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

by M C Beaton

  He opened the door and led her out, then stood, grim-faced, with his arm about her shoulders. The militia were holding at bay the angry mob who, without the restraining presence of the militia, would have carried Polly off to freedom. There were four Runners, three constables, and a magistrate. The constables held fetters and manacles and chains at the ready.

  In a clear voice, the magistrate began to read out a long list of charges.

  The marquess held her tighter, wondering what to do. He should never have brought her down. He should have tried to escape across the roofs to safety with her and then tried to get her out of the country.

  “The charges have been dropped by the earl of Meresly,” cried a shrill voice from the end of the street. The magistrate stopped his recitation and looked up in surprise. There were shouts of, “Let them through. Polly Jones is pardoned.”

  The crowd parted, the militia opened their ranks and the earl of Meresly, shambling and shocked, and supported on either side by his daughters, walked toward Polly. The marquess thought he looked like King Lear.

  “It is true,” said the earl heavily. “This is not Polly Jones, but my long-lost daughter, Lady Mary.”

  “You may kiss us, sister dear,” said Josephine primly.

  All the tears she had kept back for so long came gushing out of Polly’s eyes as she fell weeping into her sisters’ arms.

  Emily and Josephine exchanged startled glances and then pushed Polly away.

  “Really, Polly,” said Josephine severely. “If we had guessed you would turn out to be so miss-ish, we would not have bothered to help you!”

  EPILOGUE

  No one in the whole of London was more relieved and delighted than Silas Brewer to read of Polly Jones’s pardon. Ever since her escape from Newgate, he and his wife had lived in fear and dread of a knock at the door and a voice accusing Silas of helping the notorious criminal to escape.

  He did not learn of it until a week after Polly’s dramatic descent from the roof. He had been out on the road in his cart.

  His wife had saved a newspaper for him and he read the account of her pardon over and over again. “She’ll have left that Bible I gave her,” he said, putting down the paper. “Reckon I’ll buy her another as a wedding present.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” said Mrs. Brewer sharply. “The weather’s turning and the children need shoes. Besides, she’s Lady Mary Palfrey now, and soon she’ll be the marchioness of Canonby. A great lady like that’ll have forgotten your very existence, Mr. Brewer.”

  Silas sniffed and picked up the newspaper again and barricaded himself and his dreams behind it. He thought wistfully of how grand it would be if Polly had not forgotten him and would invite him to dance at her wedding. There was money enough left over from that purse that gentleman had given his wife to buy the children shoes. Then he shook his head. His wife had the right of it. Polly could now buy scores of Bibles and never know the difference.

  There came a tremendous knocking at the door. Silas jumped to his feet and clasped his wife in his arms and they both stood trembling. Then he put her away from him with a shaky laugh.

  “You forgit, Mrs. Brewer,” he said, “we have nothing to fear now.”

  He opened the door and stared up in amazement at the tall figure looming over him. A gentleman dressed in a green coat heavily encrusted with gold embroidery stood smiling down at him. He took off his gold-laced three-cornered hat and made Silas a courtly bow. “Mr. Brewer?”

  “Oh, yes,” gasped Silas, putting his wrinkled work-worn hands to his mouth and looking for all the world like the monkey that spoke no evil.

  “My name is Canonby. I am come to invite you to my wedding.”

  Silas gaped at him. Then he saw the street was crowded with all his neighbors. He puffed out his thin chest and stood back. “Pray step inside, my lord,” he said.

  The marquess ducked his head and walked into the dark little kitchen, where the children hid behind Mrs. Brewer’s skirts and peeped out at him.

  “This is the marquess of Canonby,” said Silas, his voice trembling. “He’s come to ask us to his wedding.”

  Mrs. Brewer tried to speak but only a strangled sound came out. The marquess was so tall and so magnificent. Their one tallow candle on the kitchen table sent sparks of green fire shining from the emerald he wore among the cascades of fine lace at his throat.

  “Get his lordship some ale,” said Silas sharply. The marquess drew out a chair and sat down. Silas collapsed into a chair opposite him.

  The marquess drew out a heavy purse and placed it between them. “There is gold for you,” he said. “It will go to furnish wedding clothes for you and your good wife. Lady Mary wishes you and your family to move to my estate in Shropshire, where there is a cottage in the grounds for you and your family.”

  Mrs. Brewer shyly put down a mug of ale in front of the marquess. He smiled and toasted her health.

  Silas found his voice. “I don’t know rightly how to thank you.”

  “The thanks are mine,” said the marquess, tossing off the ale. “You have been very kind to Lady Mary. After the wedding, my secretary shall call on you to make arrangements to transfer you to the country.”

  “And Lady Mary is well?” asked Silas.

  “Very well,” said the marquess, getting to his feet.

  “Tell me,” said Silas. “It said nothing in the paper about that wicked woman, Blanchard. What happened to her?”

  The marquess turned to go. “The mob hanged her from a lamp bracket at the end of the street.”

  But as he drove off, the marquess reflected that he did not think Polly was very happy. As befitted her new position, she had taken up residence in her family’s home in Hanover Square. Drusilla had arrived from the country to join her. Every time the marquess called on Polly, she was chaperoned strictly by Drusilla, which was just as it should be, but he longed to get her alone and find out what was causing those shadows under her eyes.

  Certainly, the Meresly town house did not have a particularly joyous atmosphere. The outwardly exonerated but privately damned Lady Lydia remained isolated in her apartment with only her French maid for company. That odd pair, Polly’s little sisters, always seemed to be jumping out of corners. At times, the marquess wondered whether they were quite sane.

  He presented his card at the Meresly mansion and was ushered into the drawing room.

  Polly was looking listless, a piece of embroidery lying idle on her lap.

  “Would you care to come driving with me, Lady Mary?” said the marquess abruptly. “The air would do you good.”

  Drusilla rose to her feet. “I shall fetch our cloaks, Lady Mary,” she said and went out, carefully leaving the door wide open.

  The marquess seized Polly’s hand. “Come!” he said. “Now!”

  “But Drusilla …”

  “Damn Drusilla.”

  He pulled her out of the room and then hustled her into the street.

  “I shall not be driving this time,” he called up to his coachman on the box. He opened the carriage door, helped Polly inside, and then climbed in after her. Then he shouted through the open window, “Drive off quickly, man.”

  “Where to, my lord?”

  “Anywhere.”

  The carriage rolled forward and turned around the square just as a breathless Drusilla appeared on the step, clutching cloaks.

  “Poor Drusilla,” said Polly. “She will be most shocked. Everything I do seems to shock her. She used to be my friend and now she moralizes from morning till night.”

  “That was my fault, my love. I instructed her to try to instill some moral sense into that criminal brain of yours. My apologies, my sweetest gallows bird. Is that what is making you so miserable?”

  “Everything in that terrible house makes me miserable. Meresly—I cannot bring myself to all him papa—wanders about muttering and mewing. The girls torment me daily, telling me that I am so dreary and such bad value they wish they had never rescued me. I can
tell you now it was they who left me a skeleton key and a file in the prison. It has also dawned on them that as the elder daughter I might inherit the bulk of the Meresly estate and Josephine makes jokes about poisoning me and then they both giggle and put their heads together. Lady Lydia refuses to see me. I was better off without them.”

  The marquess raised the trap on the carriage roof. “The Mayfair Chapel,” he called.

  Then he settled back and took Polly’s hand in his. “We shall go to Curzon Street and pay that reprobate, Dr. Alexander Keith, a guinea to marry us.”

  Polly gasped. “But it will not be a real marriage,” she said. “Dr. Alexander makes his living marrying people without banns or license or parental agreement.”

  “We will be married properly at the date on our wedding invitations,” he said. “Married again, that is. But this day I am taking you home with me as my bride. Drusilla can be sent to the country to wait for us. I shall have you all to myself. We shall bar the doors to all comers.”

  Polly sighed with relief and rubbed her cheek against his coat. “I am so tired of them all. Your friend Colonel Anderson called.”

  “I have not yet forgiven him,” said the marquess. “What did he want?”

  “He apologized most prettily. He says he is considering getting married himself.”

  “To whom?”

  “To Miss Ponsonby.”

  “Serves him right,” said the marquess of Canonby.

  Lady Lydia’s French maid whispered in her ear that a gentleman was waiting to see her at the foot of the back stairs.

  “Are you mad?” cried Lady Lydia. “Those days are over.”

  “But it is Mr. Pargeter,” said the maid, comfortably aware of the weight of an enormous bribe nestling in her bosom.

  “Madder and madder. He is no doubt come to slit my throat.”

  “Listen, my lady, he says he has come to take you away. Out of the country.”

  Lady Lydia’s eyes narrowed and then she said, “I have nothing to lose. Show him up.”

  Bertram came in and stood watching her with hungry eyes. He watched her rise and stretch out her hands to him and saw the smile of welcome on her still-beautiful face. He knew his plan was going to work. He would take her to Italy and, once there, he would abandon her. She would be left friendless and alone, as friendless and alone as he had been in Newgate.

  He caught her to him and kissed her passionately, savoring all the while the thought of her humiliation to come.

  Fat and swollen with drink and dysentery, Jake and Barney sat on the veranda of their home. Both heartily wished for the hundredth time they had never volunteered to go to India.

  “Wonder where Polly is now,” said Barney.

  “Probably dead,” said Jake savagely. “I’ve told you not to speak of her.”

  “Well, I will speak of her,” said Barney furiously. “I wish we had let her in that night. We wanted respectability and what have we got? Heat and flies and the flux.”

  “I’ve written to Mr. White asking him to recall us,” said Jake.

  “Why wait?” said Barney. “Let’s take the next boat back. Let’s just go. Say he’s mad and we lose our jobs, we can still see old London again. Maybe look for poor Poll.”

  “Forget her,” said Jake impatiently. “She’s probably dead.”

  Mr. Barks and Mr. Caldicott sat in an inn at Bristol. They were bound for America and were racking up for the night, waiting for a favorable wind. Although the marquess had brought no charges against them for the abduction of Polly or the attack on his lodgekeeper, they felt it was just a matter of time before he did so. They did not know the marquess had judged his beloved had suffered already from too much notoriety to bother bringing them to trial.

  Mr. Barks was wearing a Campaign wig to cover the ruin of his hair. He had shed his corsets and was wearing a large roomy coat and generously cut breeches.

  Mr. Caldicott was also plainly dressed. Both were attired in the guise of tradesmen.

  “You know,” said Mr. Barks, “I could almost find it in myself to be grateful to that Polly female. I am a free man. No Mrs. Barks, and these common clothes are uncommon comfortable.” He raised his glass. “Here’s to a new, free life.”

  “May I join you gentlemen?” Both looked up. A soberly dressed man stood over them. “May I present myself? I am Jonas Hammer, at your service. I am in a generous mood and of a mind to buy a fine bottle of wine.”

  The pair brightened visibly and invited him to sit down. Mr. Hammer snapped his fingers and a bottle was produced.

  “Thank you kindly, Mr. Hammer,” said Mr. Barks. “What is the celebration?”

  “Tell you in a minute. Is that not a fine wine?”

  Mr. Barks and Mr. Caldicott drank deep. The wine was very strong and very sweet.

  “Now,” said Mr. Caldicott. “What is the nature of the celebration?”

  “Another glass and I shall satisfy your curiosity.”

  Mr. Barks and Mr. Caldicott drank again. Mr. Barks reflected hazily that all he had drunk that evening must have suddenly risen to his brain, for Mr. Caldicott’s face was beginning to waver and change as though it were under water.

  Sharper than his friend, Mr. Caldicott seized the edge of the table and tried to haul himself up. “The wine,” he croaked. “Don’t drink any more, Barks.” He collapsed back into his chair and his eyes closed.

  Mr. Barks saw Mr. Hammer reach forward and press something into Mr. Caldicott’s palm. Then he felt something pressed into his own. He looked down blearily—and winking up at him was a bright new shilling.

  “And that,” said Mr. Hammer, “is the reason for the celebration. Captain Hammer at your service, gentlemen.” He blew a whistle and the room was soon full of sailors.

  “These two have taken the King’s shilling,” said Captain Hammer. “Load them on board.” The now-unconscious figures of Mr. Barks and Mr. Caldicott were carried out. Captain Hammer followed with a grin on his face.

  “Welcome to the King’s navy,” he called.

  Mr. Barks and Mr. Caldicott had been press-ganged.

  Polly and the marquess sat facing each other across the dining table. Polly had talked to him as she had always wanted to talk, freely and without social restriction and embarrassment. They laughed over her adventures and over poor Drusilla’s brave attempts to be the very model of a strict chaperone. But Polly had now fallen silent. She stared at the wine in her glass, turning the glass this way and that, refusing to meet the marquess’s eyes.

  “Nervous?” he asked softly.

  “Yes,” whispered Polly.

  He rose and went to stand behind her chair. He bent and kissed her neck.

  He helped her rise and took her hand and led her from the room. But he could not wait to get to his bedchamber before he started kissing her and so he seized her when they were halfway up the staircase and kissed her breathless. He sat down abruptly and pulled her onto his knees and kissed her breasts above the square neck of her gown. “The servants,” whispered Polly against his mouth.

  “Told to say downstairs and make sure they stay there. Kiss me again, my wanton.”

  Polly sighed against his mouth. She untied the ribbon which held his long black hair at the nape of his neck and then ran her hands through his thick curls. Then she kissed his ear. He groaned and pulled her hard against him, overbalanced, and they both rolled down the stairs and fell with a crash in the hall.

  “Oh, my love, are you all right?”

  “Yes,” sighed Polly. “Kiss me again.”

  The marquess’s butler was the toast of the servants’ taverns for weeks to come. Mr. Durrell felt he was not relating scandalous gossip, for my lord and my lady had now been twice married. And everyone wanted to hear of how my lord and my lady took over an hour to get from the hall to the bedchamber and how they had stayed in that bedchamber for two whole days, having their meals served on a tray and left outside the door.

  Besides, Mr. Durrell had suffered a terrible e
arache after having spent an hour with his ear pressed to the keyhole of the back-stairs door which led onto the hall.

  He was a devoted servant but felt his little moment as a celebrity had been well earned.