Dancing on the Wind (The Regency Intrigue Series Book 8)

by M C Beaton

  “Calm down, Jake,” said Barney wearily. “Look at it this way. Look at all that money Canonby has. He don’t need to sell bodies. And why wouldn’t she let us pull her legs? You know what I think?”

  “No,” said Jake, moodily kicking a pebble.

  “I think Polly’s alive!”

  “What!”

  “Alive. I think she took his fancy that night she was taken from Ma Blanchard’s. He could’ve bribed the hangman to fiddle something. A dead girl ain’t no use to him. But a pretty one, alive and kicking, that’s another matter.”

  “Can’t be!”

  “Can. He ain’t seeing no one. All callers have been turned away.”

  “Well, we can’t stand here all day and night. What d’you suppose we do?”

  “Find out which tavern the servants go to when they gets any time off, that’s what. Follow ’em and try to find out something.”

  “That’ll take money.”

  “Right. So let’s go and steal something, but be careful. One hanging’s enough for one day!”

  Three hours later, Polly awoke from her sleep, screaming with fright. She had been dreaming she was hanging over a pit, about to be dropped down into a crowd at the bottom who were waiting to tear her to pieces. She was running a high fever. The marquess sent for a physician and then sat by the bed, holding her hands and talking quietly, hoping the sound of his voice would penetrate the fevered madness which now seemed to grip her.

  The physician came and bled her and then recommended bleeding again on the morrow, but the marquess, alarmed by Polly’s weak state, sent him packing. By morning, tired and aching with exhaustion, he at last fell asleep in a chair beside the bed.

  Like a great receding wave, the tumult of Polly’s fever left her. She lay against the pillows, weak and dazed. Then she glanced sideways and found the marquess fast asleep. He had torn off his necktie, and the lace collar of his shirt lay open exposing the strong column of his throat. Stubble darkened his chin. His hair was brushed free of powder. It was cut close to his head, shiny and as black as a raven’s wing. His face looked younger in sleep. His coat lay discarded on the floor beside his chair and his long waistcoat was unbuttoned. His powerful legs in their silk knee breeches and clocked stockings were crossed at the ankles.

  As she watched, he came awake and started up. He got to his feet and bent solicitously over her. He put a cool hand on her forehead and smiled his relief. “You are recovered,” he said. “Go back to sleep. You are still weak.”

  Polly smiled up at him mistily. Slowly her lids drooped over her eyes.

  The marquess waited, hearing the regular breathing, listening to make sure there was no change. At last he took himself off to his own bedchamber. “Now,” he said, as he undressed and climbed into his bed, “what on earth am I to do with you, Polly Jones?”

  Banished again from Lady Lydia’s side, Bertram Pargeter contented himself with going to balls and ridottos and in general leading the life of a carefree young rococo man about town. He felt cured of her. He felt as if a great sickness had left him.

  She was much too old, he told himself, as he wondered over the sickness and madness that had possessed him. He, on the other hand, was young, rich and unmarried. Lady Lydia, it was rumored, was thirty-eight. Middle-aged!

  All went perfectly splendidly until a week after the hanging. He went to the playhouse and there in a side box near the stage sat Lady Lydia. She had what appeared to be a new inamorata with her, a man of about thirty whom Bertram did not recognize. She looked radiant, her powdered hair worn in tight curls, a black patch on her face highlighting the whiteness of her skin and the full redness of her mouth. All the torment came rushing back and Bertram actually groaned aloud. He could not bear to sit any longer in the theatre. Oblivious to the stares of surprise as he pushed his way out of the pit, he made his way out of the theatre and to the nearest coffee house where he called for coffee, cancelled the order, and changed it to a request for a bottle of Lisbon. But the wine, instead of dulling his renewed passion, seemed to inflame it.

  Gradually he began to wonder again about that girl called Polly. Her resemblance to Lady Lydia had been striking. Pity she was dead.

  “Is she?” suddenly nagged a little voice in his head. “Is she really?”

  He poured himself another drink and for the first time began to think about the strange behavior of the marquess of Canonby. People had ceased to talk about it. Canonby had laughed and said he had snatched away the dead girl for a bet. He had given her a decent burial, he said, which is more than she would have had, had he left her to the tender mercies of the authorities.

  But such behavior was completely out of character for a man like Canonby, who was as punctilious and fastidious as a cat. What would he want with a dead girl? Could Polly have miraculously escaped death? Then he remembered that sickening jerk of her neck and how her body had swung lifelessly in the sunny air.

  He finished his wine and got up and went out and wandered aimlessly through the streets. Somehow, he found himself in St. James’s Square. He stepped aside to let a chair bearing some Exquisite go past. The gentleman in the chair was guarded on either side by liveried servants carrying blazing flambeaux. And then, in the light of their torches, two faces seemed to leap out of the dark night at Bertram. One man was squat and swarthy and the other had only one eye.

  His heart beat hard. Those two men were the ones who had been in the cart with Polly, so they must be her relatives. He moved back into the shadows and waited. As his eyes became accustomed to the dimness, he could make them out. They were standing, like him, in the shadows, away from the weak light of the parish lamp at the south corner of the square. They were looking at the marquess of Canonby’s house.

  Bertram turned his own gaze on the marquess’s house. As he watched, a figure came up the area steps and headed toward him. He felt, rather than saw, Polly’s two “relatives” stiffen and become alert. The figure came closer, passed under the lamp, and was revealed to be that of a man in butler’s livery. The two men let him go past and then started to follow him. Intrigued, Bertram followed the two men.

  The butler turned into a tavern in one of the lanes leading off St. James’s Street. The two men waited a few moments and went in after him. Bertram gave it only a minute before going in himself.

  The tavern was full of liveried servants—butlers who were often allowed a little time off in the evening, running footmen in their divided skirts who were, according to their masters, supposed to be out on errands, black pages, coachmen and grooms.

  The butler had joined some friends at a table in the corner. Barney and Jake stood baffled for a moment and then crammed into chairs at a table nearby. Bertram called for a bottle of wine and sat at a table near theirs.

  Then the butler’s friends said something and got up to take their leave. Barney and Jake quickly moved over and sat at the table next to the butler.

  Bertram moved to their table so that he could hear what was being said.

  “A fine evening,” Bertram heard the thickset man say. “May we present ourselves. I am Mr. Barney … hem … Smith and this is Mr. Jake Smith.”

  The butler was a large, pompous man. He looked coldly at Jake’s one-eyed face and then at Barney’s unshaven one and buried his nose in his tankard.

  “I’m sure you would like another drink,” Bertram heard the man called Jake say.

  The butler visibly thawed. “Very kind of you, gentlemen,” he said. “I am Mr. Durrell.”

  “And what is your pleasure, Mr. Durrell?”

  “Another tankard of Dog’s Nose.”

  “Dog’s Nose it is,” said Barney jovially. “Me and my friend here will join you. We’re still feeling a bit poorly. Bad shock we had last week.”

  “Indeed?” said Mr. Durrell politely. “I am sorry to hear that.”

  The drinks were brought by a serving girl. Barney and Jake exchanged a glance and then Barney said, “Yes, quite a shock we had. Poor Polly.”

/>   The listening Bertram felt such a rush of excitement that he nearly fell off his chair.

  “Is this Polly a relative of yours?” asked the butler.

  “In a way,” sighed Jake. “Poor, poor Poll.”

  “Sickness?” asked Mr. Durrell.

  “Hanged at Tyburn,” said Barney lugubriously.

  Something flickered across the butler’s eyes and was gone in an instant.

  He rose to his feet. “You must excuse me, gentlemen,” he said hurriedly. “My master does not know I am out. Pray forgive me. Should I have the fortune to meet you on another occasion, I will gladly repay your hospitality.”

  Barney opened his mouth to protest, but the butler had slid off through the tables and company to the door with amazing speed.

  “Clumsy,” said Jake, shaking his head. “Very clumsy, Barney. Shouldn’t ha’ mentioned hanging at all. Now we’ll never know. He could’ve shied off on hearing we was the sort whose relatives get topped. Should’ve asked about his job and who was in the house and so forth.”

  “Well, if you’re so poxy clever, you punk, ask yourself the next time,” raged Barney. “You wasn’t much help with your poor, poor Pollys.”

  “Good evening to you, my friends.” Barney and Jake looked suspiciously up at the newcomer. Here was no servant. Bertram had thrown back his cloak to reveal his coat of gold satin and long embroidered waistcoat. The tavern light glinted on the jewelled hilt of his dress sword. His hair was powdered gold to match his coat, and instead of a patch, he wore a gold spangle next to his thin rouged mouth.

  A tinge of fear came into Barney’s eyes. Young men who frequented servants’ taverns were usually of the sort who belonged to the Mohawks, those gangs of rich idlers who roamed the streets at night, raping young girls, tormenting old women, and torturing such as Barney and Jake if they happened to come across them alone and unprotected.

  “I heard you talk about a girl, Polly, hanged at Tyburn,” said Bertram, fastidiously dusting the chair with a lace handkerchief before sitting down.

  “Wot if we did?” said Jake, turning the scarred side of his face to Bertram.

  “Well, you see, my friends, I have an interest in the late Polly Jones … or shall we say, the present Polly Jones? Do not sit with your mouths hanging open, gentlemen, or your souls may fly out and be lost to you. Now, a bottle of the best sack and then I think we will find we have much in common. …”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  At first Polly was content to live in the dream-world of the marquess of Canonby’s town house. She savored every moment of her new freedom, every delicious meal and every fascinating book and magazine. Despite her fears, the servants had not changed in their attitude toward her.

  New gowns appeared as if by magic, new shoes, new stockings.

  But by the end of a week, a restlessness began to possess her and she regretted her healthy country-bred constitution which had put her back on her feet so very quickly. For as soon as he saw that she was recovered, the marquess had gone about his own affairs and she barely saw him. Her meals were served to her in a little drawing room off her bedroom. The silent servants came and went like clockwork toys, and Polly, much as she longed for some conversation, was frightened that if she became familiar with the servants, they might begin to despise her.

  The evenings were the hardest to bear when the marquess entertained friends. Sometimes she stole to the top of the stairs and looked down at the fine gowns and glittering jewels, heard the laughter and music, and longed to be a part of it. But for Polly it was rather like that little scene with the man and woman she had witnessed in the Strand before the brothel had swallowed her up—pretty and perfect, but belonging to a world from which her low origins barred her for all time.

  Just when she was beginning to think the marquess had forgotten her very existence, he came to her drawing room one evening. He was dressed to go out to the opera, in black velvet and silver lace. Diamond buttons ornamented his long waistcoat and flashed on the buckles of his shoes.

  Polly was wearing a simple sack gown with Watteau pleats at the back. It was made of pale green silk but without elaborate sleeves or quilted petticoat, the petticoat being of plain white silk without trimming. Her unpowdered hair was brushed until it shone and piled in a careless knot on the top of her head.

  How incredibly innocent she looks, he thought. What is to become of her? And yet she is a thief. It is a miracle she has not yet stolen anything from me. Aloud, he said courteously, “I am come to see how you go on.”

  “Very well, my lord,” said Polly. “I am become anxious as to my future, nonetheless. I cannot remain mewed up here.”

  “No more you can,” he said. “Give me a little more time and I shall hit on something.” He hesitated, wondering whether to tell her that her two companions, Barney and Jake, had been seen watching the house and had questioned his butler, and then decided against it. The sooner she forgot about her past life the better.

  “Are those real diamonds?” asked Polly, and then flushed. She felt sure Drusilla would have told her that such a question was vulgar. But he looked amused and said, “Yes, my sweeting. Every one. Now, I bid you good eve. I am expected at the opera.”

  Polly’s face fell. “I had … I hoped you might stay and talk to me a little,” she said. “I see no one.”

  He frowned, and then said, “I shall tell my servants to summon you to breakfast. We shall talk then.”

  Polly’s eyes were like stars at the promised treat, and he felt worried and guilty when he left her. He should never have rescued her … but on the other hand, he could not let her die.

  Polly tossed and turned all night, frightened she would oversleep, frightened he might forget or the servants might forget.

  She fell into a heavy sleep at dawn and jumped out of bed in alarm when a servant awakened her at eleven in the morning.

  “He will already have breakfasted. He must have breakfasted,” wailed Polly.

  “No, miss,” said the chambermaid. “My lord hardly ever sits down to breakfast before eleven when he is in Town.”

  Feeling as if she were setting out on an adventure, as soon as she was dressed Polly followed a footman down the main staircase to the first floor. The footman held open a door and Polly walked in.

  She found herself, not in the great dining room she had expected, but in a little morning room with sun flooding in through the windows.

  The marquess put down his newspaper and smiled at her. He was wrapped in a thick banyan of gold damask. His black hair had grown longer and was confined at the nape of his neck with a black silk ribbon. His undress somehow made him look more formidable than ever.

  “What is your pleasure, Miss Peterson?” he asked.

  Polly seated herself at the small round table and cast a dismal glance at the butler and two footmen in attendance. She had hoped to be alone with him.

  “What are you having, my lord?” she asked.

  “Steak and small beer.”

  “Very well. I shall have the same.”

  When her breakfast arrived, Polly wished she had asked for something simple, like bread and cheese, for his presence was making her nervous.

  There was an ache in the pit of her stomach as she looked at him. She felt the insecurity of her own position. She longed to be on equal terms with him. At last he dismissed the servants, finished his breakfast, and said, “You do not eat.”

  Polly had cut up her steak into little pieces in the hope it might look as if she had at least eaten some of it.

  “I am worried,” she said candidly.

  “Yes, about your future. I must tell you what I have decided …”

  At that moment, there was a commotion outside. The door burst open and a tall man in scarlet regimentals strode into the room and stopped short at the sight of Polly.

  “Colonel Anderson would not listen when I told him you were not to be disturbed,” said the butler from the doorway.

  The marquess flashed a warning look a
t Polly and said smoothly, “Sit down, Guy. Miss Peterson was just leaving.”

  Polly bobbed a curtsy in the direction of the tall colonel and made her escape. The butler closed the door behind her.

  Polly stood in the hall, reluctant to return to her expensive “prison” abovestairs. And then she heard the colonel say, “Who was that dazzler you were entertaining?”

  Polly heard the marquess sigh. Then he said, “You are just returned to London and have no doubt missed reading of my adventure at Tyburn.”

  “On the contrary, I heard all about it on the road to Town.”

  “The girl did not die. That was Miss Polly Jones who just left the room.”