by M C Beaton
“I thought you were a rake,” said Miss Davenant in childlike wonder.
“I was very wild in my youth,” said the earl, ringing the bell, “and it seems as if the reputation I gained then will be with me to the grave.”
A footman entered, and he asked for Mrs. Carruthers to attend him.
Miss Davenant looked at the door tremulously. She was sure she was being asked to cast a veil of respectability over the earl’s mistress. As a lady, she should refuse. But a new, harder voice in her head was telling her that she was sick of trying to live on gentility. Whoever walked through that door represented comfort and hot meals and servants. It was very generous of dear Charles to offer to pay her an allowance. But she did not know him at all well and if she refused to companion this Mrs. Carruthers, perhaps he might lose his temper with her. Gentlemen were very testy, thought Miss Davenant.
The door opened, and Annabelle came in. She was wearing a black gown, simply and stylishly made. Her hair was neatly braided on top of her head, and her eyes were large and strangely innocent. Why! She’s little more than a child, thought Miss Davenant.
The earl introduced his aunt and then said in a level voice, “my agent is finding a house for you, Mrs. Carruthers. My aunt, should she decide to undertake the job, would be prepared to act as your chaperon. Perhaps you ladies might like to retire to discuss the matter?”
Miss Davenant had dithered all her life. But for once she made up her mind on the spot. “If Mrs. Carruthers is willing,” she said, “then I should deem it an honor to be her companion.”
Annabelle looked at the faded and respectable lady in surprise. She thought it monstrous of the earl to coerce what was obviously a poor relative into chaperoning his mistress. She hesitated and then recognized the desperate appeal in Miss Davenant’s eyes. Here was someone else who needed money badly.
“Thank you, Miss Davenant,” she said quietly. “I am sure we shall deal together extremely well.”
“Then take Miss Davenant off and give her some refreshment,” said the earl, stifling a sigh of relief.
What it was to have money, he thought cynically as both ladies left. All he had to do now was to let Mrs. Carruthers live for a few weeks on his charity and then tell her he had no interest in her as a mistress and that he would supply her with a dowry. By the Little Season she would be able to attend a few functions in half mourning, and he himself would look about for a suitable husband for her. He felt quite a glow of self-righteousness.
Chapter Six
A week had flown past since the earl’s recovery from his fever, a week of bustle and change and arrangements. Annabelle had inspected her new home in Clarence Square in the company of Miss Davenant. It was a pretty house with a saloon and morning room on the ground floor, dining room and drawing room on the first floor, three bedchambers on the second, and bedrooms in the attics for the servants.
Butler, housekeeper, cook, footman, and three maids had all been hired. All Annabelle needed to do was to pack and leave the earl’s town house on the morrow for her new home. The earl had been distant and remote. All his dealings with her had been businesslike. Annabelle tried not to think of the day when she would be his mistress in body as well as name. She was packing her trunks when she found the parcel of Guy’s clothes lying in the bottom of one of them. The smell of brandy was still strong. She opened the parcel and took out the clothes. She would give them to Barnstable to sell or throw away, whichever he wanted to do. But as the reek of stale brandy assaulted her nostrils, she suddenly remembered that brief moment before the ball when Guy had held her hands and told her about the letter he had left for her.
How could she have forgotten that? But the secret place in the paneling was probably a charred ruin like the rest of his bedchamber. But what, was in that letter? Guy’s death had been such a shock. She had not had time to think clearly. There was that hundred pounds. She still had a good deal of that money left and intended to keep it as security. But how had he come by it? When he had approached her at the dance for the money he had given her, he obviously had none left. So some time after leaving her and finding the card room locked up, he must have borrowed the money from someone. Who? Mr. Temple’s fair and foppish face rose before her mind’s eye.
When Emma was abducted, she had been on the road to visit her, Annabelle, and Guy had not only suggested the visit but had arranged the exact time. And Guy had come into a lot of money.
Annabelle felt a stab of fear. What was in that letter? If there was something in it which damned Guy himself as a traitor then she, by dint of being married to him, would appear guilty as well. Instead of throwing away the clothes, she carefully parceled them up again and placed them in the bottom of the trunk and went in search of Lord Darkwood.
She found the earl sitting at a desk in his library. He looked up as she came in. His eyes had a guarded, wary expression. “Yes, Mrs. Carruthers?” he asked.
Annabelle twisted a cambric handkerchief in her fingers, suddenly shy of him.
“I would beg a favor,” she said.
He waited, looking at her curiously.
“I am anxious to have a last look around the Manor as soon as possible,” said Annabelle.
“Indeed?” He threw down his pen. “You sold such effects as had survived the fire, did you not?”
“Yes, and gave that money to Mr. Knight for safekeeping. It was very little, or rather there was very little left after I had paid off the servants and a few remaining bills.”
“So why do you wish to return?”
“Sentimental reasons, my lord.”
“Fustian. You are not returning to your ancestral home, but to a damp, ugly building your husband bought some two years ago. The truth, Mrs. Carruthers.”
Annabelle decided to tell half the truth. “I have always been uneasy in my mind about my husband’s death,” she said. “Yes, he was very drunk when he left your ball. But his clothes were soaked in brandy. The cellars were nearly empty, and I am sure he did not have time to go down before the fire to get the few remaining bottles. I wish to have another look at what is left of his bedchamber.”
The earl’s green gaze was unreadable. She half hoped he would tell her firmly that she was talking nonsense, that Guy had said something before he died, something about having started the fire by accident, but he said calmly, “Very well. I have some business affairs at Delaney. I have bought the Manor from Captain Jamieson, and the builders are already at work on it.” He saw Annabelle blanche, and his interest quickened. “We shall leave tomorrow morning. My aunt may take up residence in Clarence Square and await our return.”
“Thank you,” said Annabelle faintly.
“Is there anything else?”
“N-no.”
“Then you may leave me. I have much work to do.”
Annabelle curtsied and walked out of the room, her heart thudding. They would be traveling together, and she would be able to get to know him better. If only they could become friends, then her situation would not be quite so hard.
She spent the afternoon at her husband’s lawyers where she received a very cool reception, Guy having owed them money when he died. There were no secret assets, no hidden jewels, no stocks or shares: her spendthrift husband had made no provision for her. “I wonder if he even troubled to make a will,” said Annabelle bitterly.
The elderly lawyer gave her a tired look. “You should be thankful, Mrs. Carruthers, that you do not have young children.”
Children! thought Annabelle shakily as she left the lawyers. Guy, in his uglier moods, had called her barren. But what if the fault had lain with Guy? Then any children she had by the earl would be bastards. If only such a thing could be prevented. Men, she knew, could wear a condom, that contraceptive device invented in the previous century supposedly by a Colonel Cundum. But they only bothered to wear one when consorting with prostitutes and so avoid getting the pox, or so Guy had told her. Perhaps Matilda might know of some way in which a female could avoid beco
ming pregnant. But Matilda was no longer a friend. Matilda had turned her away.
Barnstable let her into the earl’s house. The one thing that pleased Annabelle in her misery was the transformation of the house. It was clean and polished and smelled of beeswax and fresh flowers. The maids in their new dresses looked smart and efficient, although Annabelle feared that when the novelty of discipline wore off, they would soon return to their lazy ways. The maids’ outfits had been made in a very short time, and she hoped the earl would not find the seamstress’s bill too steep. But one always had to pay a lot more to have something made up quickly.
As usual, the earl did not dine with her. A meal was served to her in the drawing room while the earl ate in solitary state in the dining room. She wondered gloomily if this pattern would continue after she took up her duties as his mistress; if there was to be no intimacy other than sex between them.
At eight o’clock she was sitting sewing in her room when she heard a great commotion outside the house. Her window overlooked the front of the house. She went to it and drew back the curtains and looked down. There were three carriages full of bucks and bloods and their doxies.
She swung around as Barnstable entered the room. “Dear, oh dear,” he said. “Quite like old times. When the master had the fever afore he was struck down with it, he was drinking hard in the clubs, and he must have invited all these wastrels to a party. Best lock your door, mum, till we gets rid o’ them.”
After he had left, Annabelle did as he had bidden her and tried to take up her sewing again. But the noise from downstairs was enormous. When she was his mistress, would she be expected to preside over such gatherings? What did these women do?
No one seemed to be coming up as far as the bed chambers. After an hour, she unlocked the door and crept along the passage to the landing. She leaned over the banisters. Two couples were dancing to a tune played on the mandolin by a drunken guest. The women’s rouged faces were slack with drink. The men fondled their breasts as they danced. One man suddenly bore his partner down to the floor and mounted her. The other couple cheered and called to the rest of the company who spilled out into the hall to cheer the amorous couple on to further efforts. The earl was among them. He suddenly looked up and saw Annabelle at the top of the stairs and frowned and waved his hand in dismissal. She retreated to her room and locked the door and sat down with her legs shaking. What had she done?
At least her life with Guy had had some shreds of respectability.
Downstairs the earl surveyed his cavorting guests in disgust. The riots and parties that had amused him in his youth seemed appalling now. He opened the street door and began to usher his guests, some of them half clad, out into the street.
When the last had gone, he looked about at the glasses and bottles and mess with a scowl. In that moment he realized just how much Annabelle had changed the house. What on earth could she be thinking, and why on earth hadn’t she stayed in her room?
He mounted the stairs and knocked on her door and called out, “It is I. Darkwood. Open the door.”
He heard the key turn in the lock, and then Annabelle stood there, her eyes lowered.
“I told you to stay in your room,” he said harshly. “What if someone had seen you?”
Annabelle kept her eyes lowered. “I am sorry,” she said, “but I felt I must accustom myself to your way of life, to the ways of a mistress and…”
“I shall not expect you to behave like a trollop,” he said harshly. “Such an affair will not happen again. Go to sleep. We leave at seven.”
Annabelle curtsied, her eyelashes still lowered.
He turned away, furious with her, furious at himself. To hell with her. Soon she would be his pensioner, and he need never see her again. He would urge his aunt to take her about during the Little Season and to make sure she met suitable gentlemen, but he himself would concentrate on his own marriage plans.
Annabelle had dreaded the thought of being confined in a closed carriage with him on the journey. She felt as if a veil had been torn from her eyes. He was indeed a rake. But she found herself alone. He rode outside the carriage, and when they stopped for the night at a posting inn, he had his meals served to him in a private parlor, leaving her to dine in solitary splendor in her own private parlor. It was late when they arrived in Upper Chipping. Annabelle was not destined to stay at Delaney. He took rooms for her at the local inn and then rode off, saying he would call on her in the morning and take her to the Manor.
She lay awake for a long time, wondering what was going to happen to her. The earl was hard and remote, a stranger. How could she cope with the intimacies of a stranger? Guy had loved her in his fashion and that love had sustained her through the drunken rows and beatings and debt and humiliation. She turned her face into the pillow and cried for Guy, mourned him, for the very first time, falling asleep at last, weary with grief.
The earl arrived just as she was finishing breakfast. The day was fine and sunny, and he drove her in an open carriage out along the leafy lanes to the Manor. Builders were busy at work. The earl helped Annabelle down and then walked with her into the house. “I had better assist you,” he said. “The building is still unsafe.”
“I would rather be alone,” said Annabelle determinedly. “If you do not mind.”
“I shall escort you to your husband’s room and leave you with your… er… grief, Mrs. Carruthers.”
They walked silently up the stairs until they reached Guy’s bedroom. Annabelle stood in the doorway.
“Do not venture in,” cautioned the earl. “You may fall through the floor.”
He turned and went down the stairs. Annabelle waited, not knowing that the earl had only gone as far as the first landing and was waiting as well. Her eyes flew to the far wall. It was charred black, but perhaps the spring that operated the secret panel still worked. She inched her way around the edge of the room, hoping that if the floor did give way, she could hang onto something on the walls like, say, one of the sconces or the mantelpiece.
The earl, who had darted quietly back up the stairs, stood just outside the door, looking round it, watching her, forcing himself not to rush forward for he was sure that any minute the floor would give and she would plunge to her death.
He saw her remove her gloves and press on something on the charred paneling. There was a click, and a section of the paneling swung open. Annabelle took out a sealed letter and slipped it into her reticule.
He moved away quietly and retreated downstairs, but listening all the time to make sure she was safe. When he heard her step on the stairs, he began to mount again as if he had been down in the hall all the time.
Annabelle started at the sight of him and clutched her reticule tightly to her bosom.
“Well?” he demanded.
“I beg your pardon?” Annabelle’s eyes were very dark in her white face.
“Have you any idea as to how your husband met his death?”
Annabelle shook her head.
“There were brandy bottles,” he said, “empty, in one corner of the room. They have been removed. Did he have them sent up from the cellars?”
“I do not think so,” said Annabelle. She wanted to tell him, to tell someone, about the mysterious Mr. Temple. But if Mr. Temple had paid Guy for something criminal then perhaps she would be implicated in that crime. Justice was notoriously cruel to wives. A woman had been hanged only the other day because her husband had tortured and killed one of their maids. Although it was evident to Annabelle reading the evidence that the woman had been too terrified of her brutal husband to do anything to help the girl, she, too, was found guilty. Better to read the letter first.
They walked down the stairs together. The earl said curtly that he had to speak to the builders, and Annabelle said she would wait outside the front of the house.
She waited until he had turned a corner of the house and then walked away across the lawn to the shade of a cedar tree and took out the letter and broke open the half-melted
seal. The paper was stiff and yellow from the heat of the fire, but the words were legible.
“My dear wife,” she read, “I am writing this in a sentimental moment. I am sure I shall come about. But should anything happen to me, I swear on my mother’s grave I am not a traitor. They gave me money to help in the abduction of the Comtesse Saint Juste. It was a joke, they said, and they had no intention of harming her. I knew they were traitors afterward. Now they are back again, and I need the money. But I am cleverer than they, and after a few days, I shall report them to the authorities. What can they do to me?
“But I saw a rook today and the bird looked at me oddly, almost like a human. I felt it was an omen. Should anything happen to me, my sweeting, rest assured I am not a traitor and that, poor husband as I am, I love you. Guy.”
Annabelle’s hands trembled. Had “they” come for him in the night, poured brandy over his sleeping body, and set the room alight?
She saw the earl rounding the corner of the house and stuffed the letter in her reticule and walked toward him.
He looked at her curiously but only said that they should set out for London immediately.
The earl was determined to see that letter. But when they stopped at a posting house for the night, he noticed Annabelle kept her reticule firmly attached to her wrist.
He awoke at four in the morning and listened to the silence of the inn. He swung his long muscular legs out of bed and pulled on his dressing gown. He would creep into Annabelle’s room and take a quick look at that letter. He was consumed with curiosity. He was beginning to think, more and more, that Guy Carruthers had been murdered.
He made his way to her room and gently tried the door. It was locked. He stood frowning, and then he remembered that one key to one door in the inn usually fitted the others. He returned to his own room and took the key from the door and then fitted it gently into the lock of Annabelle’s bedroom door. There was a slight click, and the door swung open.
