Beguiled

by Joanna Chambers

  “You are passionate about this,” David observed into the silence that followed. It occurred to him that if he was being a proper host, he would change a subject that seemed to be causing one of his guests distress, but he couldn’t help thinking that it may do Elizabeth good to hear this.

  Euan turned his head to look at David. “I am,” he admitted. “My father beat my mother like a dog. One night, it was so bad Peter took a poker to him and drove him out of the house. He never came back. Peter was only fourteen, and the rest of us all under ten. Mam died a few days later. He’d broken something inside her, and we couldn’t afford a physician.”

  Elizabeth made a choked sound at that, and Euan turned to her at once, paling at her look of distress.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I forgot myself—I shouldn’t have spoken so frankly.”

  “No, no,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s just that—it’s horrible, Mr. MacLennan. Losing your mother in such an awful way. My own father is such a gentle man, isn’t he, Mr. Lauriston?”

  David nodded. “Your father is the very best of men,” he agreed, noticing she made no mention of her husband.

  “Why can’t all men be like that?” she asked, and though the question was put quietly, somehow David knew it was a cry from the heart. Those expressive eyes, wounded and astonished, gave her away.

  David watched her carefully. “I don’t understand it,” he said. “There were at least two women in my home village who were regularly beaten by their husbands. One of them was a cousin of my mother’s. She used to take refuge in our home when her man had been drinking. It’s worst for women like that, who are poor. They have no power to change their circumstances. No financial power—”

  “No woman has any financial power!” Elizabeth interrupted raggedly.

  David fell silent.

  “No married woman,” she added, shambling her neutral mask back on.

  “You’re right, of course,” David agreed evenly, watching her. The swift rise and fall of her chest betrayed her extreme agitation. “Even a rich woman is a pauper in marriage.”

  “It’s not merely that married women have no property, Mr. Lauriston,” Elizabeth replied quietly. “It’s that they are property.”

  “Mrs. Gilmour says that marriage is a form of slavery, under the law,” Euan said then. “It is the greatest of all injustices.”

  Elizabeth nodded, then flushed, as though she’d only just realised what she’d given away. She averted her gaze and shrugged one slender shoulder. “I suppose it could be like slavery, if the husband wields his power unfairly.” She gave a false little laugh. “Goodness, how serious we are being, and on such a day! Do you think the procession will come back down the hill soon? I am going to have a look.”

  Just like that, she broke away from the two men and hastened across the room to the window where her sister stood. Putting an arm around the other woman’s waist, she tilted her head to rest on Catherine’s shoulder.

  “I’ll warrant she knows precisely what it is to submit to the yoke of marriage,” Euan muttered when she was out of earshot. “Did you see her neck, Davy?”

  David nodded. “Looked like fingerprints.” He paused, then added, even more quietly, “I’ve heard some things about her husband.”

  “What things?”

  “Not much. Just that he brutalised younger boys at school.”

  “Once a brute, always a brute,” Euan muttered. “She should leave him.”

  “He is her husband—if she ran away from him, he would be within his rights to demand she return.” David swallowed against the sick feeling that observation stirred in him. “He owns her.”

  Euan didn’t say anything to that, but he pressed his lips together, his eyes still fixed on the two sisters.

  “I really did remember her, you know,” he said at last. “From that assembly we went to. She waved at you. Then later, you danced with her. She looked at you like you’d hung the moon in the sky for her. I was sure she was in love with you.”

  “She wasn’t in love with me,” David murmured. “She was just being a typical young lady at an assembly. Happy. Excited.”

  “I know what I saw.” Euan turned his head and smiled at David. “I thought you were a lucky dog. Did you make a bid for her hand? I suppose her family thought you weren’t good enough?”

  David shook his head. “I didn’t think of her in that way, but even if I had, her mother would have opposed me, I imagine.”

  He didn’t mention that Chalmers would have given him his eldest daughter’s hand in a heartbeat.

  “Can you imagine what they would think of someone like me?” Euan laughed, though his laughter held a bitter tinge. “A working-class radical without so much as two brass ha’pennies to rub together. Yet I would make a better husband than the one she has, if those bruises are anything to go by.”

  They stood for a moment longer, united in silent agreement. Then the wheezing drone of the bagpipes started up outside and Catherine gave a squeal of excitement and everyone rushed to the windows again to watch the procession come back down the Lawnmarket from Castlehill.

  Euan took a notebook and a bit of worn-down pencil from the inside pocket of his coat. He began to make quick, neat notes in his book. David saw the pages were close-written, the lines economically crossed, written right to left, then bottom to top, the results almost indecipherable.

  Euan glanced at David, noting his interest. “I was telling the truth, you know,” he muttered. “I am a journalist.”

  “And is that the only reason you came to Edinburgh? To write a story?”

  “Yes.”

  Just that. Yes.

  There were so many other questions David wanted to ask. Had Euan searched for Hugh Swinburne when he ran away two years ago? Was that what had taken him to London in the first place? And if he was only here as a journalist, why come to see David? That last one bothered him enough that he put it to Euan, keeping his voice low.

  “Did you really come to my door today looking for a view?”

  A pause. “No, of course not.”

  Ah.

  “What then?”

  Euan reached into his coat again. “I wanted to give you this.” He drew out a small leather purse, which he pressed into David’s hand.

  “What’s this?”

  It was a stupid question. He could see very well what it was, and feel the weight of the coins inside.

  “It’s the money you gave me,” Euan said. “I told you I’d repay you, didn’t I?”

  David frowned, remembering Euan’s serious gaze as they parted on an empty stairwell of the Imperial Hotel, remembering pushing his purse into Euan’s hands and urging him to get away.

  Not to look back.

  “Thank you,” David murmured. He didn’t know what else to say. He’d never looked to get the money back and he didn’t need it. But clearly it was important to Euan that the debt be repaid, so he tucked the purse into his pocket.

  “How long will you be in town?” he asked after a pause.

  “For the duration of the King’s stay. I’ll write three or four pieces, I expect. Impressions of Edinburgh During the King’s Visit. Something like that.” Euan nodded at the window. “It won’t all be about this type of thing. Tomorrow I’m going down to the Cowgate slums.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought you’d need to visit them to write about them,” David replied quietly. “You’ve stayed there yourself.”

  “That feels like a long time ago,” Euan replied.

  “Only two years.”

  “A lot’s changed for me since then. Unpopular as Flint’s is with the powers that be, it sells well and I get paid good money for what I do. I live quite well now. Not as grand as you”—he smiled, raising an eyebrow at David—“but well enough. I’ve gotten used to my comforts. I need to go back to remind myself what it’s like in those old tenements.”

  Just then, the rest of David’s guests sent up a little cheer, drawing their attention back to
the windows. Euan craned his neck to see out and began to scribble in his notebook again.

  It wasn’t long before the procession was over, the cavalcade of peers and troops on its way down the Mound, the crowds that had lined the streets below since early morning slowly dissipating.

  Within half an hour of it being over, a knock came at the door. David went to answer it and was surprised to find a footman in livery standing there. His thin, pale face was coolly impassive but for the faintest curl of his upper lip. That curl—that almost imperceptible sneer—betrayed his contempt of David’s modest rooms.

  “Lady Kinnell’s manservant,” the man said by way of clipped introduction. “Here to escort her to her carriage.”

  Suddenly, Elizabeth was at David’s shoulder.

  “Fraser,” she said in a strained tone of voice. “What are you doing here? Mr. Ferguson is taking me home.”

  Fraser’s expression didn’t alter. “His lordship sent me,” he informed her. The tone of his voice was neutral, and yet that faint sneer remained in place.

  David could see that this man did not respect his mistress.

  Elizabeth nodded jerkily. “I need to put my bonnet on,” she said. “Wait here, please.”

  David didn’t like the way the man inclined his head, as though granting her leave. He didn’t like his cold demeanour or his watchfulness. He had the distinct feeling that every detail Fraser saw was being stored away for future use.

  When Elizabeth came back, she had her sister and brother-in-law in tow. Catherine looked as though she was trying to hide her anger. Ferguson looked wary.

  “It’s perfectly all right,” Elizabeth was saying to her sister soothingly. “Alasdair’s just being considerate. He’s very protective; you know that.”

  Catherine looked far from convinced. Her brow was pleated with worry, her normally smiling mouth pinched and unhappy. Her frown didn’t ease even when Elizabeth leaned in to buss her cheek.

  “Will we see you tomorrow, Lizzie?” she asked, a fretful edge to her voice.

  “I hope so,” said Elizabeth with a small smile, one that she extended to her sister’s husband before she turned to David. Her expression became very reserved.

  “Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Lauriston,” she said coolly. Her tone invited no intimacy in front of her watchful manservant.

  “You’re welcome, my lady,” David said, equally formally, taking his lead from her. He thought he saw a glimmer of gratitude in her dark gaze for a moment, but it was gone so quickly he might’ve imagined it, and then she was sweeping out the door, her servant at her heels.

  It struck David as he watched her leave that she looked as though she was going to face some ordeal, and that the man escorting her acted more like a gaoler than a manservant.

  Was he being fanciful? Reading more into what he saw because of what Balfour had told him? But no, Elizabeth’s own words, her distress at Euan’s story about his mother, the way she hid herself behind that distant mask in front of her servant, and most of all, those bruises on her neck—all of it pointed to something being terribly wrong. As David closed the door behind her, he couldn’t help but feel worried and angry. Couldn’t help but wonder if he would ever see her again, or if her husband would spirit her off to his estate, far away in Galloway, and keep her there.

  “Davy.”

  He turned to find Euan standing behind him, seeming agitated. The Fergusons must’ve returned to the parlour—there was no one else in the hall.

  “I’m sorry, but I must go now,” Euan said. His eyes flickered past David to the closed door. “I had no idea what time it was. I’m...a bit late for something.”

  He stepped forward, and David automatically moved aside.

  “You’d better away, then,” David said, adding truthfully, “It was good to see you, Euan.”

  Euan stopped midstep, caught in the doorway. He turned to David, his gaze oddly intent, as though he was considering saying something. In that moment, he seemed more like the old Euan than he had at any other time today, fresh-faced and youthful, his fair hair falling down over his brow, his sandy lashes doing nothing to veil his searching gaze. A handsome man, this one—and a serious one. “It was good to see you too,” he said. A pause. “I didn’t just come to return the money, you know.”

  “No?”

  “No. I wanted to thank you for everything you did for me.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Yes, you did. You helped me over and over again—and you stopped me making the biggest mistake of my life. I’ll always be grateful to you.”

  For a moment, he looked as though he’d say more, but the only other words that came out were a mumbled, “Good-bye, Davy,” and then he was out the door and heading down the stairwell at a run, his boots clattering on the stone steps.

  Chapter Five

  Friday, 16th August, 1822

  Chalmers was not well. He didn’t seem as bad as he’d been in the spring, but he looked worryingly tired. Shrunken too, his once-round frame swamped by a brocade dressing gown that would have fit him snugly when David first met him. Pain etched deep grooves into his forehead and at either side of his mouth.

  “Thank you for coming round,” the older man said, smiling weakly. “As you can see, I’m under the weather again.” They were sitting in his study, Chalmers ensconced in the large chair behind the desk, David on the other side. It was their usual sitting arrangement and would have felt quite ordinary, had Chalmers been dressed for business. In his dressing gown, though, he looked incongruous.

  “It’s no trouble.” David smiled, disguising his worry behind an easy expression.

  “I wanted to ask you a favour,” Chalmers continued. “I’m supposed to be part of the faculty’s delegation at Holyrood on Monday, but there’s no question of me being able to go. Will you go in my place?”

  The faculty’s opportunity to meet with and address the King? Was Chalmers serious?

  David laughed, shaking his head. “Me? There must be fifty men who’d be more suitable to replace you. More eager too.”

  Chalmers’s expression didn’t alter. He was utterly unreadable when he wanted to be. “I’ve already spoken to the Dean, and he’s agreed.”

  David frowned then. After a pause, he said, “Why do you want this? What’s it really about?”

  Chalmers smiled as though amused by David’s suspicion. “What am I always telling you, lad? You need to move in the right circles, talk to the right sort of people. Call it leading the horse to water, if you like.”

  David’s heart sank. “Is that it? You don’t have to—”

  “Oh, I think I do. You keep burying yourself in your books and hoping people will appreciate you for your work. The trouble is they don’t.”

  “You do.”

  “I won’t be around forever.”

  David swallowed, wondering how serious Chalmers’s illness was. “I don’t want to let you down,” he said after a brief silence.

  Chalmers gave a soft, wheezy chuckle. “You won’t. In fact, you can’t, not when I don’t really care what happens once you get there. The fact is, I’m not obliged to find a replacement, but I told the Dean I wanted to so I could send you.

  “I know you hate the thought of going, but please, consider it. The other five delegates are the Dean, the Vice-Dean, Braeburn, MacIver and Irvine. It’s an excellent opportunity to further your acquaintance with them. Apart from MacIver, they all have more work than they can manage.”

  David sighed. “How can I say no when you’ve gone to such trouble?”

  “That’s the spirit.” Despite his hearty words, Chalmers’s voice was thready, and his skin had a greyish hue. He closed his eyes, as though their conversation had tired him.

  “Are you well?” David asked, placing his hand on the older man’s where it rested on the desk. “Should I call for a servant?”

  Chalmers shook his head. “I’ll be all right in a minute. Stay. I wanted to talk to you about something else.”<
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  “All right.” David sat back and waited for Chalmers to rally a bit. There was a tightness about the man’s jaw, as though he was in pain. Eventually, though, his grim expression relaxed a bit, and he seemed to come back to himself.

  “Elizabeth is in town,” he said at last. “I gather from Catherine that you’ve seen her?”

  David nodded. “They came to watch the procession from my rooms.”

  “How did she seem to you?”

  David paused, considering how to respond. He didn’t want to worry the older man, but...

  “She didn’t seem her usual self,” he said at last, honestly.

  Chalmers’s face seemed to crumble a little, as though David’s words were both a worry and a relief. “I’m anxious about her,” the older man admitted. “She’s been different since her marriage. Subdued. Lizzie was never subdued with me.”

  Not with anyone, David thought, but he stayed silent, waiting for Chalmers to reveal the purpose of this shared confidence.

  “I never wanted that marriage,” Chalmers continued after a while, his usual calm demeanour fracturing to reveal the concerned parent. “I thought she’d choose someone—well, never mind what I thought. I’m just worried. She doesn’t seem happy.”

  His anxious gaze landed on David, and in that moment, David understood that his own fears had not been idle. Her own father had seen the same changes in her and reached the same conclusions.

  “What do you need from me?” he asked quietly.

  Chalmers sighed. “If something happens to me, I don’t want her to have no one she can go to. I don’t want her to be isolated. Her mother—” He broke off, taking a deep breath before continuing more calmly. “I’d feel better if I knew someone else was keeping an eye on her. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I don’t know who else to speak to. Donald’s a good lad, but he’s not the type to make waves.”

  It was a lot to ask. Elizabeth lived in London, and her husband was a wealthy peer, capable of destroying David’s career if he got on the man’s wrong side. What Chalmers was asking of him could cost him very dear.