'No!' The shout was a wail, a moan, a scream that rose as the two big men came to hold Sir Julius's legs and the girl walked slowly forward.
On the dark balcony Valentine Larke smiled. 'Harry was quite right. She'll break the bastard.' He turned to Chemosh. 'I think we need somewhere quieter.'
The noise faded as Larke led Chemosh to Harry Tipp's private quarters. One scream seemed to linger in the deserted buildings, but then was cut off as Larke closed the sitting room door. The noise was replaced by the sound of a spinet, an odd sound for such a masculine establishment. Larke gestured Chemosh towards a chair. You're getting fat.'
'So?' Chemosh smiled. 'Aren't husbands supposed to get fat and comfortable?'
'I have never,' Larke said, 'been married.' He grunted as he pulled the cork of a bottle of Sillerys. 'Harry Tipp is not pleased with you. He's distressed about Scurdon.'
'I'm sorry.' Chemosh did not sound sorry. He sounded surprised that the matter of Jemmy Scurdon had even been raised.
'Tipp's a very loyal man. He looks after his people. He wanted my assurance that Scurdon had to die.'
'Of course he had to!' Chemosh said.
Jemmy Scurdon, poxed, drunken and long past his fighting prime, had been hired to attack Lady Campion on the Millett's End road. Chemosh had travelled to Lazen to scout the attack, but his first glimpse of the girl, six days before Scurdon arrived, had put the idea of marriage into his head. What better way to effect an introduction than to save her from rape? It was so simple that any fool could have thought of it. And what better way to ensure that she did not marry the wrong man than for one of the Fallen Ones to be her husband? Thus, at the last moment, he had changed his plans and, instead of depending on Scurdon's ravages, he had decided to sacrifice the London man.
Larke raised his glass. 'My congratulations on your betrothal, my Lord.'
'You're very kind, Larke.'
'You've done well.' Larke was grudging.
Lord Culloden laughed. 'I've been the bashful suitor, Larke. I've had to put up with the God-damned country! Have you ever spent Christmas in the country?'
'No.'
'It's positively barbaric! Hunting's decent, but as for the rest!' Lord Culloden shook his head. 'Do you know I even go to church for her!'
Larke did not smile. 'I hear she's uncommonly beautiful.'
Culloden sat, reached down to his coat on the floor, pulled it till he could get his hand into one of the capacious pockets, and brought out a paper-wrapped package. 'See for yourself.'
It was the gilt-framed portrait that showed Campion in her cream silk dress with the flowers at her breast. Larke sat opposite Lord Culloden and stared at the small painting. 'A good likeness?'
'Excellent. If anything she's prettier.'
'A figure to match?'
Culloden laughed. 'Scurdon showed me enough of it.' He sipped his champagne, remembering how he had stared from the bushes as Campion's clothes had been torn from her. He could see the thighs now and remember his excitement that had been so intense that he had almost been too late in fetching his horse that had been hidden in a hollow. 'She's quite beautiful, Larke, quite utterly beautiful. Better than anything you keep at Abigail's.'
Larke still stared at the portrait. 'She's half a d'Auxigny, of course. Marchenoir said her mother was beautiful.' Larke smiled and hefted the portrait. 'Perhaps we should send this to Citizen Marchenoir, eh? Whet his juices a little.'
Culloden said nothing. In the next room Mrs Tipp played her spinet, the notes tinkling and bright.
Larke's voice was low. 'Are you in love with her?'
Culloden laughed. 'In love? I fancy her, any man would, but by God you couldn't live with her! She's so…' he paused and waved his hand, 'dutiful? I had almost forgotten what goodness was like, Larke, how utterly boring it can be. And I do not really think I can live with that unending passion for horses and books. Yet she does have such obvious compensations, don't you think?'
Larke stared at the portrait. 'She does. Indeed she does. You could fetch a hundred guineas a night from her.' He laughed. 'I think I shall send it to Citizen Marchenoir. He likes pretty aristocrats.'
'Likes them?'
'Likes killing them.' Larke smiled and gestured with the portrait. 'You don't mind?'
'My dear fellow!' Lord Culloden said expansively.
Larke put the portrait carefully on the table, stood, and his rippled, oiled hair shone in the candlelight as he crossed the sitting room that was lavishly decorated with red velvet and with framed prints of Harry Tipp's famous fights. There was a large portrait of Mrs Tipp smiling in young, coy prettiness towards the artist. She was indeed young, she was pretty, but hardly coy. She ruled the huge fighter with the same ease with which she ruled the finances of his business.
Larke drew back a curtain and stared down into the street. 'Lucifer is worried.' Culloden said nothing. He was expecting this conversation. Larke let the curtain drop. 'He is worried because the will was changed.'
'Hardly to our disadvantage,' Culloden said mildly.
'Not to yours, my Lord.'
For a few seconds neither man spoke. The spinet stopped next door, paused, then Mrs Tipp made another attempt at a difficult trill of ascending chords. The ormolu clock on Harry Tipp's mantel whirred, then struck midnight.
Larke returned to his chair. 'How is the Earl?'
Lord Culloden shrugged. 'Half dead.'
'Good.'
'I just have to marry the girl before he goes, I can't wait through a period of bloody mourning.'
'No, you can't.' Larke's voice was soft, his face unreadable. 'And then, Lewis?'
Lord Culloden smiled. 'When her brother dies, she inherits.'
'Which will leave you as heir to Lazen. And when she dies, Lewis, it will leave you as owner of Lazen, and you do know that she has to die, don't you?'
Lord Culloden said nothing. He twisted the champagne glass in his fingers, wondering where the bubbles came from that appeared magically and streamed endlessly from the bottom of the glass. He watched for a dozen heartbeats, then turned his oddly hooded eyes to Larke. 'Sir Julius gets five thousand a year. His heir will inherit Lazen, not me.'
'And if he has no heir?'
'Then I inherit,' Culloden admitted. He put his glass down and smiled. 'Does that worry you, Larke?'
'Oh no!' Larke's voice was sarcastic. 'We've only worked for two years to give you the biggest damned fortune in England. I've only spent forty thousand to get nothing! Of course it doesn't worry me, Lewis, whatever made you think it worried me?' He stared malevolently at Chemosh. 'Does it worry you?'
Culloden said nothing.
Larke looked at the portrait. 'It must be a pleasant prospect, Lewis. Bed her, take her money, and let Lazen protect you? Had you been thinking that? Had you been thinking that as lord of Lazen you would be beyond the reach of the Fallen Ones?'
Culloden, who had considered just that, smiled. 'Of course not.'
Larke closed his eyes and leaned his head back. 'It must be most tempting, Lewis, most tempting, but don't think of it, don't even think of thinking it.' He opened his eyes and stared at the moustached man. 'You do not know Lucifer, but I will tell you one thing, Lewis, and that is that he is clever.' He let the word hang like a threat. 'Clever! He knows your temptation. Do you think he has not planned against it?' He reached into his pocket and brought out a sheaf of papers. 'It was your idea, Lewis, to marry the girl rather than make her unmarriageable, but did you think Lucifer would not take some precautions against the danger of your changing loyalty?' He threw the papers on the table next to Lord Culloden. 'You will sign these, my Lord. You will sign and you will seal them. If you do not…' He did not finish his statement.
He did not have to. Culloden had seen what Abel Girdlestone and Harry Tipp had done to Sir Julius. He had been summoned from Lazen and he had thought hard about refusing the summons, but Lord Culloden, better than most men, knew Valentine Larke's hidden reach. If he had refused, then he would ha
ve had to guard his back every moment until his marriage, and the likelihood would be that no marriage would take place because the groom would be dead. Lord Culloden, who had enjoyed tantalizing Larke these few minutes, knew that enough was enough. He reached for the papers.
The first was a confession that he had hired James Scurdon to attack the Lady Campion Lazender and that he had then murdered Scurdon as a means of ingratiating himself with the Lady Campion.
The second paper only became effective at his marriage. It agreed that whatever property he thereby acquired, and whatever property he inherited at the death of his wife, was transferred to… there was only a blank space. In consideration of this forfeiture the agreement promised Lord Culloden an income of twenty thousand guineas a year for life.
Culloden tapped the blank space. 'Lucifer?'
'Of course. I've signed a similar paper, Lewis.'
Lord Culloden smiled. He was signing away a fortune, yet he knew it was a fortune he could never have held. The Fallen Angels would see to that. In its place he was receiving a prince's income. It was, he knew, a fair agreement. It was what he had hoped for when he came to London in answer to Larke's summons. He scrawled his name on the papers, dripped wax, and stamped his signet ring down to make two bright seals. He lifted the paper that was a confession of murder. 'What will you do with this?'
'Trust me, Lewis. It will be safe. When we have won it will be returned to you. Until then?' Larke smiled and reached for both sheets of paper. He put them into a pocket, then poured more champagne in a gesture of conciliation. 'You say the Earl will die soon?'
Culloden laughed. 'It's astonishing he's alive. The Castle believes he clings on to see his dear daughter married. After that?' He clicked his fingers. 'Goodbye.'
'And Lord Werlatton, you'll be delighted to know, is trapped. He will not be at your wedding.' Larke did not expand that good news. 'So we can be sure that father and son will be dead within a few weeks. One by sickness, one by war.' He smiled at the thought. 'Deaths, Lewis, which no one can lay at our door. And after that, we must find a similarly elegant solution for your wife.'
Culloden stretched out his shining boots. 'A riding accident. She's utterly besotted with horses. Told me the other day she wants to breed the fastest damned horse in Britain. Why can't she take a fall? Break her pretty neck? It's simple enough, Larke, no one will be astonished. But do give me time to roger her first. It's not often I get a hundred guinea whore for free.' He laughed.
Larke gave a dutiful smile. 'I see one difficulty.'
'What, for God's sake? She takes a fall! What could be simpler?'
Larke sipped his champagne. 'Her father dies, her brother dies, then she dies. I think some people would smell something foul, don't you?'
'Then wait!' Culloden brushed the difficulty away. 'Give her a year or two.'
'I doubt that Lucifer will want to wait that long.' Larke spoke mildly, but there was a subtle threat in his voice. 'Think about it, Lewis. Maybe you're right, maybe she can tumble off her horse, but there must be no foul stench.' He said the last three words slowly. 'I don't want lawyers buzzing round that honeypot.'
There was silence. Lord Culloden was not sure how to prevent such a scandal, but it was a problem that could be delayed. First he would marry her, then deflower her, and only after that would he consider the manner of her death. He sipped his champagne. 'And what happens to Sir Julius?'
Larke smiled. He put his champagne glass beside the portrait. 'Shall we see?'
Lord Culloden followed Larke through the long fencing hall, past the racks of foils and epees, the sound of Mrs Tipp's spinet fading behind them. They went over the upper landing, past the billiard hall, and onto the gallery of the fight room.
The girl had gone.
Sir Julius no longer hung from the iron rings. He was sitting at the lawyer's table, a blanket about his naked shoulders. His right hand, undamaged in the evening, held a quill. Lord Culloden could see spots of blood that marked a trail from the rings to the table.
Larke leaned over the balustrade. 'Mr d'Arblay?'
One of the lawyers held up a hand. Sir Julius scratched with the quill, then leaned back. His mouth was a pit of blood.
Mr d'Arblay took the papers, then turned with a smile to the balcony. 'They're signed, Mr Larke.'
'I am most obliged to you, d'Arblay.'
'The obligations are entirely mine, sir.'
Culloden knew what Sir Julius had signed. He had signed what most of Larke's victims signed, a paper that gave away their future inheritances. Sir Julius had been led into debt, and then the trap had been sprung. Now Larke would reap the harvest.
Larke smiled. 'Mr Girdlestone?'
The huge prizefighter turned his face to the gallery. 'Sir?'
'Sir Julius is now in your charge. Treat him kindly! He may have liquor, comfort, and a whore! Remember he is to be Earl of Lazen, so treat him with respect!'
'Sir!' Abel Girdlestone seemed to come to attention.
'And be ready to move him to Lazen on my orders, Mr Girdlestone.'
'Sir!'
'Mr Tipp?'
The Negro looked up, but said nothing.
Larke smiled. 'I shall need eight or nine other men. You can provide them?'
'Of course?'
'And yourself?'
Harry Tipp frowned. 'No, Mr Larke, you know that, Mr Larke. My Betty!'
'Of course.' Larke laughed. He straightened and turned to Culloden. 'You see the dangers of marriage, my dear Lewis? Look at him! Even the Prince of Wales fears him, yet that slip of a girl has him under her tiny thumb. She won't let him leave London for fear of highwaymen!' Larke laughed at the Negro, then clapped Lord Culloden on the shoulder. 'Be grateful to me, Lewis, that you will not be burdened long with a wife.'
Culloden smiled. He knew that Larke's unnatural jollity came from the knowledge of victory. This night's events, the papers that had been signed, had brought the triumph of the Fallen Ones very close. The Earl was dying, Lord Werlatton was trapped, Sir Julius baked in the lawyer's pie, and Lady Campion was marrying Chemosh. Lazen was doomed. The day of Lucifer was close.
Chapter 11
'It's horrid!' Lady Campion grimaced at the portrait.
'It's mother!' Uncle Achilles protested. 'She has discovered, she tells me, that desiccated plums assist her digestive system. She says she will live to be a hundred and ten.'
Campion laughed. The yellow drawing room of Lazen was slowly filling with wedding gifts. The Duchess d'Auxigny's had just arrived, a portrait of herself. She simpered out of the painting, all her lines removed by the artist, and her hair piled impossibly with a profusion of stones, feathers, and pearl ropes. Campion shook her head. 'I can't think that Lewis will want it.'
'Lewis is an Englishman. He'll probably think it's wonderful art.' Her uncle flicked a speck of dust from his velvet sleeve. 'Mother would like to come with her plums for your wedding. Do you think you can bear it?'
'I can bear it.'
'Poor mother.' Achilles said it lightly. 'She's pretending to be in mourning for Philippe. She isn't, of course, but you'll have to endure the sobs and gulps. She plays the bereaved mother rather as I imagine a hippopotamus would. Do hippopotami exist? I can't think so, they seem such an unlikely aberration by the Almighty, but then, I suppose one could say that of mother.'
Achilles d'Auxigny, once Bishop of Bellechasse, was now the Duc d'Auxigny, Marquis of a score of obscure villages and Count of two score more. He thought it laughable. His elder brother, by insisting that the revolution would blow itself out like a freak storm, had found himself and his sons in a Paris tumbril that carried them to Dr Guillotin's machine. Achilles thought his elder brother a fool to have stayed, and now that the slew of titles had descended upon his middle-aged, elegant shoulders, he shrugged them off. 'If people think I'm a Duke, dear niece, they'll only wish to borrow money. I'm as poor as a church mouse.'
'Then you shouldn't have bought this. It's lovely.' Her uncle had brought his
own present to Lazen, a one hundred and thirty-eight piece set of Meissen porcelain, the glaze as hard and delicate as anything from China. She kissed his cheek. 'It's much too generous.'
'Nonsense. As I expect to retire to your house some day I thought the least I could do was make sure you serve my meals on decent plate.'
She laughed. 'Not French porcelain?'
'Meissen is better.' Her uncle sighed. 'However I will expect a Sevres chamberpot in my bedroom.'
'It will be yours.'
At one end of the great table was a basket filled with scarlet and white sword knots of twisted silk. In the French fashion they would be presented to all the men who attended the wedding. Beside them, in a second basket, were fans of ivory and Nottingham lace for the women. The rest of the table was heaped with porcelain, silver, gold, paintings and jewels. Cartmel Scrimgeour had sent from Lincoln's Inn a golden basket heaped with gold and silver fruits. Campion showed it with delight to her uncle. 'Isn't it generous?'
'Considering the fees he takes from Lazen it's a mere bauble!'
'Uncle!'
He laughed. 'Of course it's generous. Scrimgeour is one of those rare things, an honest and generous lawyer. What on earth is that?'
'That' was a japanned work-basket sent by Aunt Lucretia on behalf of herself and her son Sir Julius. Achilles lifted the lid and frowned at the array of coloured threads. 'She thinks you're a seamstress?'
'At least she remembered.'
'My dear girl, she never forgets! Once you and Toby are safely out of the way she'll be the mistress of Lazen, and God help it then. She'll put green curtains everywhere and paintings of small, plump children. Quite ghastly. Toby and yourself have a duty to survive in the interests of art. I do like this.' He lifted a crystal decanter, mounted in silver, from among the matching goblets.
'That's from Sir George Perrott. He apologized for the paucity of the gift.'
'I like Sir George,' Achilles said. 'He's not complicated.' He ran a finger down a marble statue of Ceres, crowned with harvest wreaths. 'Who gave you this?'
A Crowning Mercy 02 Fallen Angels Page 18
