead of Lord Poole. Now it was all clear to him. Yes, Martin was responsible. Of course he was. But Poole had been his dupe just like so many other people and had set the story in motion himself so that he could publicly dissociate himself from Elizabeth and perhaps gain some points for courage and moral rectitude. Christopher bowed and reached out his arm for Elizabeth’s.
“My lady?” he said in a voice quite as distinct as Lord Poole’s had just been. He looked at the uniformed court official. “The Earl and Countess of Trevelyan,” he said. “Married just this morning.”
He did not look back. But he could imagine that it was Poole and not Elizabeth who now had to make his way back red-faced through the antechamber.
Elizabeth walked silently at Christopher’s side, her arm resting on his. They walked the length of the throne room, past the red velvet draperies and gilded pillars on either side, beneath the stuccoed and painted ceiling with its elaborate candelabrum. They walked past the Regent and his dinner guests, past those who had already been presented to Her Majesty, and approached the throne beneath its canopy at the far end of the room.
The queen inclined her head graciously to them as she had to those who had gone before when the court official had murmured their names. Christopher bowed deeply and Elizabeth curtsied low. And then the official leaned forward and murmured again.
“Newly marritt?” the queen said with her heavy German accent.
“Vhen vere you marritt?”
“This morning, your majesty,” Christopher said.
“This morning. Ach!” The stiff little queen smiled benevolently at them. “I vish you much happiness and many children.”
“Thank you, your majesty,” they murmured together and were ushered to one side to make way for the next arrivals.
Christopher, for the benefit of those gathered in the throne room, and for his own satisfaction too, raised his wife’s hand to his lips and kissed it.
Chapter 31
FOR several minutes John had been trying to persuade himself to leave the Pulteney.
“Tell me to go away,” he said, kissing Nancy and preventing her from telling him any such thing. “It’s late and you have no chaperone.”
“Go away,” she said, kissing the side of his jaw.
He sighed and got resolutely to his feet just as a loud knocking sounded on the outer door. He drew Nancy to her feet and kissed her again as they waited for Winnie or Antoine to answer the summons.
But there was another knock and no sign of either of the two servants. John answered the door himself.
He came back into the sitting room a couple of minutes later, when Nancy was feeling rather alarmed at the prolonged sound of quiet voices.
“It is Martin,” he said. His face, she noticed, had lost all its color.
“He has been murdered.”
Nancy stood very still.
“There were witnesses,” John said. “He was stabbed by a small man, who was driving your brother’s carriage. Antoine is not here, Nancy. Did he go with Christopher?”
“No,” she said. She knew that the men who had come were just outside the door, probably within earshot.
“Do you have any idea where he might have gone?” John’s eyes looked intently into hers.
She shook her head.
“It seems that your maid has gone too,” John said. “I have told these men that both servants came up from Penhallow with you and Christopher and will almost certainly be headed back there. Would you agree?”
“Yes,” she said. “They would have nowhere else to go. That is where they will be running, no doubt, hoping that no one will pursue them that far. Murder—it is a dreadful crime.”
“Yes,” John said, “it is.”
He talked quietly outside the door for another few minutes before rejoining Nancy in the sitting room. He looked rather like a ghost, she thought.
“I forgot about Antoine,” he said. “I forgot that he had as good a reason as either Christopher or I to kill Martin but none of the reasons to stay his hand. He stabbed him with a knife, Nancy, in full view of two witnesses.”
“At least,” she said with an attempt at calmness, “neither you nor Christopher can be a suspect.”
“He will be fleeing the country,” John said. “I hope there is a suitable ship ready to sail.”
“Yes,” Nancy said. “Will they pursue him to Devonshire first before they start thinking of ships?”
“Unless they discover more of his identity,” he said. “Your maid seems to have gone with him.”
“She worships him,” Nancy said.
They had been standing calmly at almost opposite sides of the room.
“Martin is dead,” John said, passing a hand over his eyes. “Oh, God. Why do I feel like crying? I have looked on battlefields where thousands have lain dead. And many of them good men.”
“He was your brother,” Nancy said quietly, hurrying toward him and putting her arms about him.
“I am going to have to go and tell my father,” he said. “Perhaps the news has not reached Grosvenor Square yet. Oh, God, and Elizabeth. I am going to have to tell her too.”
“Yes,” Nancy said, setting her face against his neckcloth and closing her eyes briefly. “Go to them, John. I must stay here with Christina.”
He kissed her swiftly and fiercely. “I am sorry I did not have the courage to do for you what Antoine did for his Winnie,” he said.
Nancy smiled. “Martin was your brother,” she said. “I am glad you did not kill your brother even for me, John.”
But she was glad, she thought, staring at the closed door after he had left the suite, that Martin was dead.
God help her, she was glad. She prayed silently that An-toine would escape safely to Canada and live happily ever after with Winnie.
Nancy spread her hands over her face and wept.
Elizabeth settled into one corner of the carriage while Christopher sat in the other. She had behaved mindlessly during what had remained of the evening after the presentation to the queen. She had resolutely refused to think or to try to have a private word with Christopher. She had smiled and received with cool graciousness the congratulations of those who had been turning on her in the antechamber to the throne room just a short while earlier. Manley had disappeared.
There was silence until the carriage began to move.
“He did it quite deliberately, didn’t he?” she said quietly.
“Somehow he found out the truth and decided to punish me. It would have been very effective punishment. The humiliation would doubtless have driven me from society for a very long time. I did not realize that he was capable of thinking up such a clever and heartless scheme.”
“He had help,” Christopher said.
She looked across at him. “Help?” she said. “From whom?”
He was gazing straight ahead. “From Martin,” he said.
She looked at him in incomprehension. “Martin?” she said. “How foolish. If Martin had had any idea of what Manley knew and planned, he would have gone out of his way to protect me. He would have whisked me off back to Kingston. Martin always protects me. Rather too much, perhaps.”
His silence was disturbing. She could tell that he was trying to bring himself to speak but could not do so.
“What do you mean,” she asked in annoyance, “by saying that Martin helped Manley?”
“It would have got you back to Kingston, wouldn’t it?” he said. “If you were not married to me, that is. But before this evening no one knew about that except John and Nancy. And you and I, of course. Poole’s public denunciation would have got you back to Kingston for a very long time. Perhaps for the rest of your life. Martin would have had you to himself again. He would have had a lifetime in which to comfort you. He is expert at doing that, isn’t he?”
“What are you suggesting?” She could feel anger rising.
“That he is obsessed with you,” he said. “That he must have you to himself. That he will go to any lengths— any lengths—to make sure that you belong to him and to no one else.”
“That is a vicious and cruel thing to say,” she said, her eyes blazing at him. “You are jealous of him, Christopher, because he has always been good to me and always kind and faithful. You hate him because he is only my stepbrother while you were my husband, yet he has shown you what selfless love and fidelity are.”
“Elizabeth.” He closed his eyes. His voice sounded weary. “I know you have always loved him. I know the two of you have always been close. And yes, I know that in many ways he has always been good to you. Will you listen to what I have to say? There is quite a lot of it and you will want to shout me down from the beginning. Will you listen? I might add that John can vouch for the truth of everything I am about to say.”
“John?” She looked at him, puzzled.
“Yes.” He nodded. “Will you hear what I have to say?”
“Say it,” she said, lifting her chin. “But if you are going to try to turn me against Martin, then you might as well save your breath. You can only succeed in making me despise you more.”
“Lucy Fenwick,” he said, “the woman who—”
“I remember who Lucy Fenwick is,” she said, her voice icy.
Christopher drew a deep breath. “Martin paid her rent,” he said, “and gave her other large sums of money. He paid her passage to America, and the child’s, after our divorce. He led me into a trap when he had me summoned to her house with the message that she was a Johnson from Penhallow and in trouble. And he brought you fast on my heels.”
She knew instantly that he spoke the truth. There was no reason in the world why he would say what he had just said if he could not prove it and if John could not corroborate his words. He was telling the truth. Perhaps that was why she was so furious.
“It is a lie!” she said, her voice shaking. “A filthy lie, Christopher. Set me down. I’ll walk home.”
“Hear me out,” he said. “There is a great deal more.”
She turned her head away sharply and gazed at the dark paneling of the carriage while he talked.
“That gambling incident in Oxford and the unfortunate suicide that followed it really happened,” he said. “I was there while poor Morrison was stripped of his fortune. And I am ashamed that like the other spectators I did nothing to try to put an end to the game even though it was obvious that he was too foxed to know what he was doing. But I was not a player in that game, Elizabeth. Martin found out about the incident from someone else who had been there—from someone who was conveniently leaving England to take up a post in Ireland.”
He paused as if expecting her to say something but she continued to stare at the paneling as if to see through to the other side.
“The man who identified me as the one that left the theater with the unfortunate girl who was later found beaten and dead,” Christopher said, “has recently admitted that Martin paid him to say so.”
Elizabeth set the side of her head against the paneling and closed her eyes.
“Divorce for simple adultery is rarely granted against a husband,” he said. “There usually have to be other aggravating circumstances. Brutalizing a whore and causing her death is not good husbandly behavior, is it? Neither is gambling for outrageously high stakes and driving an opponent to take his own life. And we had to be separated forever, Elizabeth, however many reckless charges it took. You had to be broken completely so that you could be nursed back to health and happiness at Kingston by a devoted brother.”
She said nothing.
“I know you are listening,” he said, “and I know you are understanding what has happened, Elizabeth, and believing me. I know you are beginning to suffer. Forgive me. I must tell you everything.”
“There is more?” Her voice seemed disembodied. It sounded very normal. She listened to her words as if someone else had spoken them.
“Before our marriage,” he said, “while we were at Kingston Park, Nancy went home to Penhallow instead of staying for our wedding. I was annoyed with her.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“She went home,” he said, “because Martin had beaten and raped her.”
Elizabeth made a sound deep in her throat. She could not have spoken or cried or opened her eyes to save her life.
“I must confine myself mainly to facts,” he said, “but I will add that his motive was probably anger, frustration, and bitterness over the fact that he was about to lose you to me.”
She moaned. “Is that all now?” she asked. There was pleadi
ng in her voice. “That must be all. Oh, please, that must be all.”
“I don’t think Martin could have wanted you to return recently to London and society,” he said. “It must have been your idea, Elizabeth.”
She opened her eyes at last. “He did not want me hurt again,” she said. “He thought I would be happier at Kingston.”
“You have seen this evening how he intended to ensure both that you did not marry Poole and that you left London again,” he said.
“He had plans to make sure that you would not turn to me either, Elizabeth.”
Yes, she thought wearily, there would have been plans. Of course there would. He would have turned her against Christopher again.
“When I asked Christina to spend the night at the Pul-teney,” he said, “when I insisted upon it, I did it for a reason. I was not playing the part of autocratic husband.”
“He did not mean to harm Christina.” She looked at him, pleading in her eyes. “He would not do that, Christopher. Oh, please, he would not harm a child.”
“He wanted me to kidnap her,” he said. “He argued that if I did so and took her to Penhallow, you would follow me and realize that you belonged there with me.”
“I would have hated you forever,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said, “I know. That is what he intended, I went along with his scheme, Elizabeth. Oh, don’t worry. Christina has been with Nancy at the Pulteney all evening. She was fast asleep when I left for Carlton House. Martin brought her to the hotel, took my kidnapping note back to you, presumably showed it to your father without delay, and came riding after my carriage with a large escort of your father’s stoutest servants. I had Antoine with me, and John came riding out of the shadows before it was all over.”
“So,” she said and was surprised again at how steady her voice sounded, “when I arrived back at Grosvenor Square distraught over what Manley had done to me at Carlton House, I was to be greeted with the news that you had kidnapped Christina and would have escaped with her if Martin had not caught up to you in time. Yes, I would have been on my way to Kingston again tomorrow, wouldn’t I? And this time I would have stayed for the rest of my life.”
