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

by M C Beaton

  Lady Josephine Palfrey stood at the door of her bedchamber and watched as her father was carried past. He groaned and came awake and vomited on the floor. She wrinkled her nose in disgust and went back into her room and through the connecting door which led to her sister’s room. “Hey ho,” said Josephine, sitting on the end of Emily’s bed, “father is drunk again and mama plans to cuckold him once more.”

  “I would be revenged on her,” said Emily. “We could tell papa.”

  “You know his rages,” said Josephine with a sigh. “If he did not believe us he would half kill us, and mama is so cautious and sly and that slut of a French maid of hers abets her. Did you see the way she whispered with Pargeter? He will be smuggled up the back stairs this night.”

  “Hark! Papa is being most dreadfully ill.”

  Josephine smiled slowly. “Do you know, sis, it just might be possible to rouse papa at the, er, critical moment. Mama deserves a whipping for all her slights and sneers.” Josephine affected her mother’s voice, ‘What did I do to have such plain daughters?’ Faugh! She says papa is the one who did not want girls, and yet he is kind to us. Ring for coffee. We must stay awake.”

  As he had done in the golden days of his affair with Lady Lydia, Bertram waited at the bottom of the back stairs leading up to her bedchamber. A red dawn was lighting the sky outside.

  He had been careful not to drink too much. Nothing must impair his lovemaking.

  Then Lady Lydia’s French maid appeared at the turn of the staircase, beckoning to him.

  Bertram silently followed her and entered Lady Lydia’s bedchamber. She was lying in bed, a sulky look on her beautiful face. But Bertram felt again that tremendous sensation of power. His hold over her was complete. He could take her any time he wanted.

  The maid curtsied and retired. Bertram unbuckled his dress sword and let it fall with a clatter to the floor. “Shhh!” implored Lady Lydia. “Meresly might hear you.”

  Bertram grinned. “I know he sleeps at the other end of the house, my sweeting. I have no fear of being disturbed.”

  Her ear pressed to the panels on the other side of the door, Josephine heard the sword fall to the floor. She turned to her sister, her eyes gleaming red in the light of the fiery dawn. “Time to wake papa,” she whispered.

  Bertram had meant his lovemaking to be slow and sensuous. But the lifeless lack of response in the body beneath him drove him to take her hard and fast. He was mounting to a climax, deaf and blind to everything but the mad hammer of his desire, when the door burst open and at the same time Lady Lydia clawed his face and screamed, “Rape! Rape!”

  The earl of Meresly lumbered forward like an enraged bear and plunged a dagger straight between Bertram’s naked shoulders.

  Holding hands, Emily and Josephine crept to the door of their mother’s bedchamber a moment later. The earl was holding Lady Lydia tenderly in his arms, her body wrapped in a sheet. Bertram was lying on the floorboards where he had been thrown, blood pouring from a wound in his back.

  Lady Lydia lay with her eyes closed.

  The earl saw his daughters. “Go away,” he said. “Some fiend tried to rape your poor mother. Her great beauty inflamed some poor fool’s heart. Off with you.” He glanced at the body on the floor. “The servants can clean this mess and call the authorities later. To your rooms, and be kind and gentle to your mother. She has had a great shock.”

  Still holding his wife in his arms, he carried her off.

  Josephine said a very unladylike word. The sight of Bertram did not make either of them swoon. Like the rest of their age and generation, they were inured to the sight of violence. Hanging bodies, disembowelled bodies, tortured bodies were everyday sights of London.

  And then Bertram let out a faint groan.

  “La!” said Emily, putting her hand to her mouth. “He lives!”

  “Probably not for long,” said Josephine indifferently. “That is a savage wound.”

  “True,” agreed Emily. “But were we to bind it, to save him, mama would have a monstrous enemy. Crying rape was a pretty trick, and he would want revenge, would he not?”

  “You have the right of it. Come help me. It is a wonder none of the servants have come running.”

  Emily sniggered. “They know better than to interfere when they hear squeals from mama’s bedchamber. Let us see if we can keep this one alive!”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The full glory of the story of the arrest of the infamous Polly Jones received extensive coverage in the newspapers.

  Barney and Jake, huddled together in a city coffee house, studied the reports. “Damn her,” growled Jake at last. “She could ruin us.”

  “Ain’t we going to try to see her then?” asked Barney.

  “What! And have that Canonby recognize us, or that fop Pargeter? Her cell will be crowded with visitors. One of them has only to see us and cry, ‘There’s her confederates,’ and we’ll be dangling at the end of a rope along o’ her. Why couldn’t she let things be?”

  “Seems hard … I mean, deserting her,” said Barney.

  “We can’t do nothing for her,” said Jake uneasily. “Look, she’ll die this time. No one will be allowed near her. We stand to lose everything. Why couldn’t Polly forget that Meresly family? See here. There is a warrant out for the arrest of that Pargeter fellow. Tried to rape the countess. What a coil! No, my friend. Forget you ever met Polly Jones!”

  Josephine and Emily moved like small expensively dressed ghosts through the silent rooms of their family town house in Hanover Square. Their mother was in the grip of a raging fever and a physician and his assistant were busy applying a drastic remedy called Hippocrates His Heroic Treatment, which consisted of bleeding the patient upright till she fainted, then laying her down until she recovered, then setting her upright and bleeding her until she fainted again, “the which desperate course though rigorous is necessitated by the quantity of effete matter rioting in the Sanguinous System and oppressing the Vital Members.”

  And when they were not thus occupied, they were busy with the earl, who had suffered a minor apoplexy following the night of the ball. His treatment consisted of cupping. This was applying powerful suction by creating a vacuum inside a bowl, or cup, with a lighted taper, before clapping it to the body.

  Straw had been laid down outside the house so that the noise of passing carriages should be muffled. The curtains and blinds were drawn.

  Josephine twitched aside a curtain and looked out into the square. “Do you think,” she said over her shoulder to Emily, “that our patient is still alive?”

  “He was very weak and feverish when we bundled him off,” said Emily. “Faith, but I am plagued with ennui.”

  “Why do we not visit that girl who masqueraded as a footman?” asked Josephine. “She must be very brave. I admire bravery.”

  “It will take a great deal of money.”

  Josephine shrugged and then gave a bitter laugh. “That we have in plenty. Oh … no love, but plenty of money.”

  The marquess of Canonby was waiting impatiently for the arrival of his friend, Colonel Anderson. He had sent a note to him that morning. His footman had returned to say that the colonel was “warring” with his tailors and would be along presently. The colonel, a great dandy who ordered thirty coats at a time from Croziers of Panton Street, would kick his unfortunate tailor round the room if just one of the coats did not fit exactly.

  The marquess had initially tried to dismiss Polly from his mind. She was a thief and had admitted as much. She had stolen from Meresly Manor and she had stolen from him. And yet he could not bring himself to believe she had stolen from Lady Lydia. The shock and surprise in her eyes when that etui had been found at her feet had been very real. Lady Lydia had long been finished with Pargeter. Everyone—with the exception of the earl—knew that. And yet, for some mad reason, he had been found in her bedchamber, raping her. That the marquess did not believe. Pargeter must have been there at Lady Lydia’s invitation. Lady Lydia would
certainly cry rape when her husband burst into the room, for had she admitted the truth she would have been cast off and all the jewels and pretty gowns which were life itself to her would have been taken away. For Pargeter to be there in the first place might argue he had some hold over her, and that hold might be that he knew Polly did not steal the purse.

  The marquess tried to forget Polly Jones, but the more he tried, the more vividly her face rose before his eyes.

  He looked up eagerly as Colonel Anderson was announced. The colonel was looking very fine in a coat so long, its hem reached to the knee strings of his gold-and-white-striped breeches. His white wig was embellished at the back with a long horsehair pigtail which reached to his waist.

  “Bad cess to all tailors,” grumbled the colonel, throwing himself into a chair and stretching out his long legs. “What’s amiss?”

  “Polly Jones.”

  The colonel’s handsome face hardened. “A pretty little gallows bird,” he said as casually as he could. “Desirous of a ticket from Mother Proctor for the hanging?”

  “No, I thank you,” said the marquess with a shudder. “The fact is, I cannot believe her guilty, and if there is any way I can prevent this hanging, then I will do so.”

  “My poor friend,” said the colonel, shaking his head, “I have seen such things before. A man of your years, elegant and clever, avoiding the wiles of the ladies for a considerable time, only to fall slap, bang, crash for some useless piece of muslin.”

  “My instincts cannot be wrong,” said the marquess in a low voice. “I have no interest in her as a woman. But I sense a decency and honor in her. I would not see her hang.”

  “Then what would you wish me to do?”

  “I want you to go to see her in Newgate,” said the marquess urgently. “I want your assessment of her character. I want you to ask her direct whether she be guilty or not. I am prepared to admit that when it comes to Polly Jones, my judgment may be clouded. And yet … Still, say you will do this for me.”

  The colonel studied the points of his shoes. He had met Miss Ponsonby and considered her a very suitable wife for his friend. Sluts such as Polly Jones were a threat to the ordered existence of the aristocracy and were even known to wangle their way into marriage and pollute the blue blood of England with their common stock. But if he refused, then Canonby would go himself, and the jade would probably lead him into defying the law.

  “I shall go,” said the colonel, “this very day, and return with my report.”

  Polly was not put in the condemned hold this time but in the “castle,” a cell high upon the third floor above the prison gate believed to be the strongest and most impregnable part of the whole prison. Still in her servant’s livery, she was chained down to the floor and fettered.

  She felt stunned and numb. She did not even think that Lady Lydia might have cut off her own etui and thrown it where it would be discovered at her, Polly’s, feet. She thought it had happened by accident, by evil chance. The noble visitors who crowded her cell were disappointed in her and considered her very bad value for the money, since she neither spoke nor moved.

  The turnkey announced her visitors by name with all the aplomb of a butler in a noble household. Almost deaf with misery, Polly, on the third day of her imprisonment, nonetheless heard him announce Lady Emily and Lady Josephine Palfrey. The two sisters came in holding hands and staring at Polly with the same lack of pity with which they would survey a strange animal in the Tower menagerie.

  They circled around her while two jailors watched to make sure nothing was slipped to the prisoner.

  At last Josephine said, “We have paid a great deal of money to see you, Miss Jones. You might at least say something.”

  A little spark of anger in Polly’s stomach grew to a flame. “I am sorry you are disappointed,” she said haughtily, “but I am too busy to receive guests. As you can see, I am tied up at the moment.”

  “You are a lady!” exclaimed Emily, taken aback at the quality of Polly’s speech.

  Polly shrugged and her fetters jangled and clashed.

  “If you are a lady,” said Josephine, “why must you steal from mama?”

  “I did not steal,” said Polly hotly. “I stole nothing.”

  “But you must have come to steal.” Emily sat down on one of the chairs provided for visitors and drew it close to Polly. “Why else were you in disguise?”

  Polly looked at them steadily without replying. “Dear me,” said Josephine faintly. “Have you noticed, Emily, that Miss Jones looks exactly like mama?”

  “Yes,” said Emily. “Are you by way of being a Berkeley bastard?”

  “Berkeley?” demanded Polly.

  “Mama’s family name. Her brothers were very wild, you know.”

  Polly decided to tell these odd little girls with the old, old eyes the truth. In a halting voice, she told them of her odd upbringing and the death of her “aunt,” and of how she hoped to find some clue as to what had happened to Meg on the last day of her life.

  “I warm to you by the minute,” said Josephine. “I have never been quite so interested in anyone before. We shall try to find out for you.”

  “I thank you, ladies,” said Polly, “but I do not plan to live very long.”

  “Yes, of course, you are to be hanged,” said Emily. “How vastly irritating.”

  “I find the thought a little annoying myself,” said Polly.

  “Be of good cheer,” said Josephine, laying a purse at Polly’s feet. “Here is money for you.”

  “You are very kind. But I do not need money. His Majesty’s government is paying for my board.”

  Josephine knelt down by Polly. “Ladies!” admonished one of the jailors. “You must not pass anything to the prisoner.”

  “You saw us give her a purse and yet you said nothing,” snapped Josephine. “Here, fellow, you take it and stand over there. I would say something private to the prisoner.”

  She put her lips close to Polly’s ear. “If we give you a lot of money,” she whispered, “could you not bribe these fellows to let you escape?”

  “They dare not,” said Polly in a low voice. “There is no hope.”

  “Never mind,” said Josephine, jumping to her feet and smoothing down her brocaded skirts. “We shall come back tomorrow. Won’t we, Emily?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Emily. “We find you vastly interesting, Miss Jones.”

  Despite her distress, Polly could not help feeling a certain amusement as she watched the small, stately figures making their exit, their many jewels flashing and blazing in the gloom of the prison.

  Perhaps if she rallied, perhaps if she ate well and lived from minute to minute, the dread of the hanging might retreat to the shadows. The nobility who visited her cell after the Meresly twins were delighted with her and showered her with presents of money, presents which Polly instructed her jailors should be used to buy food and drink for the other prisoners.

  But Polly’s spirits took a plunge as Silas Brewer was ushered in, honest Silas who sat down and wept when he saw her chained to the floor.

  “Oh, Polly,” he sobbed. “We mourned for you when we thought you was dead and prayed for your soul, and now here you are, and in worse trouble than ever.”

  Polly blinked back hot tears from her own eyes. If only she had let well alone. If only she had never stolen anything at all. If only she had met Silas before she had stolen those things from Meresly Manor. “Don’t cry, Silas,” she said gently. “If it is of comfort to you, then I am innocent of the crime of which I stand condemned. Oh, Silas, I have given away all the money I have received or I would give you some. How did you manage to find the great sum you must have paid to see me?”

  Silas blew his nose and dried his eyes. “It were them pearls, Polly, the ones you was wearing when you come to us in Shoreditch. We never sold them. We never had the heart to. The minute I heard of your arrest, then I sold them.”

  “You would have been better to have used the money on your wife
and family,” said Polly.

  “Mrs. Brewer said the money must be used to give you comforts,” said Silas. “I earn enough.”

  “There’s an important visitor waiting,” interrupted a jailor, looking at the shabby figure of Silas with disfavor. “Hurry up.”

  “I brought you another Bible,” said Silas. “To comfort you.”

  “Thank you,” whispered Polly, her voice breaking.

  “If you pray for help, He will hear you and comfort you,” said Silas.

  He leaned forward and kissed her cheek and then burst out weeping, and he was still weeping when the jailors thrust him out of the cell.